The QUSDAS REUNION in August 2008 was a reunion of University students from the Queensland University. QUSDAS stands for Queensland University Seventh Day Adventists Society. We were Seventh Day Adventist Christians who met regularly as university students. There was a real strong sense of community and cohesion.
There were also SDA Societies in universities in every capital city in Australia. There was a national SDA Committee who would put out a yearly newsletter and organised a yearly convention in a capital city at a suitable location for a week. We would get to know and maintain friendships with other university students from other universities.
The National Association hosted a national convention in 1969 at the Maranatha camp site up at Yandina, near Gympie, Queensland. Maranatha was started in 1944 for Youth Camps run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Maranatha had become a very important location for all the great times we had there and the emotional memories.
In recent years, Maranatha has been sold by the church to a commercial group: Maranatha Recreation Camp which offers Outdoor Education programs. Having the The QUSDAS REUNION in August 2008 was a very important event. Past students were contacted for many years back. People came from distant locations from around the world like David Mee – Lee and his wife Marcia from America. Other past students came from distant parts of Australia:
- Austin & Jennie from Rockhampton
- Rod & Julie from Innisfail
- Nonie & Peter from Newcastle area
- Brian & Beverley from the Newcastle area
- Beryl Turner from the Cairns region
It was a wonderful three days of exploring what people had done with their lives over the years from when we knew them.
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The Group Having Fun ……
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Individuals or Small Groups
From Wes Allen:
| I married the lovely Lois Taylor in December 1967, and we took our newborn son to Invercargill a year later for my 5th year work experience at Kew hospital. After my internship at Maryborough, and locum work in my home town of Gympie, I established a busy general practice near our home and hobby farm at Many West. |
| After further studies in exercise physiology at UQ in 1974, and six weeks in the USA in 1976, attending Loma Linda and Berkley and visiting the doyen of stress testing, Robert Bruce, I developed a comprehensive health assessment and prevention program (Total Health). For the next five years I conducted programs for the general public, for clergy, teachers, executives, government departments and the Family Medicine Program around Australia. |
| Then, after Lindy Chamberlain’s conviction in 1982, I spent the best part of four years campaigning for justice, organising public forums, rallies and fund-raising dinners, printing fact-and-fallacy pamphlets, coordinating Queensland supporters, doing media interviews and lobbying politicians. I was a member of the Chamberlain Innocence Committee (including former justices Sir Reginald Scholl and Frank Gallagher, and artists, Pro Hart and Guy Boyd) that presented new forensic evidence which helped to reopen the case. |
| Other miscarriages of justice were then brought to my attention. In the early 1990’s, I found myself doing some novel blood spatter work that reopened the case of Alexander McLeod-Lindsay, wrongfully convicted in 1966 on evidence from the same NSW forensic lab that had bungled the Chamberlain case. Like Lindy, he was later exonerated by Justice Trevor Morling. |
| After dabbling in alternative medicine for many years, I became a convert to evidence based medicine, and an educator and examiner for the college. In 1997, I helped to establish a large multi-disciplinary clinic at Many West and, in 1998, obtained a post-grad diploma in physical medicine from the University of Sydney. |
| After many years questioning my faith, I spent the last few years of the 20th century re-evaluating the bible, its contradictions and anachronisms, and how it came to be written and compiled. I read many books on the subject, and on archeology, mythology, ancient and church history, evolution and astronomy. This exercise expunged the last traces of my fundamentalism. In recent years, my research and skepticism has turned to the new green religion with its apocalyptic climate change alarmism. |
| In 2001, Lois and I joined the sea change and moved to a quieter pace of life on the Tweed Coast to be closer to several of our four children, and five of our seven grandchildren. Every couple of years, we spend time in Poland with our second son, his Polish wife and two children. Steve, seven times world champion windsurfer and far better know in Poland than Australia, still competes on the lucrative European circuit and ‘Dances with the Stars’ in Poland. When not renovating his house, in which we live, I work part-time for a small Coolangatta practice and as a director for the Tweed Division of General Practice. |
| Life, learning and growing in understanding, often through conflict, is always a challenge and mostly a lot of fun. |
From Ken Aitken:
I had been brought up in a very good Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Christian home at Wilsons Creek, Mullumbimby in northern NSW from 1949 to 1967. Where we grew up had a major impact on me personally for 18 years .…… rainforest creek, mountains and valleys, rainforest etc. See this post: banana-growing-in-the-1960s.
With this background, I had gone to the SDA Avondale College at Cooranbong to do science in 1968/69. I was a very countrified young man. I then came up to Brisbane to do a Science degree at the University of Queensland (UQ) 1970 – 1974. Because I was brought as an Adventist, I was part a tightly knit community of people …. a bit like extended family with each one helping each other. There was an Adventist University Society I immediately related to.
From Max Brinsmead:
I was a QUSDAS member from 1965 to 1970 whilst I was studying Medicine at the University of Queensland. I lived in The Shack on Moggill Rd, The Gap, the country estate of the late Cyril Evans and family with Clyde Rock, Wes Allen , Austin Grillmeier and a number of other QUSDAS fellows.
From Sue Bayley:
| I attended the Gap High School with Nonie and Geoff Catton and his older brother Rodney. I then went to Kelvin Grove Teachers College after school and the University of Qld. at night. |
| I taught primary school at the Gap and at Capalaba. I then completed a Diploma of Psychology and became a guidance officer in primary schools. |
| I have worked in general practice since this time. I treat a lot of people for anxiety and depression. |
| I also treasure our beautiful planet and work in wildlife rehabilitation. |
| My main focus these days is working towards solutions for adaptation to the crisis of global warming which is going to be dramatically changing the way we live our lives in the years ahead. |
| I married at 24 years old and moved away from the Church. I became unmarried at 26. I moved to Sydney to a great job at Sydney’s blue Light Clinic for venereal disease. |
| My mother died, aged 100 in 2006 and I now live in the family home with my husband Doug. We married in 2007. |
| I then moved to Forum Magazine as the consultant editor and educator on issues relating to sex. I noted a new medical school getting established in Newcastle, |
| applied and was accepted in 1980. I was 30 by then, and was back to being a student again. |
It was about a 15 minute walk up to the nearby Wappa Falls …..
The group around the bonfire when we were there ….
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The Maranatha Buildings …..
As was said above, Maranatha was started in 1944 for Youth Camps run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Maranatha had become a very important location for all the great times we had there and the emotional memories. The site was was very special for youth groups and camps. Maranatha had become a very important location for all the great times we had there and the emotional memories.
In recent years, Maranatha has been sold by the church to a commercial group: Maranatha Recreation Camp which offers Outdoor Education programs. Having the QUSDAS REUNION in August 2008 was a very important event.
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