The Ulysses Club is a social club that caters for the needs of the 'more mature' motorcycle rider.

The club was established in December 1983 and is the largest social riders club in the southern hemisphere.

 

CLUB HISTORY

 

The original suggestion for a club for over 50’s was put forward in a letter by Stephen Dearnley published in the August 1983 issue of Bike Australia.

 

This drew two significant responses: one from Rob Hill, a reader at Albion Park NSW,

who suggested the present name and motto for the club:

The other from Peter Thoeming, then the editor of Bike Australia, who sketched the logo and offered support from his magazine if Stephen could get the club off the ground.

This was done at an inaugural meeting in Sydney on 6th December, 1983

when the five people present approved a basic constitution and the Ulysses Club was duly formed.

 

BRANCH HISTORY

 

On Wednesday 25th August, 2004 in the shadow of Arnie's chair at Mannum on a Ulysses "sacred site", a small group of Northern riders held informal discussions and a start was made.

On Thursday 2nd September, at the Adelaide Branch meeting, Neville Gray and Rick Bedford (NatCom) announced to the members that a new branch was to be formed and a meeting was set for October 11th at the Somerset Hotel (Para Hills).

 

October 11th at the Somerset Hotel was a huge success, with more than 220 members turning up and 6 new member signings. The committee was formed and they are President: Rob "Aussie Rob" Wilson, Secretary: Lorraine "Luscious" Robinson and Treasurer: Rudi "Spike" Spykstra.

 

The new branch would become known as the "Torrens Valley Branch" and meetings were set to be held on the 3rd Tuesday of the month at the Parafield Gardens Community Club.

 

 

Ulysses Poem

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle-
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centerd in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me-
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads- you and I are old;
Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

[1842]