Good onya Carolyn!

Carolyn has made a magnificent contribution to the tramway movement over the years with her long standing commitment (perhaps a world record for a female?) as Treasurer of the Ballarat Tram Museum and with COTMA.

I notice in the local paper, nominations are being called for the Victorian Honour Roll of Women 2011 (www.women.vic.gov.au). I believe Carolyn would be a worthy nomination!

At the same time, I guess we need to be conscious of community attitudes in 2010. Tramway enthusiasts, as Mal has pointed out, can tend to be somewhat "blokey". Among us we have some female contributors (both by birth and otherwise) and of course the gay community is well represented in our ranks. It is unlawful to discriminate on people's sexual preferences or background.

As well, we also need to recognise that some of the guys in our tramway community do find it difficult to communicate with women and what might at first appear to be expressions of rudeness or ignorance may well be something quite different.

Furthermore, we need to recognise that some people in our community have chosen to devote their lives to trams (and/or other transport) rather than establish relationships with other people be it the opposite or same gender.

Life, for all of us, is about the choices we make. We should expect (and give) recognition for the choices we make.

TDU does demonstrate that trams are a fascinating subject and there are so many different aspects of our hobby so worthy of discussion.

Paul in Melbourne