Probus Club of Templestowe Valley Inc.

Our Club History

How and why the club was started

Probus clubs in our area have been very quick to establish a full membership and thus a wait list of people wishing to join. Given an annual membership drop out of less than 5% in most clubs, these wait lists can take several years to turn over. Periodically, local Rotary Clubs take the initiative and organize the formation of new clubs to take up the wait lists of existing clubs.
Our club was started by Manningham Rotary under the guidance of Ken Murray and Max Didier on June the 12^th 2003 when the inaugural meeting was held.

Foundation Members

Subsequent to the Foundation Meeting, 62 foundation members signed up. These were members who joined at the Foundation Meeting or before the first fellowship meeting held in July 2003.

Constitution and by-laws

The club members at our inaugural meeting agreed to adopt the standard constitution and by-laws of Probus South Pacific. However, due to local Victorian regulations we had to adopt a special Constitution and By Laws The club was incorporated in 2004. With Doug Hayne being appointed as Public Officer.
By being properly incorporated, any litigation has to be directed to the incorporated body and cannot be directed to individual members.

The Newsletter

The newsletter has proven to play a vital role in keeping members informed on activities both future and past. The committee at their first meeting decided, that the newsletter should be posted out so members have access to information several days prior to the meetings. This would allow time for them to make arrangements and have any payments ready to be passed over at the next meeting. This arrangement though entailing cost in postage, will be continued because of the benefits to members. The current month’s newsletter and all previous newsletters are now available on the clubs web site.

Our Committee

The committee for 2009 is made up of ten members is as follows:

President	Doug Hayne
Vice President	Wilma Pontefract
Past President	Liz Turner
Secretary	Heather Bindon
Publicity	Marion Cummins
Newsletter	Les Thompson
Treasurer	Jeff Crosbie
Activities	Lyn Hudgson
Membership/Welfare	Jenny Morcombe
Speakers	Jill Dickason

Our President

Our past President Liz Turner, has handed over the president's Regalia to Doug Hayne, last year's Vice President at the April Fellowship meeting.
The President rotates each year from male to female with the Vice President automatically filling the post.

Our Vice President

Wilma Pontefract was nominated and elected unopposed for Vice President for 2009/10
Wilma automatically takes on the President’s position in 2011

Our Treasurer

Jeff Crosbie was re elected for his second year as Treasurer..

Our Secretary

Heather Bindon was nominated and elected as Secretary unopposed. Heather replaces Judy baker who has served her three terms in the position.

Publicity Officer

Marion Cummins was nominated and elected unopposed. Marion is our first official Publicity Officer.

Newsletter Editor and Pubisher

Les Thompson was nominated and elected unopposed. Les and maurelle have taken over the editors task from Doug Hayne who has been Newsletter Editor since the club started in 2003.

Our Membership and Welfare Officer

Jenny Morcombe was nominated and re elected unopposed for the position.

Our Activities Officer

Lyn Hudgson was nominated and elected unopposed as Activities Officer replacing Ron McBain who has completed his third term .
Lyn manages co ordination of activities and provides a conduit into the committee and newsletter, for activities information.
As the club is extremely active with many activities taking place each month.

Our Speakers Officer

Jill Dickason was nominated and elected unopposed to the position as Marg McGregor completed her third term. Jill has the important task of obtaining and managing our speakers for club events.

Committee Activities

Committee meetings are held monthly, on the same day as and after the regular club meetings. Committee members have all been generous in offering the use of their homes for these meetings.
All of the committee meetings have been congenial, friendly and productive. Several important issues have been dealt with and improvements to procedures developed. The committee members regularly communicate with one another to keep us all up to date.

Financial

The membership numbers we have has enabled the club to operate without increasing fees so far and it is not anticipated that there will be any major change in the financial situation with the change in the fee structure. Due to diligent financial management by our committee, there have been opportunities to supplement events with assistance from club funds. At some of our functions the club provided drinks and raffle prizes for members. The committee also decided to help finance the Craft Groups ongoing project producing special pillows and bags for encology patients in local hospitals.

Fellowship Meetings

Our meetings are on the 2^nd Monday of the month. We are able to book the hall a year ahead thus ensuring that we always have a comfortable meeting place.

Tea Roster: Immediately the club meetings commenced we had plenty of volunteers to do the work needed to provide our "Fellowship Tea" at the meetings. A Roster was drawn up using alphabetical order of surnames. This appears to work well as long as we provide adequate notice. This year Adrian Eltingham and Jan Harvie will manage this task.

Hall Entrance: We always need two people to manage the attendance register with friendly greetings and firm requests for fees..
Kerry McInerney is our “Meeter and Greeter” waiting at the hall entrance to meet incoming members and making them and any guests welcome.

Speakers

Choice of speakers over the years has been excellent with all of the speakers so far receiving a warm welcome and stimulating questions and discussion.
Below are the speakers planned for 2009

April	Percy Cooper		Speaks on some of the happenings dark side of superannuation
May	Andrew Demetriou		The well known CEO of the AFL will speak about the challenges of taking AFL into the 21st century
June	Club Member Marion Cummins		Will explain the ins and outs of the numbers game SUDOKO
July	Fran Sirio from APT		Fran a tour leader, has been associated with Probus and our club for several years now.
August	The Club Photography Group		Presentation of DVD of club activities and photography
September	TBA
October	TBA
November	TBA
December		Probus entertainment by our members

Luncheon

Part of the Probus tradition is for members to gather for a luncheon after fellowship meetings. We use a variety of venues for our lunch with Laurine Eames and Lyn McBain making the bookings and arranging the venues.

Club Events and Activities

There is in place, an approval process for events where funds need to be collected or deposits paid. This has been done to minimize the risk of financial cost to the club and ensure that all member’s interests are catered for in organizing events. Guidelines for event organizers were also issued to those members involved in event planning. This process is working well with activities leaders co-operating by passing their requests and attendance list on to the committee through the Activities Officer.

Members, have continued to arrange some very enjoyable outings. It has become very apparent that we do enjoy each other’s company and some very firm friendships have been made through regular support of our events. Sometimes the fun we have together is the main feature with the venue being "just somewhere to get together and have fun" This was certainly the case during our “Getaway” experiences during the past years.
Other gatherings of members where details are advertised in the newsletter but no booking or collection of funds needed, have worked very well with walking, bike riding, BBQ picnics, dinner outings being enjoyed by a number of members. These events are important as they take little organization and give members a choice without the pressures of minimum numbers.

Trips and Getaways
Stay over trips of several days duration have been organized by and proved popular. Places visited have been Central Australia, Adelaide, Mungo National Park, Golf at Philip Island, Cards at Fairhaven
Members with caravans as well as others staying in cabins or Motels have participated.

Walking and Cycling
Around 20 members and friends get together every second Wednesday to walk through the many tracks around our area with lovely scenery and interesting history. Coffee or lunch afterwards are usually taken. On the alternate Wednesdays, a group of cyclists travel the many cycle tracks around Melbourne. Sometimes these groups join together to meet afterwards.

Theatre
Various Members have volunteered to organise evening outings locally and in the city. Often pre show dinners are a feature of these outings.

Culture Walks
Visits to antique collections, museum tours and city walking tours with Kenneth Park, a well known local Melbourne identity with a congenial lunch afterwards is usual.

Golf
Our golf group has over 40 members who regularly participate in regular games and lessons. They have had trips every year since our club started and in 2008 had getaways where golfers and walkers and any member who wishes to attend, spend a happy week end enjoying golf and walking at picturesque locations.

Games
Our club has a popular games group with regular games nights in card games, and other fun activities being held in a local church hall. There have also been a series of bridge lessons commenced and some great Crazy Whist nights. Well organised "Trivia" nights are also a great success.

Scrap Book
A member has regular gatherings at her home for members wishing to find out how to get a good scrapbook together. Some members have since set up great family history scrapbooks. Verity has set up a scrap book for the club which is available for loan from our meetings and can also be viewed on our web site. Two volumes of the scrapbook are now available for members to view as well as being accessible on our web site.

Dine Out
A member generates a list that chooses two groups per month to dine out together and this has been very well received and promotes interaction between members that may not otherwise get together.

Genealogy
The group has already visited public offices where information concerning their family history has been researched.

Craft Group
Several lady members started a craft group last year and now meet regularly to produce some fine craft items. The results of their efforts have been seen at our Christmas functions. The group has also taken on a project to make special pillows and drainage bags for breast cancer victims. Financial assistance has been generously provided by local Rotary and private businesses .

Garden
Interested members meet every two months. There have been several visits to beautiful and famous gardens over the years.

Book Reading
A group of reading enthusiasts get together to discuss and evaluate books they have identified as interesting reading.
A member also manages a "book swap" arrangement where members bring in books they have read to put in a collection that all members can access at the fellowship meetings to borrow and enjoy..

Entertainers
After the 2007 success at our Christmas function, "The Entertainers Group" continued their practice with the "Dad's Army" group and performed with many accolades at The Manninham Cultural Event and the Probus Victoria concert. The group is continuing their monthly rehearsals and will be presenting several different performances during 2009.

Photography
Started in 2007 with the aim of helping each other improve the quality of our images and learn more about photography.
Again this year, the group do a presentation to show to members at a fellowship meeting in the guest speaker segment.

Our Membership List

We still retain our member base of 130 members. We have a limit on our wait list of 10 names. We had two resignations from the club this year. These were congenial and we parted with good wishes. When a vacancy arises, the earliest wait list applicant is asked if they wish to join and if they decline their date of application is changed to the current date. Any enquiries for addition to a full wait list are directed to other local Probus clubs.

We do get attendance numbers of up to 90 to 100 members at fellowship along with several guests each month. Normally around 50 attend the lunch afterwards.

Our Newsletter

Without the Newsletter, the club could not function properly. It is important that all club "happenings" are communicated to members quickly and in time for decisions to be made before fellowship meetings. The newsletter is printed in the week before the meetings. With around 70 copies printed.
This provides the 65 copies to be posted out to members for delivery before the next meeting, and leaves some over to have on hand at meetings and send to interested parties outside the club. Newsletters are placed on our web site and those members able to access them are notified by email when the latest issue is available. This saves considerable expense.

Our Web Site

We have set up this web site to provide access for members to newsletters, documents and a means of sharing information on any topic of interest to members.

Although many of our members do not have access to the Internet, those that do have access have expressed appreciation of the web site. As the only cost involved is time, this is a good way of providing intercommunication within the club.

The current newsletters are available to download from the web site one or two days earlier than post delivery for those able to access them. All Newsletters from our first one are available on this web site.

Our Connection with Local Council

Manningham City Council maintains contact with most organizations in the municipality and we get regular correspondence from them regarding their events and plans. One of the Council events we have had participation with, is the Citizenship Ceremonies. Due to communication from the council, some members have represented us at these ceremonies.

Our Connection With Rotary

Manningham Rotary Club is our foundation sponsor and we will be eternally grateful to them for instigating the club and supporting us whilst we were in the formation stages. It should be emphasized however, that although we are associated with Rotary, we are not a subsidiary group nor are we a fund raising organization. (We are a "FUN" raising organization).
However, we would expect that as we grow, many of our members will participate in volunteer community help activities as Probus groups and this would be welcomed and encouraged.
Our contribution to the Tsunami appeal in 2005 was a good example of how we can make contribution this way.
Rotary were also very helpful with the craft group comfort pillows project. Some members are volunteers in the local Rotary “Op Shop”.

Summary

The Probus Club of Templestowe Valley Inc has been an outstanding success in its six years of operation. Membership quickly reached a sustainable level and we have a full wait list of potential members. We have many activity groups and many successful events have been planned and enjoyed by members and friends. Administration procedures and rules have been developed and other management tasks such as incorporation and liaison with local council and other clubs have been worked on along with other tasks planned for the future by the committee.

(Revised May 2010)

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