September meeting & invited speaker: The forecast was for typhoon winds and the weather bureau recommendation was "Do not to leave home unless it is essential." Despite this, 65 rugged-up Probus members blew in to the meeting along with three visitors. 

At the meeting the first details of our 2025 Getaway were revealed...and the venue will be beautiful Lakes Entrance. The dates are from Sunday 23 March to Friday 28 March. Details are in the Bulletin - see the Bulletins page on this website for further information.

Also the winner of this year's tipping competition was announced. After several years amongst in the top 10, Kevin finally pulled off the Top Tipper award. 

Our outstanding and very informative speaker was Stephen Peterson. Stephen lived in Japan for 8 years, married a Japanese woman and ran a business whilst travelling widely in the country. Stephen shared his experiences of living and working in a completely different culture that is so very different from our own. His insights were timely given that Japan has become a common destination for holidaying Australians, including Probarians.

October Meeting: A cold morning with intermittent rain did not deter 70 members from gathering for our monthly meeting. Two new members were inducted and four visitors were welcomed as well.

The President reminded members that our November meeting would be on Melbourne Cup Eve and that members should take the opportunity to dress appropriately in acknowledgement of the occasion. As usual, there will be prizes for Best Dressed Lady, Best Dressed Gentlemen and Best Hat. Also the Fun Trivia Night is on Thursday 17 October - no prior knowledge is required!

Our invited speakers were four Club members who have moved from their long-held family homes to a retirement community. Each member had chosen a different model of ownership and community structure. They spoke about their choices, what options they looked at, how the move has worked out and what aspects were less than they expected...there were in fact very few disappointments. 

Each speaker emphasised the importance of 'doing your homework' and having legal advice on the details of the contract before signing. Not surprisingly, there were many questions from the audience. Thanks to our four members for sharing their experiences.

The Great 2024 Annual Trivia Night: A great event again with the Trivia night all planned and put together by Michael and Lorraine. Michael is the Master of Ceremonies & Trivia. His questions certainly are a test of a wide range of knowledge - history, geography, fauna and flora and of course tivia. The quiz involves teams of four answering the questions. At the end of each round two members move to another table to join a different team. 

With a tie for second place Michael had some tie-break questions up his sleeve as you can see in the background of the photo.

It is a recipe for a great night's entertainment and much laughter. Thank you to Michael and Lorraine and to Vivienne for buying and wrapping the prizes and of course to everyone who brought a plate for the supper.

October Gardening Group: Not surprising, given the time of year and Melbourne Cup coming up, the session was all about tomatoes.

Peter spent some time addressing the option of growing tomatoes in pots as the alternative to planting in garden beds. He recommended large pots with a support trellis and the use of the best of the proprietory potting mixes - these give a superior result to cheap options. It is also a way to removing your plant from vermin attack- rodents, slugs and snails. If you have problems bending over he showed us a raised planter box that overcomes this problem. It would be excellent for a herb plot as well. Peter recommends dolomite and lime to promote good flowering and fruiting.

Next year, do not throw out the potting mix but scrap away the top few inches and refreshen the mix with new potting mix.

As to the question of not planting tomatoes in the same spot on consecutive years - Peter has been successfully planting tomatoes in the same site but the soil must be dug-over and the well-fertilised to ensure strong growth. 

Another excellent session from Peter and beautifully boxed prizes for the raffle by Joan.

Gardening Group: Our last meeting for the year at Bunnings Box Hill South was a summary of all we had learnt from our in-house Gardening Guru, Peter. 

The was much discussion around garden pests and fugal disease such as black rot on our roses. This is a particular problem this year due to the hot and humid conditions. The fungus spores live in the soil at the base of the roses and rain splashes carry the pest up and onto the leaves. 

Peter also recommended dolomite lime for our tomatoes to ensure good fruit and to lessen the risk of the dreaded blossom-end rot. Our thanks to Peter and wife Joan for all their advice and help with our gardens over 2024.

February meeting: Our Probus year began with our first meeting for the year on 3 February. Despite the heat, an excellent attendance of 75 members caught up with every-one's news from over the Christmas break.

President Lino welcomed every-one back and reminded the audience that the March meeting will be our annual general meeting.

As a good sign for our future, three new members were inducted - Kaye, Margot and Raelene. They had all attended several meetings late last year and were delighted with the large range of activities our Club has on offer. All three have signed up for our annual Getaway in March.

Our excellent speaker was Dave Cox. Dave is an Army veteran and a musician. Dave is the driving force behing Guitars for Veterans, a volunteer organisation that uses music the help veterans, emergency sevice personnel and others suffering from Post-Traumatice Stress Disorder to recover through music, and, in particular, learning the guitar. 

Dave discovered the programme in the USA and decided there was a major requirement for such a programme in Australia. He spoke knowingly about the benefits of the programme and its success where it is now offered in all our states. The organisation is wholly dependant on volunteers and donations of money and guitars. All excellent speaker on a very important topic.

Theatre Group: Our first theatre outing for 2025 and 15 members enjoyed an outstanding performance at The Round, the new theatre at the City of Whitehorse. It was an excellent two man performance that features high-lights from the career of the Hollywood and Broadway actor- Donald O'Connor. After an excellent morning tea with cakes it was into the very comfortable seats and on with the show. Thank you to our Theatre organiser, Bianca.

Garden Group: Our first garden group for 2025 got off to an excellent start at Bunnings Box Hill. Given the long, dry summer our Gardening Gurus, Peter and Joan concentrated on water conservation and water retention in our gardens. Peter recommends watering in the early morning or in the late afternoon to preserve as much moisture as possible. This should be combined with mulching to reduce evaporative losses. 

He recommends sugar cane mulch as the best, especially on vegetable beds. Alternatively, use pine bark mulch although the two can be combined with the cane mulch underneath and the pine bark on top to prevent the cane being blown away in strong winds. In preparing a new planting area, Peter advises that the area should be soaked and a water retaining agent added before the mulch is laid down. He pointed out that water retaining agents need to be re-applied every two or three months. As which water retainer he would recommend, he is of the opinion that there is little to deferentiate the various options although he uses a product from Richgro.

March General Meeting: The March meeting each year is a 'combined session' with the March monthly meeting followed by the annual general meeting. Our club began in 1999, so this is our 26th AGM. At the election for the members of the committee of management, Sandy was elected President and Rob, a past treasurer, returns as Vice President. The other members of the committee can be seen on the Club Management page. It is reassuring for the Club to have three new faces bringing new ideas to how we function.

Again, as is usual at the March meeting, our speaker was one of our Club members. This year we asked Lee to talk about his very interesting career. He graduted in chemistry but then with his first job, he moved into plastics. In this role he worked for a German plastics manufacturer who built a plant in Libya and there Lee worked for a number of years in a stricly Muslem country. 

After a career change or two, he ultimately joined the staff at a food analysis company in Melbourne. He had some great stories to relate about food purity and concerns people had with items they found in food. One concerned a man who said he had found a mouse tail in a can of cola. Expecting a big payout from the company, Lee identified that the item was actually a piece of pasta placed there by his son. It had had absorbed colour and fluid from the cola...so, no mouse tail, no money.