Friday: Meetings

The last say, Friday involved a number of meetings. The first was a question and answer session on Probus issues. Many issues were raised here are a few that caught our attention:

• Probus Centre - South Pacific Inc which as I understand it co-ordinates probus in this region of the world is very well off with over $600,000 in the bank – and rising
• The name probus as we know comes from abbreviations of the words Professional and Business. It seems that in one Probus club some members are refusing admission to a woman who has been a home maker all of her life on the basis that she wasn’t a professional or business person. The Probus Centre - South Pacific people made it clear that keeping people out of a club for that reason was unacceptable. In fact if you read the definition of Probus on the website http://www.probus.com.au/ you will find the following defintion:

Probus is an association of retired and semi-retired people who join together in clubs, the basic purpose of which is to provide regular opportunities for them to keep their minds active, expand their interests and to enjoy the fellowship of new friends.

• Probus is large and growing

Clubs in Australia = 1799
Members in Australia = 141 065

After another lunch the closing ceremony was held in the afternoon. This involved a hand over to the Christchurch committee and some NZ entertainment.