Senior moments made special

EVERY community needs a Probus club- Our strength is fellowship – Our success is participation. That is the first thing you see when you log on to Probus Southern Africa’s website. What’s more, there are more than 2000 Probians around the country with the first club in South Africa having been established in Durban in 1997.

The Probus club of North Durban, which meets on the first Tuesday of every month, will host their AGM at the Beachwood Golf Club on Tuesday, 2 April at 12pm, followed by lunch and a Quizz.

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Virginia couple, Duncan and Lesley Starke who are members of the club explained that Probus, which stands for ‘professional’ and ‘business,’ aims to provide fellowship through stimulating discussions and outings to retired business men and women as well as retired professionals. Probus is a social club for the over 50s found in numerous countries across the globe.

“When people retire, generally, they miss out on that camaraderie with like minded people in their business, so this is what we hope to attract- people who are feeling as though they are out on a limb, having retired, they have somewhere to go to to talk to other people. We enjoy fellowship, stimulating conversation with like minded people,”said Lesley who is the secretary of her Probus club.

“Probus is a Latin word meaning honest and virtuous, and also we try and make it as fun as possible. Obviously we are serious with our speakers, but we do like to be light-hearted where we can. Some people, I believe, have made some long lasting friendships by coming along,” said Duncan, who is part of the provincial and national Probus committees.

The monthly meeting includes a discussion time, lunch and speaker.

“Outside of the meeting, we try to have outings. We have been to the holocaust museum and various factories to name a few, we usually do about four outings a year,” said Lesley.

“We try to vary our outings with all different types and we try and make the range of speakers as diverse as possible to cover all the interests of out members. We’ve got about 60 members and the attendance is normally around 40,” added Duncan.

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The Probus club also opens up doors for members to explore their personal interests. Lesley explores this avenue by getting a choir with other Probus members and Lesley enjoys time with fellow members at the Durban Radio Boat club.

The Starkes said that new faces are welcome at the AGM if they want to hear the Chairman’s report back for the year.

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