Lynne Bowen is a much-published author of historical non-fiction. On June 6, 2025, she shared her longstanding passion for the history of coal mining on Vancouver Island. For over 100 years, coal mining was the most important industry on Vancouver Island. While it made one man, a Scot named James Dunsmuir very rich, it was…

The road to trumping Trump: On May 2, 2025, our Probus Club was treated to a powerful and fact-filled presentation titled Canadian Prosperity and the Great Regression: Trump, Tariffs and the World Economy. Our speakers were Professor Mark Williams, and student Anna Toderas who in the fall starts graduate school at Yale University. Their ‘tag-team’…

Our Speaker at the April meeting was Don Dempson who spoke to us about the logistics of overseeing the television coverage of the Calgary Stampede. He has up to 70 people working on the television coverage which is timed to the seconds. His role has been to coordinate with Stampede staff and outside broadcast groups…

Our Guest Speaker on March 7 was Gary O’Brien who spoke to us about Scams and Frauds in our communities. Gary served as a regular member of the RCMP for 32 years and he is currently the RCMP Media Relations Officer for the Nanaimo detachment. Gary’s talk was highly interactive with the audience where some…

Dr. Chris Canny took us all on an illuminating crash course on how our eyes work, starting with the basic anatomy of the eye, comparing it to the structure of a house. To make sure that we got the concepts, he asked us “Can a person be legally blind yet have a visual acuity of…

‘MAiD in Nanoose, through the eyes of a practitioner’ The last time Dr. Meghan Towers made a ‘house call’ to the NW Bay Probus Club, it was October 2019. Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was in its infancy. Five years later, Dr. Towers provided an update that transfixed the over-flow crowd of Probus members, and…