President’s Message – April 2018
Our NW Bay PROBUS Club turns 15 at the end of April! Looking at the brief history on our website, I discovered that the inaugural meeting was held on April 30th, 2003 with 110 members with the first speaker being Parksville author Don Cochrane. Our super volunteer, Mary Crist, was on the first Management Team. When the club turned 10, a celebration lunch was held at Tigh-Na-Mara with Canadian humourist and author, Arthur Black, as the guest speaker. I know that Mary and many others were involved in planning that event and Mary is still actively involved as a member of the Communications Team. Thank you, Mary for all you’ve done and continue to do for our club.
To mark our 15th anniversary we decided to have a small celebration at our April 6th Members meeting and are pleased that Keith McGregor, PROBUS Canada Director for Vancouver Island, will join us at the meeting. Linda, Al and Leslie will work their magic with appropriate celebratory food; Don and Phil will provide a photo montage of memories from the past fifteen years.
PROBUS Canada is sponsoring a Western Regional Conference in Vancouver on April 28th. The theme of the conference is Club Sustainability and Renewal and each club has been encouraged to send 2-4 delegates from the Management Team. Two of our team will be attending the conference: Joanie Miller and Linda Burrows.
Finally, I’m delighted that our April speaker will be John Denisiger who will give us a presentation on the new Rhododendron Species garden being developed at Milner Gardens. Joanie Miller is planning an Out and About to Milner Gardens in mid- May, so that should be a perfect time to see the rhododendrons in bloom.