What Kathleen Spiess loves most about the Probus Club of Maple Ridge is the variety of speakers they get to hear from every meeting.
A gerontology professor and a doctor from a Vancouver hospital are two of the many speakers invited to speak recently for club members.
Dr. Andrew Sixsmith of the Gerontology Department at Simon Fraser University gave club members an overview of Canada’s Age Well Network, a program funded by government and industry, to develop new tech-based solutions to help people age well.
Dr. Dan Kalla, emergency room department head at St. Paul’s Hospital, spoke about how existing drug laws need changing to accept drug addiction as an illness.
In April, the speaker will be Heather Treleaven, coordinator of the Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Katzie Seniors Network, who will be talking about the process of building Age Friendly Communities and she will also be highlighting projects of the Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Katzie, Seniors Network.
“The organization leverages the knowledge of older adults in the community and turns it into action to make our cities great places to grow older,” explained Treleaven.
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“We have a real mixture,” said Spiess, referring to a meeting that a father and son who did a cycling tour across France visiting war memorials.
“For me it’s just so interesting to find out what they do,” she added.
Probus is a social club for retired and semi-retired people, that provides regular gatherings for those who want to meet others that have similar interests.
The difference between a Probus club and Rotary is that the former is strictly social. There are no constraints or obligations that are typically associated with service clubs.
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The word Probus in a contraction of the words professional and business, but membership is not restricted to these two groups of people.
Former executives of industry, government or anyone who has had some measure of responsibility in any field of endeavour is welcome to join.
The Maple Ridge club was started by Theo Rathonyi-Reusz, John Bale, and Howard and Ingrid Glossop, and held their first meeting in January of 2018.
Speakers are usually based on what is of interest at the time or what comes up in the media.
They used to meet at Meadow Gardens Golf Club until the COVID-19 pandemic, and now they are holding their meetings on Zoom.
Meetings take place at 10 a.m. on the third Thursday of every month.
Probus originated in 1966 in England and has spread internationally. It was introduced to Canada in 1987 and now has clubs across the country.
The Probus Club of Maple Ridge has approximately 50 members.
Club members have also formed smaller interest groups such as: a computer group; photography group; and book club.
The annual membership fee for this year is $30 with no commitment to attend a minimum number of meetings.
Anyone interested in joining can contact membership convener, Kathleen, at 604-463-2160.
For more information go to probusclubofmapleridge.org.
Have a story tip? Email: cflanagan@mapleridgenews.com
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