JUST A LITTLE ABOUT US
Our club held its inaugural meeting on the 3rd February 1988, attended by sponsors from Bennetts Green Rotary Club.
Although there were only 5 prospective members present, an election of officers took place. Our foundation President was installed and the first general meeting was held on the 10th February. It was decided then that we would meet on the 2nd Wednesday of the month, and have outings on the 4th Wednesday. A short holiday would be planned once a year.
The first lady was inducted on the 18th January, 1989. The club originally met at Redhead Bowling Club, then later moved to Central Charlestown Leagues Club where we continued our association.
We have a Newsletter Officer who prepares a detailed monthly itinerary, our Social Director arranges a variety of Social gatherings, and our Program Officer arranges for interesting and age appropriate guest speakers. We now have a membership of about 60, with a ceiling of 100. We also have had a number of off-shoot interest groups i.e. computer, tenpin bowling, theatre, and walking groups which have been well attended.
We celebrated our 30th Anniversary with our longest-serving members sharing the honour of cutting the cake and have now had a special luncheon for our 35th Anniversary. Three of our long-term members had the pleasure of cutting the cake,so you'll find a photo of them in the photo gallery.
As we are a combined club, each year we alternate between men and women as our Presidents, although 2020 and 2021 were badly affected by Covid restrictions, so the committee officers served in their respective positions for the two years.
Some general meetings had to be cancelled during those two years (sometimes at fairly short notice) but committee meetings continued via Zoom. This meant that some members faced fairly steep learning curves but it meant that we could still plan for meetings and activities. Because we were not able to hold some of the general meetings, we began using our emailed Newsletter instead of the printed version. We found that only a couple of members still required printed newsletters, so have continued to become more reliant on the Internet for our communications.
Our planning for our 2020 trip had to be abandoned along with other excursions, but we are looking forward to resuming our various interest groups and arranging further excursions in the upcoming months.
Covid years restricted our activities so that coach trips were beyond expectations. However, a recent (as of 26th March 23) "mystery tour" was most successful with a small bus load of intrepid travellers finishing up at the "Bushrangers Hotel" at Largs - having stopped for morning tea at the Hunter Wetlands.
Unfortunately, our club has had to find alternative accommodation for meetings. It looks as though we have been extremely fortunate in finding a new home at Warners Bay Sports Club. This new location will move us closer to the eastern side of Lake Macquarie and give added meaning to our club name of EASTLAKES COMBINED PROBUS CLUB.
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