S T . H E L I E R S L A D I E S P R O B U S C L U B
President Lorna English
September 2021
Hello Ladies,
Here we are in Level 4 lockdown again so we can’t meet next Tuesday 14th September. Heather has cancelled our speaker, Val Lott and I hope she can re book Val for next year. Val’s talk about her journey through the fashion and beauty industries sounds as if it is not to be missed. As yet we don’t know when we will be able to get back together. Previously we have not met until we are in level 1 and I am thinking we will use this guideline again. We will have to wait to see whether we can meet in October
Last meeting. Dianne Levy gave us some insights into personality types and how the differing characteristics of our own family members may affect our family dynamics.
Movie Morning The number of members who are joining us for a morning movie and lunch at Mission Bay is growing. The movie “Queen Bees” was hilarious. We may be in level 2 by October 19th so we may be able to hold this outing.
Coffee Morning may be possible on 26th October and we will let you know about this and the movie
Internet safety. A message from Barbara Carr "Thank you to everyone who replied to my email regarding your correct email addresses. I would like to apologise to you all for not identifying myself as a member of St Heliers Bay Probus Club - it was completely remiss of me. I would therefore like to offer a warning to everyone who replied (only one person did the correct thing and deleted the email because of not knowing who had sent it) - If you do not know who has sent an email then you should not open it and certainly not reply to it. It is a very sure way of opening up a scam email and creating major problems for your computer. Fortunately in this instance there was no danger BUT next time there could be."
Condolences from our club have been sent to the family of Joan Grant. Our committee was shocked to be told of her death when ringing to check emergency contacts. Joan had been at our August meeting only a few days previously.
Name Badges We are ordering some name badges for new members. If you need a replacement, at the cost of $10 each please let Valerie know.
Up coming events
October speaker If we hold this meeting our speaker is Karen Chong from the Macular Degeneration Society. This is a problem that is affecting many of our generation and her society has resources to help diagnose this problem and helps those with the problem.
November meeting. Barbara Carr has arranged for the “Young at Heart” choir. They sing songs from 60s and 70s right up to present day. They have sung all over NZ. with excellent reviews.
Lunch and movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” with the Men’s Probus will be rescheduled.
Christmas Lunch. Please note the date Tuesday 7th December in your diary. As yet we don’t know where we will go, and your committee will get onto arrangements for this function as soon as we have some possibilities for where we could go.
See Probus South Pacific website for updates from other Probus clubs www.probussouthpacific.org
Tuesday 31st August dawned wet and windy after a wild night so we would have cancelled our trip to the Eden Gardens Tulip festival had we not been in lockdown. With time on my hands I decided to research the history of tulip growing in Holland and the “Tulip bubble” of the 1600’s. Here is what I found.
Tulips are not native to Eastern Europe. They came from the mountains of
Kazakhstan to Turkey and Persia where they attracted the interest of Dutch traders, who brought them to Holland in the late 1500’s. By the mid 1630’s tulips became a fashionable status symbol and investment for wealthy Dutch nobility, merchants and artisans. Bulbs were selling for exorbitant prices, some the equivalent of an Amsterdam Grand Canal mansion By the end of 1637 the prices started falling and those who had borrowed to speculate had to sell their bulbs at any price, often becoming ruined. One account has the outbreak of bubonic plague in the town of Haarlem in 1637 ultimately causing the bubble to burst.
Some accounts say the tulip bubble was not at all a mania, although some did lose money. Instead, the story has been incorporated into the public discourse as a moral lesson, that greed is bad and chasing prices can be dangerous. It has become a fable about morality and markets, invoked as a reminder that what goes up must go down. However, as seen with the dot com bubble this type of easy money still attracts some investors.
In 1640 Jan Brueghel painted “Allegory on Tulip Mania.
After reading my initial ideas for this newsletter Judy Billing added
“Way back, it was the aim to breed the “black” tulip that became the challenge, and when some of them developed the stripes when affected by the virus, they tried to breed more like that. It was the fact the bulbs became special/rare that they became a trading investment.”
“When I was in Amsterdam on my last trip to Europe, I couldn’t get into Anne Frank Museum, as I hadn’t bought my ticket prior, online!
Luckily a friend had alerted me to the Tulip Museum over the canal, so that is where I spent my allotted time. As we can’t bring bulbs back, I bought a pair of earrings with a sketch of tulips on, which I frequently wear. Also bought a smart tulip-shaped bottle opener for when my son visits and brings his beer for drinkie-poos before dinner. I looked around the tulip markets and found that the same varieties for sale there are the same as are available here.
Many of my garden club buddies grow tulips, we buy them every year from down south, as it is too warm in Auckland to grow them on from year to year, and to flower successfully. It is a pity their flowering season is so short because they are such beautiful blooms.
So sad we couldn’t visit Eden Garden, as spring is really here now, and the flower beds are looking wonderful.”
We will watch carefully to see when Judy wears her tulip earrings to club.
That’s all for now Folk Stay safe, Your president Lorna
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