About the Probus Club
of Forest Hill
Composed by Ken Rigby
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”
(Shakespere, Henry V)
How it all began
In August 1984 the Rotary Club of Forest Hill, showing sound judgement indeed, asked Des Mansfield to organise the formation of a new Probus Club in Forest Hill to cater for the increasing number of people wanting to join Probus. Over the next eight weeks contacts were made with various community and sporting groups. Some 130 invitations were issued to prospective members, and a permanent venue, the Horticultural Centre in Jolimont Road, was found after negotiations with the Nunawading City Council.
“A constitution was drafted and the willingness of some to accept nomination as members of a club committee was explored. The inaugural meeting of the Probus Club of Forest Hill was held on the 9th October, 1984, at the Horticultural Centre. It was chaired by Ted Woolfe, President of the Rotary Club of Forest Hill.
‘How fortuitous that our club was, right from the start, in the hands of such people. From its inauguration there was the energy, imagination, good sense, responsibility and fine leadership to make things happen. This special spirit continues to this day! It is a remarkable thing about this club that there has been a succession over almost forty years of inspiring presidents and committee members, promoting and managing a stunning program of rewarding activities. This leadership, and the exciting response of members to such a lively program, is what makes the Probus Club of Forest Hill unique.
The club is a treasure-house of human achievement, and even to this day we only know some of it. In conversation or by way of club speeches, the stories have been told without triumphalism, without praise of self, without undue theatricality – but honestly and truly. And the word ‘hero’ is never mentioned!
Honour, love, a troop of friends
Meetings open with General Business where we publicise upcoming events, take numbers for Bistro lunches/dinners, and report to members on significant issues. This is followed by tea/coffee and biscuits outside on the back lawn which ends at 11am when we welcome our guest speaker – sometimes a club member with a special interest or experience or a guest who’s talks cover a wide range of topics.
The young, unless they have been rigorously taught, cannot respond as we do to words like ‘Churchill’, ‘Stalingrad’, ‘Kokoda’, ‘nine and sixpence’, ‘Sunday School’, ‘six cuts’, ‘sly grog’, ‘two-up’, ration coupons. They will be baffled by talk of crystal sets, The Argus, The Argonauts, 3DB, the Spirit of Progress or Frank Sedgman but these very words evoke the reach and tenor of our lives, back into what is called the past, but which seems only yesterday. When these words, and many others from our shared history, are spoken they evoke a collective moment of recognition and we know we belong!’
‘People ask: What do you actually do at Probus?’ – expecting a litany of good works, high and serious purpose, things earnest and useful. They think, perhaps, of U3A and its admirable search for skills and new knowledge, and they wonder if that’s what we’re about. Any of us in The Probus Club of Forest Hill can easily rattle off a list of Probus-sponsored activity – chess games, computer sessions, rounds of golf, listening to music, dining experiences, day walks, historical walks, day trips, longer journeys to beautiful and interesting places – but that doesn’t get to the nub of what we really do, why we spend time together, why Probus makes us happy and enhances our lives.
The key to Probus’s meaning, and Forest Hill Probus is a shining example of it, is friendship. We have all finished our paid work, our professional life – at least most of us have – and in our retirement we now seek meaning in a new way, unrelated to our personal life-history of defining work. That meaning is still primarily in our sense of our families, of course, but in Probus we encounter something more, a topping-up, a pearl of great price – something to do with memory, decency, generosity, identity, a feeling that life not only has been, but remains, profoundly satisfying, beautiful, and worthwhile.
When we meet and do the things we do, we are lifted up, engaged, by the warmth we encounter. New friendships are formed, old ones reaffirmed, and the threat of loneliness and the idea of a resigned and bitter life in front of an increasingly demented TV are swept away. All of us can recall the roar of mirth at a monthly meeting, when a good speaker touches a chord of shared and lively recognition! That happens because we have all been there. Someone is holding up a mirror to our lives as they once were, and as they still are. The speakers who come and talk to us, month by month, without monetary reward, do that to us, again and again, and we know we wouldn’t miss them for quids!
Probus Club of Forest Hill 