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Mandurah Island Probus Club Inc BULLETIN

February 2014 Volume 4. Issue No. 10 Email: editor@mipc.org.au

PO BOX 256

Mandurah 6210 Email:

secretary@mipc.org.au www.mipc.org.au

Monthly Meetings: 4th Wednesday of Month

Halls Head Bowling & Recreation Club

3 Sticks Boulevard Erskine 6210

General Meeting

Wednesday 26th February 2014 9.30am for 10.00am

Next Committee Meeting

Wednesday 12th March 2014

If you are unable to attend a meeting, please ensure you

contact Phil Lewis 95820809 (repeat your name

clearly if leaving a message on the answering machine)

or by email: apology@mipc.org.au.

This is very important

for catering purposes and is also an insurance

requirement.

Thank you

Convenors:

Walking Group Derek Shadbolt Cycling Group Jeff Holt Book Club Rosemary Ledder The Islanders Singing Group - Pauline Beamond Mahjong Group Diana Whelan Coffee Club Pat Hyde Book Exchange Derek Shadbolt & Vic Whelan

Office Bearers 2013-2014 President/Publicity Joy Shadbolt Vice President/Liaison Grant Draper Secretary Cheryl Krokosz Treasurer/Public Officer & Assets Harvey Randell Management Committee: Membership & Welfare Phil Lewis Outings & Tours Rosemary Ledder Guest Speakers Lynda Ford Bulletin Enid Holt Hospitality Elisabeth Enz Webmaster Erwin Enz Officers’ Assistants Keith Byers & Don Keene Ex Officio Immediate Past President Peter Kimber Appointed Officers: Auditor Mike Smith Historian Val Green Lucky Draw John Ledder/Ross Retallick/ Betty Curtin/David Johnson

Photographer Jeff Holt Morning Teas Assistant Marie-Claire Baker Membership Assistants Dorothy Lewis/Maureen Randell/

Rae Lothian /Pat Hyde Outings Assistants Marijke Golding/Lauraine Mahnkoph/Margaret Brimblecombe Events Team Paul Jacklin/Derek Shadbolt/ Janet Webb

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CLUB PROGRAM FOR FEBRUARY 2014

HOSTS John Krokosz, Rosemarie Drexler

MORNING TEA PROVIDERS

Mike Smith, Frances Keene, Lauraine Mahnkoph, Marie-Claire Baker

MORNING TEA HELPERS

Tania Cappola, Lucy Chang, Diana Whelan

INDUCTIONS Rosalie King, Terry Gilcrest and Peter Brunner

NO GUEST SPEAKERS

February—5th Birthday Celebration

March—AGM and lunch

Happy Birthdays for

March

President Joy welcomes John Burns, Judy Burns, Carolyn Thomson, Terry Young, Andrew Mackay,

Glenda Mackay and Glenise Belmont

Lucky door prize voucher winners: $50 David Johnson $25 Rosemarie Drexler

JANUARY 2014 MEETING

WELFARE Wishing a speedy recovery to Rowena Gorringe and Ossi Igel following surgery.

Dot Brewer

Lynda Ford with Scott Severn, Snr Mosquito Operations Officer, Mandurah. Scott gave an enlight-ening presentation on mosquito eradication in the Peel Region.

Tony Golding Graham Perkins Val Green Terry Rodd John Ledder Peter Rose Grace Mallard Martin Horsley Paul Jacklin Wilma Gunnis

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FROM THE BULLETIN BUNKER

In this issue, as promised, there is a delightful and amusing account of the European River Cruise undertaken by Jessie Scott, with fellow Probians Greta and Robin. The most enjoyable Australia Day breakfast held at Don & Frances property in Bouvard is also featured. In addition you can see what some of our Members have been getting up to - read on to find out more!

FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK I can hardly believe that it is 5 years this month since our Club was formed. Derek & I attended the first meeting but did not join that day because we were flying out to the UK the next day as my mother had passed away and we were running short of time. We attended meetings on our return and became members at the May General Meeting. We were practically “thrown in at the deep end” almost at once with me chairing a sub-committee for main events in cooperation with that lovely man, John James, and Derek getting involved with the Walking Group and the Book Exchange. Derek & I may have contributed a lot to the Club but we have had so much more out of it than we have put in. We believe we have been rewarded by the bucket loads by all the social interaction we have had with such wonderful people and the friendships we have made during the past 5 years. We will all be celebrating the Club’s 5th Birthday at our February General Meeting with birthday cake and a glass of bubbly - or soft drink for those not so inclined. We hope this will be at the Halls Head Bowling Club but with work still continuing with the renovations, we won’t know until the last minute whether we may be at the RAAFA again. It worked out well last month, so I’m sure we will manage again if we have to. I look forward to seeing you at the Meeting. Joy Shadbolt President

Enid Holt

BOOK EXCHANGE

Don’t forget – if you have promised to bring in a donation of books, they will be very much appreciated. Books should be in good condition with legible print please. Happy reading!

Derek Shadbolt

Notices In a London department store:

BARGAIN BASEMENT LOCATED UPSTAIRS

TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW

Notice in a health food shop window: SORRY - CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Did I read that sign right ?

!!

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Rosemary Ledder

OUTINGS UPDATE—FEBRUARY 2014 SUNDAY 26th January: AUSTRALIA DAY BREAKFAST I believe this event was a great success and from feedback received everyone felt the same. A BIG thank you to Don & Frances Keene. TUESDAY 11th February LUNCH & MOVIE 33 Members enjoyed the Movies, 15 going to see Philomena, 13 to see Last Vegas and 6 to The Book Thief, however, I hear that there was a problem with the show-ing of the Book Thief and some decided to go at another time. Lunch was enjoyed by 34 Members at the Artizan. WEDNESDAY 26th February - MIPC GeneralMeeting Special Birthday Morning Tea. Please ensure you register with Elisabeth Enz for catering purposes. WEDNESDAY 26th March – MIPC General Meeting & AGM Handover Lunch. Please ensure you register at the February General Meeting for catering purposes. FRIDAY 11 th April - COMBINED PICNIC IN HENRY SUTTON PARK, HALL S HEAD This picnic with the Mandurah Combined Club has been cancelled as it clashes with the Walking Group’s Cape-to-Cape walk, it will be rescheduled for later in the year. Derek Shadbolt will be organising a MIPC picnic for late April /early May. FRIDAY 23 rd& SATURDAY 24 th May - NEW NORCIA and overnight at NEW NORCIA HOTEL We are awaiting confirmation of final details from the New Norcia Hotel for payment and date due. There are now 26 Members on the list. Please confirm your attendance at the March General Meeting. The two-hour guided tour of New Norcia is $16 each and this amount will be confirmed once I know exact num-bers attending.(See brochure on Outings table at next meeting)

Whose the lucky duck on the ‘duck’?

Happy Birthday Rosemarie Drexler—on a ‘bucket list’ ride with daughter Susan.

Our group got off to a flying start for the year with our numbers increasing to 15 (13 ladies and 2 gentle-men), this I feel will be our maximum number.

Sorry to disappoint anyone who was consider-ing joining.

The books chosen for the year are certainly var-ied and we are all I am sure looking forward to some interesting discussion over the coming months.

Happy reading.

Rosemary Ledder Book Club Convenor

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Thirty MIPC Members enjoyed a BYO breakfast in the lovely gardens at Don and Frances home in Bouvard. President Joy, ably assisted by Don, raised the flag. Members recited the Affirmation and sang the National Anthem. This was followed by poignant poetry readings from Joy and Dot Lewis. It was time then to fire up the BBQ for those who enjoyed a cooked break-fast and for others to tuck into the goodies from their eskies—along with drinks of choice or with the tea and coffee that was on hand. It was a most pleasant morning in ideal surroundings. Harvey Randell organised the shade structures and Members erected and dismantled them—excellent team work and the shade was most welcome. Many thanks to Don and Frances for providing a lovely venue and to Rosemary Ledder for organising a very successful event.

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Jeff Holt

MAHJONG

1st & 3rd Tuesday of each month Venue: Waratah Christian Community Church Hall, 748 Old Coast Rd, Wannanup.

Please come at 12.45 to help set-up and register so that we can commence play at 1pm. Cost per player is $4 to cover room hire and refreshments. If you have a Mahjong set/racks, please bring them along. Learners are welcome, please contact me if you have not registered before.

CYCLING ITINERARY— MARCH 2014 The Cycling Group meet every Monday at 7.30 am NEW MEMBERS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME 3rd March - Meet at Cooks Kitchen, Pinjarra Road - ride along Serpentine and return - flat. 10th March - Meet at Leprechaun Café, Dawesville - ride along Harvey Estuary and return - flat . 17th March - Meet at Muffin Break, Halls Head - ride to Mariners Cove and return - flat. 24th March - Meet at Doddi’s Beach - ride to Falcon Bay, return to the Dome - hilly. 31st March - Meet at Muffin Break, Halls Head - ride to Pleasant Grove and return - flat.

THE ISLANDERS—SINGING GROUP The Group are now in full ’voice’ and are planning to perform at our March AGM. The fol-lowing day they have been invited to perform at the AGM for the Probus Club of Leeming. If you are interested in joining this fun group please contact Pauline Beamond.

Pat Hyde

COFFEE CLUB

All members are welcome to attend this relaxed gathering being held on the Sunday, following the General Meeting.

Venue has changed back to The Boardwalk Cafe at what was previously the Sailing Museum. Time: 10 am.

Diana Whelan

MIPC WALKING GROUP – ITINERARY MARCH 2014 Meeting time – 7.30am BYO Chairs & Refreshments. Tuesday 4th & Thursday 6th March - Mandurah Meet in car park opposite Murphys Tavern, Mandurah Tce. Tuesday 11th & Thursday 13th March – Dawesville Meet in car park opposite the Leprechaun Café, Estuary Drive, Dawesville. Tuesday 18th & Thursday 20th March – Mariners Cove Meet in car park at Darwin Tce, off Mariners Cove Drive, (turn right at circle where Mariners Cove Drive meets Hudson Drive) Mariners Cove. Tuesday 25th & Thursday 27th March - Miami Meet in parking area at the end of Olive Road past Miami Shopping Centre, Falcon. Derek Shadbolt

No Coffee Club in March due to Public Holiday long weekend

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BECOME A STAR COMPETITION

Do you want to be our next cover star on the front cover of Active Retirees magazine?

Probus in the South Pacific Region turns 40 this year and to celebrate, we want you to be the face

of our feature in the April/May edition of Active Retirees Australia.

Be pampered with hair and make-up done for you. Plus, we’ll source a wonderful outfit for you to wear.

Just send us your photograph and let us know in 25 words or fewer why you joined Probus and what you love most

about it. E: activeretirees@mahlabmedia.com.au

Terms & Conditions apply : http://probussouthpacific.org/pages/members_offers_competitions

Kaylah Robbins

Administrator, Probus South Pacific Limited (ACN 152 374 395)

PSPL have published the access fee structure for the

Probus Travel Insurance on the Probus website.

Link - http://probussouthpacific.org/probus/files/

Probus_Travel_Insurance_Access_Fees_161213.pdf

Details of the fee structure will be included in the TI

Packs and all documentation, plus Information will be

included to explain how to create your own quote by

using the pricing matrix; i.e. age, destination and dura-

tion.

Pat Atkinson

General Manager Probus South Pacific

SYDNEY PROBUS RENDEZVOUS

The 2014 Probus South Pacific Rendezvous will be held

in Sydney on the 18-22 August 2014.

The Sydney Rendezvous is one not to be missed.

Registrations on line at www.probussouthpacific.org

Or complete and return registration form included in

Registration Brochure.

Registration Brochure supplied on request.

For more information contact:

LOUD Events

E: probus@loudevents.com.au

Yoga and Old Age

You didn't shave very well and your tie is crooked!

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C[th_^r[ls, C[stl_s [n^ Co\\l_ston_s

~ P[l[]_s, P[stri_s [n^ Pot ~ Fun, Foo^ [n^ Flirt[tion

An Odyssey of three Probians, Greta, Robin and Jessie travelling with Villa Carlotta on a Tauck cruise.

Cathedrals - there were plenty on our cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest. Every town and city seemed to have one. The most splendid being that of Cologne, begun in 1248, abandoned in 1560 then completed in 1880. Restoration work continues today due to some damage during WWII and pollution. While Co-logne City was flattened during the war, the cathedral survived several hits, to stand proud on the scene. Was it divine intervention or because it was an excellent navigational aid to bomber pilots? The cathedral houses a golden sarcophagus said to contain the bones of the Magi or Three Wise Men. The Romans founded Cologne around 50AD and a breathtaking mosaic floor is in the Roman-Germanic Museum. Almost intact and viewed from the floor above, the colours and design are as fresh as when created. Castles perch on vine clad hills on either side of the Rhine between Cologne and Mainz, guarding the nar-rowing river enabling medieval Robber Barons and Prince Bishops to exact tolls on the river traffic. Pic-turesque as they are, they were cold, damp and gloomy places and life was hard for the families living there. Sons were expected to become knights and daughters to make good marriages to acquire more land.

Grapevines lined the hillsides in vertical stripes, with only a few squares growing on the horizontal. Autumnal colouring, gave the effect of a patchwork of gold, red and green corduroy. On a large bend in the River, we saw the Lorelei Rock, where the beautiful maiden is blamed for luring sailors to their doom. Why shouldn’t she sit on the rock combing her hair and singing to herself? If those stupid men couldn’t keep their minds on the job of navigat-ing the rocky shoals, why blame the woman? Any excuse. She has a statue in her memory. I didn’t see any for those idiots. On Day 6, we stopped briefly and visited the little town of Lohr. A twisting cobbled street led uphill past a market square to a turreted castle, sometimes referred to as Snow White’s Castle. For those with stamina, a climb up a narrowing spiral staircase, revealed a fragment of that ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall’. I wasn’t prepared to ask the inevitable question. I already knew the answer.

Cobblestones are present in every town, village and city. Not rounded as I imagined, but flat and laid in fan-shaped designs. Not so hard to walk on until it rained. We were lucky in that we only had to deal with rain three times, in Nuremberg, Melk and Budapest. In Nuremberg, we visited the Imperial Palace, with views of the city and the old Town Hall. Rain battered down and we sheltered briefly in the Albrecht Durer House. The rain continued hissing down, but our stal-wart guide insisted we visit the ‘Beautiful Fountain’. By this time, all we wanted was to return to our coach and couldn’t care less about the fountain, beautiful or otherwise. Perhaps she wasn’t paid the full amount for her discourse unless complete? And so, we slipped, slid and stumbled on wet cobblestones to see the wonderful fountain. Although it was not flowing, other than, with the effects of the rain, it was illu-minated, a sight of gilding and wrought iron in a Gothic style pyramid, carved from sandstone between 1389 and1396 with forty stone figures arranged in three rows.

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The Odyssey continued ...

Our visit to Melk Abbey required raincoats, umbrellas and strong knees to cope with stairs as well as cobblestones. After enjoying the view from the top, Jan, Greta and I risked the slippery slope down to the pretty town where we had coffee and strudel in a minute bar. Palaces, Pastries and Pot We visited many palaces, both bishops’ and princes’, but our highlight was surely at the Palais Pallavicini in Vienna, built in 1784, in neoclassical style with gilded stucco, crystal mirrors and chandeliers. We dined in the grand Viennese manner, entertained by musicians, dancers and singers, with trib-utes to Mozart and Strauss. Pastries: Rothenberg, yet another medieval town, is famous for a pastry called schneebollen, or snowballs. They consist of short pastry strips rolled into a ball and containing, powdered sugar, chocolate or caramel filling. Many shops display boxes of these treats in their windows. We enjoyed ours with coffee in the town square. Eating out is quite usual here and all the chairs have blankets provided should the weather become a bit parky. Pot: We were a bit wary in Amsterdam having heard of their ‘coffee shops.’ How could we tell which was which? We spent our first morning sightseeing while filling in time for our cabins to be made ready for us. We found the railway station, the town hall and the cathedral. I was more interested in the old style architecture and pointed out a quaint, narrow street. This is what we had come to see: a shop devoted to varieties of cheese, one of pastries another of chocolate. The salesman offered me a sample of hot chocolate. I was reluctant to accept it. Maybe there were ‘funny chocolate shops’ too? What the heck! I was on holiday and it was fine. The coffee shops were obvious, we saw as we progressed further down the street. So also, were the sex shops with their wares freely on show, including a shop displaying a variety of condoms. Fun, Food and Flirtation Fun: The quiz night, ‘Majority Rules’, where there were no truly correct answers, won us Aussies a prize for the most outrageous answers and also won us American fans and friends. The night before Halloween we dressed in the masks we had made the day before. We were surprised to see how few Americans got involved, but again they appreciated our efforts. Our ride in ‘Tommy the Tank’ train in Rudesheim delivered us to Siegfried’s Mechanisches Musikkabinett, where we saw some of the oldest, largest music boxes in Europe. Greta and I braved a ride in the ‘Buckets’, a chair lift from the town to the hill top draped with yet more golden grapevines. The view to the River in the af-ternoon light was sublime. That night our crew provided us with an entertainment of skits, juggling and other acts amazed us. Our final Fun happened in Budapest, where we had time to kill between leaving our ‘Treasures’ and catching our plane. Jan suggested a ride in the local bone-shaker underground railway to Heroes’ Square. We enjoyed a wander among market stalls and Robin and I bought pash minas. While we ate an enjoyable lunch at Robin-son’s Restaurant, rain had begun to fall so hard even the ducks were paddling for cover on the river. Before we set out for the station, I took the plastic bag from my pash mina and pulled it over my head. Robin did likewise, but hers sat nicely on her head with the handles looped around her ears, whereas mine, a little tight, filled with air and stood erect. Jan leading our group, looked like our carer taking us for a Sunday outing from some old peoples’ home. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest springs to mind. Obviously, the Hungarians had never seen anything quite like us, as we all but stopped the traffic and caused some strange looks. At least we raised a few smiles in what was otherwise a grey day for the local citizens.

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Private and confidential for Probus use only and not to be used for any other purpose. Photocopying by courtesy of the Hon. Dr Kim Hames MLA

The Odyssey continued ... Food: In a nutshell, the food on board was divine and surpassed anything we had ashore, however good or interesting that was, such as the Gala Dinner in Vienna, the Lagniappe in Bamberg with sausages, pretzels and smoky beer and the dinner in the Rudesheimer Schloss, a typical German restaurant. Flirtation: This is a natural follow-on from Food, as we enjoyed a flirtatious relationship with our Armenian waiter, Dikran. He took our comments in good part, obviously trained to humour aging ladies. Professional to the nth degree of table service, when Robin ordered her poached eggs well done – like to bounce off the walls, as Dikran set them down they wobbled. He immediately said, “Dancing eggs – no good,” and whisked them back to the kitchen. Eric, a trainee tour guide, seemed to have the job of making sure the older ladies were looked after, offering his arm when needed. I am sure his dimpling smile and charm-ing manner, caused a few ladies to stumble a little unnecessarily on the cobbles. He certainly revved up a few pacemakers.

All in all, a great holiday, but not for the less than nimble. Jessie Scott

It’s amazing what lengths some Members will go to to join an MIPC Walk !

Lyn and Grant Draper were moored in the Harvey Estuary and came in on a tender to join the Group on a very pleasant walk in Dawesville.

“I don’t want to get my sneekers wet or get bitten by a crab!”