Newsletter

Cheryl Cooper was born in Toronto and spent her youth in Thornhill, Ontar-io. She presently resides in Bracebridge with her husband Randy and their two sons, Evan and Bro-die. She holds degrees in English and education from Queen’s University. Cheryl is a former teacher of the hearing-impaired and a volunteer for the Children’s Foundation of Muskoka.

Cheryl’s articles and sto-ries have appeared in nu-merous Canadian periodi-cals, and in 2010 she made her book publishing debut with Come Looking for Me, a work of histori-cal fiction set on the high seas during the War of 1812. She completed its first draft in the 2004 Huntsville Festival of the Arts “Muskoka Novel Marathon,” and earned top honours from the pan-el of judges. After several more years of research, her greatly expanded and refined novel was pub-lished by Blue Butterfly

Books. In 2014 her second novel, Second Summer of War, was published by Dundurn Press. Both books are part of the Sea-sons of War series.

When Cheryl is not at her desk writing, she is on the road speaking. In her spare time she enjoys journalizing, drawing landscapes, reading his-torical fiction, travelling and spending time at her cottage on Browning Is-land, Lake Muskoka.

Www.probusclubofburlington.ca

Probus Club of Burl ington

U pcoming

Speakers

July 20th—Gord Beck-

Aerial Photography In

WWI.

August 17th—Tim Bur-

rows—Tim Talks Tesla

1812 and the Age of Sail

June 2017

T he next meeting of the Probus Club

of Burlington will be held on Thursday June 15th, at 10:00AM at the Art Gallery of Burlington.

E xtending the hand

of welcome…

What better way to begin our morning than with a firm handshake and a friendly smile from our four greeters, Ron Wat-son, Ralph Gilbert, Ham Jukes, and Gar-net McCarra, guarantee this and will set the tone for the morning in true Probuscian style.

Thanks Gentlemen.

Membership Desk

On the Membership Desk this Month with Jim Alan is Reg Mechie

Guelph in 1967 with a BScAgr. He

married Sharon in Sept. of 1967

and they moved to Freeport Baha-

mas. He owned and ran a poultry

operation which was the sole sup-

plier of chicken and eggs to Free-

port. In January of 1972 they came

back to Burlington with two sons

and a third on the way. He got a

job in June of 1972 with Campbell

Soups in Listowel as poultry opera-

tions manager for them. In 1974 an

opportunity came up to buy a local

feed operation in Oakville. In Feb-

ruary of 1975 Ren's Feed and Sup-

plies was founded in Oakville. A

fire in Feb of 1980 destroyed the

mill but they rebuilt the operation

but not the mill. In 1993, they

mostly converted to pet food sales

and got out of the hardware and

lawn and garden sales. In 2002,

they built a new 10000 sq. ft. retail

store in Oakville which became the

model for more stores. Some or a

lot of you probably know the busi-

ness as Ren Pets depot. He sold his

interest in the business to his

youngest son 4 years ago and his

son has grown it to what it is today.

Ren has been retired for about 15

years. His interests are in garden-

ing, Pickleball, golf, Bocce and

horseshoes. He and his wife own a

villa in Naples FL where they

spend their winters.

Ron King was

born and raised

on a fruit farm in

Osoyoos, B.C.

located in the

southern end of

the beautiful Oka-

nagan Valley. After graduation

from Southern Okanagan Second-

ary School he attended the Okana-

gan College Campus of the Univer-

sity of British Columbia and ob-

planning a coup …. It could be good

place to begin. Many Probus snowbirds

know where his university is …. they

drive near it twice a year, and he could

easily recruit them with a Timmy’s and

a Timbit.

Oops, my thoughts wandered off into

anarchy.

Dr. Jardine, is possibly the most ac-

complished person to ever grace our

stage, with expertise in International

Relations, Internet Governance, Politi-

cal Violence, Terrorism and Insurgen-

cy. I wondered what he would ever say

that I could even understand. Bob

Lalonde’s intro to Eric dumbed down

his CV even enough for me.

Eric got to us quickly with his idea for a

Wi-Fi Pacemaker …. your pitter-patter

is monitored 24/7 by attentive comput-

ers in your hospital.

But he certainly got us to pay attention

to computer hacking by asking us how

that could screw up a pacemaker, by

introducing us to the complexity of the

Information Security Triangle. 1. Pri-

vacy 2. Security 3. Access.

All Eric has to do is figure out the an-

swer. Will he do it by the time he

speaks to us again?

Ren was born in

Hamilton but lived

on the family farm

where Fortinos is

on Plains Rd. He

lived there until he

was 9 when his par-

ents moved to

Ft Lauderdale Florida. He finished

high school there in 1960 and came

back to Burlington to get high school

so he could go to the University of

Guelph.

Ren graduated from University of

A sizeable crowd (92 Probuscans)

settled into the Lakeshore Room on

May 18, to be awed by speaker Dr.

Eric Jardine, and regaled by the

“Seven Minute Talk”, of member

Nick Olchowy.

Nick made a valiant, and entertain-

ing effort, to come in under the sev-

en-minute mark, but like most

members so far, didn’t make it. Per-

haps we should change the rule to,

“UNDER TEN MINUTES GUYS.

REALLY." Personally, I don’t feel

that seven minutes is any harder to

comprehend than, “Put Two Bucks

in The Bucket”, and on May 18 the

crowd actually exceeded it by $4.10.

Sirens, and bells please.

Did our speakers topic …. cyber-

crime…. have something to do with

this sudden surge of honesty? Or

maybe it was guilt?

And our speaker certainly informed

us about the dark web. You think a

secure government computer sys-

tem can’t be hacked? Fuggedda-

boutit. He actually told us how.

Or did he? He probably omitted a

couple of crucial details. Can’t have

geriatric Canadian Probusticans

taking over the world. Or might he?

Think about it.

Dr. Jardine has an extensive Cana-

dian educational background and

taught at our Royal Military College.

But for years now he’s been a pro-

fessor at Virginia's Polytechnic State

University, isolated deep in the Ap-

palachian Mountains …. if one were

Members Pages

Page 2 The Probus Club of Burlington Newsletter Www.probusclubofburl ington.ca

Ron King

Meeting Review

By Bob Chambers

Ren Job

Having taken Drafting

in High School, Don

first worked as a

Draftsman for

Canadian Westing-

house in the Electron-

ics Division, and then

transferred to the

Switchgear Division

until 1961. He then left to work at

Procter & Gamble as a Draftsman in

the Canadian Engineering Division

until he was promoted to management

as the Manager of Design Engineering

in 1976. This consisted of managing

the P&G design personnel and co-

ordination with the contract engineer-

ing consultants in Hamilton and Mon-

treal. During this time he also took

on the management of small projects

and then had the opportunity of a large

project at the Pointe Claire Plant.

Don moved to full time project man-

agement in 1984 at the Brockville Plant

when he was assigned as the acting

temporary Resident Engineer for a ma-

jor project which turned into a full

time position.

He has handled major projects as Pro-

ject Manager at the P&G Hamilton,

Belleville, Brockville and Pointe Claire

Plants.

Don finished his career as an employee

with P&G after nearly 33 years in 1994.

However this was extended another 3

years by working for P&G as a regis-

tered contractor (DJM Project Ser-

vices) . This began with a short term

project in Bangkok and then as the

Project Buyer for a major project at the

Toronto Facelle Plant with added

responsibility for project controls.

tained a diploma in business ad-

ministration.

In 1977, Ron moved to Edmonton,

Alberta where he began work for the

Bank of Nova Scotia as a consumer

credit trainee. For the next 20

years, Ron worked at a number of

branch locations in Alberta includ-

ing Innisfail, Camrose, Edson, Hin-

ton, Edmonton and Calgary eventu-

ally joining the Bank's Audit De-

partment.

In 1998, Ron was appointed Vice-

President, Audit Department re-

sponsible for auditing the retail and

commercial banking operations for

Scotiabank's Canadian Banking

function. Ron and his wife Bobbi

moved their family to Ontario and

settled in Burlington in July 1998.

In 2004 Ron was appointed Vice-

President and Chief Anti-Money

Laundering Officer for Scotiabank

and for the next 9 years he and his

team built Scotiabank's global anti-

money laundering program. He

was later appointed Senior Vice-

President, Corporate and Canadian

Banking Compliance with enter-

prise-wide responsibility for the

Bank's compliance risk manage-

ment program including ethics, pri-

vacy, consumer protection and anti-

money laundering. Ron retired in

February of 2016 after spending his

entire 39 year career with Scotia-

bank.

Ron and Bobbi have four sons, 3

grandchildren and 2 great grand-

children. They plan to spend sum-

mers in Burlington and the winter

months in Florida during their re-

tirement.

Meet members at the Squire for

lunch after our monthly meeting.

Continue the fellowship of the

meeting over a 13$ lunch which

includes a glass of beer or wine.. A

good selection is available to

tickle your palette.

One Sunday

morning, a

mother went

in to wake her

son and tell

him it was

time to get

ready for

church, to

which he replied, "I'm not going."

"Why not?" she asked.

I'll give you two good reasons," he

said. "(1), they don't like me, and

(2), I don't like them."

His mother replied, "I'll give you

two good reasons why you

SHOULD go to church:

(1) You're 59 years old, and (2)

you're the pastor!"

A Jewish Rabbi and a Catholic

Priest met at the town's annual 4th

of July picnic. Old friends, they

began their usual banter.

"This baked ham is really deli-

cious," the priest teased the rabbi.

"You really ought to try it. I know

it's against your religion, but I

can't understand why such a won-

derful food should be forbidden!

You don't know what you're miss-

ing. You just haven't lived until

you've tried Mrs. Hall's prized Vir-

ginia Baked Ham. Tell me, Rabbi,

when are you going to break down

and try it?"

The rabbi looked at the priest with

a big grin, and said, "At your

wedding."

Members Pages

Page 3 The Probus Club of Burlington Newsletter Www.probusclubofburl ington.ca

Squire

Don

McDougall

In 1987 the Probus Club

of Canada was formed.

That same year the Pro-

bus Club of Burlington

became the third club

formed.

This year we will cele-

brate our 30th anniver-

sary serving the commu-

nity of Burlington. The

newsletter will have in-

formation in later editions

recognizing this achieve-

ment.

Special Events

Page 4 The Probus Club of Burlington Newsletter Www.probusclubofburl ington.ca

Lunch is at the beautiful Cambridge

Mill on the river in Downtown Cam-

bridge.

Running for over 1200 per-

formances at the London’s

Whitehall Theatre, One

For The Pot has become

one of the most popular

and revived of the White-

hall farces. When a

wealthy Northern mill

owner offers £10,000 to

the son of a former busi-

ness associate provided he

is the only living relative,

Billy Hickory Wood arrives

in anticipation to collect

his money. It isn’t long be-

fore a procession of Hicko-

ry Woods follow, all claim-

ing to be the sole living re-

lation and rightful benefi-

ciaries, creating a seeming-

ly endless string of mistak-

en identities and hilarious

confusion.

Thursday July 27, 2017

Lunch 11:30 am

Play 2:00 pm

At Dunfield Theatre

Cost is $75/ person

Computer

Interest Group

Our next meeting will be on June 8th at 10am at Appleby Place.

Remember to send Robert your questions via email to

Robert.lalonde@me.com.

This month we will be looking at fu-ture technology related to compu-ting, plus answering your questions, so remember to bring or send them.

Interest Group Activities

Page : 5 Www.probusclubofburlington.ca The Probus Club of Burlington Newsletter

Published monthly by The Probus Club of Burlington, Box 85098, Brant Plaza P.O., Burlington ON, L7R 4K3

President: Brian Pattrick, 905-637-8036 Editing & Distribution: Bob Lalonde, 905-332-1383.

Probus Bridge Club

The Monday Bridge Group

Meets every week at the Ca-

nadian Legion. Join us for

lunch and friendly games of

bridge Starts at 12 Noon..