When it hasn’t been seniors’ day, week, month, or even their year, Probus clubs in New Zealand have offered fellowship for the over 60s for half a century.
Six of its Nelson Tasman clubs celebrated the organisation’s milestone at Nelson Golf Club on Thursday with a cake cutting, chinwags and a performance by the local steampunk band, the Mafficking Whooperups.
Speeches from the Probus South Pacific chairman, Michael Ransom, and its chief executive Silvana Martignago, both based in Australia, capped off the event.
Originating in the United Kingdom following the success of Rotary, Probus begun in New Zealand in 1974 when a member of the Rotary Club in Paraparaumu was impressed by the adroit service.
Probus Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough district chair, Robin Johansen, says the current local clubs based in Nelson City, Stoke, Richmond and Motueka formed between 1988 and 2007, and its values have made semi-retirees and retirees, ‘man and woman about town’.
He says the social groups also languish the risk of elders becoming isolated.
“They’re about social connection for seniors, and the clubs run a wide variety of activities with regular monthly meetings, which have at least one speaker, and they have a huge range of activities,” he says.
“It runs from cycling, pétanque, chess, ukulele groups, so it caters for a very wide range of interests for seniors who can get together and have some fun.”
Robin says past speakers have included police and Antarctic explorers.
