Gardening Group: Our last meeting for the year at Bunnings Box Hill South was a summary of all we had learnt from our in-house Gardening Guru, Peter. 

The was much discussion around garden pests and fugal disease such as black rot on our roses. This is a particular problem this year due to the hot and humid conditions. The fungus spores live in the soil at the base of the roses and rain splashes carry the pest up and onto the leaves. 

Peter also recommended dolomite lime for our tomatoes to ensure good fruit and to lessen the risk of the dreaded blossom-end rot. Our thanks to Peter and wife Joan for all their advice and help with our gardens over 2024.

February meeting: Our Probus year began with our first meeting for the year on 3 February. Despite the heat, an excellent attendance of 75 members caught up with every-one's news from over the Christmas break.

President Lino welcomed every-one back and reminded the audience that the March meeting will be our annual general meeting.

As a good sign for our future, three new members were inducted - Kaye, Margot and Raelene. They had all attended several meetings late last year and were delighted with the large range of activities our Club has on offer. All three have signed up for our annual Getaway in March.

Our excellent speaker was Dave Cox. Dave is an Army veteran and a musician. Dave is the driving force behing Guitars for Veterans, a volunteer organisation that uses music the help veterans, emergency sevice personnel and others suffering from Post-Traumatice Stress Disorder to recover through music, and, in particular, learning the guitar. 

Dave discovered the programme in the USA and decided there was a major requirement for such a programme in Australia. He spoke knowingly about the benefits of the programme and its success where it is now offered in all our states. The organisation is wholly dependant on volunteers and donations of money and guitars. All excellent speaker on a very important topic.

Theatre Group: Our first theatre outing for 2025 and 15 members enjoyed an outstanding performance at The Round, the new theatre at the City of Whitehorse. It was an excellent two man performance that features high-lights from the career of the Hollywood and Broadway actor- Donald O'Connor. After an excellent morning tea with cakes it was into the very comfortable seats and on with the show. Thank you to our Theatre organiser, Bianca.

Garden Group: Our first garden group for 2025 got off to an excellent start at Bunnings Box Hill. Given the long, dry summer our Gardening Gurus, Peter and Joan concentrated on water conservation and water retention in our gardens. Peter recommends watering in the early morning or in the late afternoon to preserve as much moisture as possible. This should be combined with mulching to reduce evaporative losses. 

He recommends sugar cane mulch as the best, especially on vegetable beds. Alternatively, use pine bark mulch although the two can be combined with the cane mulch underneath and the pine bark on top to prevent the cane being blown away in strong winds. In preparing a new planting area, Peter advises that the area should be soaked and a water retaining agent added before the mulch is laid down. He pointed out that water retaining agents need to be re-applied every two or three months. As which water retainer he would recommend, he is of the opinion that there is little to deferentiate the various options although he uses a product from Richgro.

March General Meeting: The March meeting each year is a 'combined session' with the March monthly meeting followed by the annual general meeting. Our club began in 1999, so this is our 26th AGM. At the election for the members of the committee of management, Sandy was elected President and Rob, a past treasurer, returns as Vice President. The other members of the committee can be seen on the Club Management page. It is reassuring for the Club to have three new faces bringing new ideas to how we function.

Again, as is usual at the March meeting, our speaker was one of our Club members. This year we asked Lee to talk about his very interesting career. He graduted in chemistry but then with his first job, he moved into plastics. In this role he worked for a German plastics manufacturer who built a plant in Libya and there Lee worked for a number of years in a stricly Muslem country. 

After a career change or two, he ultimately joined the staff at a food analysis company in Melbourne. He had some great stories to relate about food purity and concerns people had with items they found in food. One concerned a man who said he had found a mouse tail in a can of cola. Expecting a big payout from the company, Lee identified that the item was actually a piece of pasta placed there by his son. It had had absorbed colour and fluid from the cola...so, no mouse tail, no money.

April Meeting: A very successful monthly meeting and also our annual birthday lunch to celebrate our 26th year. The 78 members and three visitors enjoyed an excellent presentation from our invited speaker, Sergeant Wayne Kohlmann.

Wayne is a Senior Crime Scene Examiner with the Victoria Police Forensics department within which he has worked for over 20 years. Wayne highlighted the differences between 'real life' crime scene investigation and that portrayed on TV forensics investigation dramas - completely different! He detailed how a crime scene is meticulously investigated to collect the evidence using modern laboratory techniques but also taking care not to contaminate the scene. 

Following his presentation, and dealing with numerous questions, we broke up for a sandwich lunch and the cutting of our birthday cake by our immediate Past President, Lino.

May Meeting: Seventy members plus two visitors and an impending member, gathered at the Uniting Church Hall on a warm Spring morning - in May no less! It was an opportunity to celebrate the presentation of the certificate acknowledging 20 years of very active membership and participation in our Club by Ruth and Brian. Congratulations to you both and we are looking forward to your participation in many more years of Probus membership.

Our speaker today was the President of the Yarra Riverkeepers Association (YRA), Janet Bolitho. YRA is a member of the international Riverkeepers Alliance, founded in the US in 1983. It since spread around the world. The Yarra Association developed out of the damage wrought to the Yarra by the millennium droughts and the associated severe loss of environmental flows. Janet delivered an uplifting presentation on the history of the association and its success in achieving vital legislative change to protect the entire 242 kilometers of the Yarra. Their lobbying resulted in bipartisan support for the Act.

After the meeting, many of us moved to and enjoyed the Vice President's lunch at the Knox Club.

June Theatre Group: Great support from our members who attended the Barbirra Music Theatre production of My Fair Lady at The Round theatre, Nunawading. As always, Barbirra mounted an outstanding production with an extremely talented cast. Everyone was full of compliments for the performance. This is the fifth year we have enjoyed their annual production. And we are so fortunate as to have this excellent theatre on our doorstep.

Dine-outs: It is great to have the Dine-outs now under the leadership of husband and wife team, Dennis and Jill. And an excellent start too at Poppies restaurant, Canterbury Rd, Blackburn South. Our last visit was two years ago so it was a delight to return and to find that the service and the food were of the same high standard. A 12noon start and the last to leave were not until 2.15 so clearly everyone thoroughtly enjoyed themselves. The July Dine-out will celebrate Christmas-in-July...venue to be advised in The Bulletin.

July Meeting: The cold weather continues but the good news is that we now know how to turn on the heating in the hall when we start setting up the hall. This means the hall is warm by the time members start to arrive at 9.30! Despite the weather, 67 well-rugged up members plus three visitors attended the meeting.

Our invited speaker was Ian Whitehill, a volunteer and an ambassador for Prison Fellowship Australia and a dynamic presenter.

Ian explained the role that PFA plays in prisons around Australia. They interact with willing prisoners to give them an insight into their personalities and how this leads to criminal activities. By education and introducing prisoners to Christianity, PFA tries to give them a new direction in their lives. PFA also provides vital support for prisoners following their release, especially where prisoners do not have adequate family support in that first year after they return to the community. 

A confronting presentation but extremely insightful.

July Gardening Group: A big turn-out for the July meeting, despite the cold at Bunnings Box Hill. Peter The Gardening Guru was in fine form with plenty of advice for us now that our gardens have received some rain.

Roses - now is time to prune and treat with Lime Sulphur to prevent the dreaded black spot fungal disease. Spray the soil around the base where the fungal spores are hibernating over winter.

To early to fertilise citrus - wait for spring when the soil warms and growth starts. The problem with citrus gall wasp cannot be prevented. Unless the tree is severely affected, leave it alone. The so-called wasp traps seem to catch every other insect (some of which are beneficial) but do not prevent gall wasp attack! A waste of money.

For sick-looking indoor ferns - spray the leaves with water plus water around the base with added Seasol. For cyclamens, inside for 2-3 days and then outside for a day or two. Once they die back, plant them in a shaded spot in the garden and they will grow back each spring.

For dahlias and spider mite Peter recommends a safe alternative to herbicides by using white oil.

August meeting: The cold weather continues and it is certainly impacting attendances this year - 65 members attended with three visitors. However, we were not forgotten since 25 members sent their apologies. Of course at present we have many members on the sick list with the dreadful cold that is doing the rounds. Unfortunately it laid low our invited speaker who had to cancel due to a bad cold and laryngititis.

At the meeting the first details of Getaway '26 were announced. We will be going to Cowes for the week staying at the Amaroo Caravan Park. The full details of all the activities with costings will be advised at the September meeting but 21 members have already signed up.

Fortunately one of our members was able to step in and fill the gap with a presentation that he has delivered to other Probus Clubs and U3A but never to his own Club. The presentation discussed the serious effects that scurvy had on ships' crews as Western Europe began long ocean voyages in seach of the Spice Islands. James Lind and later, Sir Gilbert Blain were the two Royal Navy physicians who proved to the navy that citrus juice was the solution in the period 1745 to 1795. Campbell corrected the widely held misconception that James Cook was the person who was responsible for conquering scurvy in the navy.