RCM launches Melbourne Bearbrass Probus
On Wednesday Feb 12 about 30 turned up at Dock Library, Docklands for the successful launch of Bearbrass Probus for active retirees. President Warwick opened the meeting, which was chaired by Probus former national director and treasurer Robert Renshaw of Glen Waverley RC and District 9810.
By meeting’s end Bearbrass had signed on 15 members with about five more in absentia, and a near-complete tally of office bearers was enrolled. Peter Duras and Roger Thornton joined with Anne King (banker-extraordinaire) to help Tony Thomas run the launch.
Robert will now apply to Probus HQ for the club’s ratification. Its first regular meeting will be at 10am at the Dock on Tuesday March 10, thereafter second Tuesdays of the month. Typically, Probus clubs grow rapidly by word of mouth after formation.
Melbourne Sunrise Probus president Jill Tabart and several Sunrise members came as a goodwill delegation.
Bearbrass is the first Probus Club started by District 9800 since 2016 and the first new city-based Probus since RCM launched Sunrise Probus in 2011. In District 9800, there’s now 90 Probus clubs with 7100 members, compared with 65 Rotary clubs and 2200 members.
The inaugural Bearbrass President is Dr Winsome Roberts, originally a social anthropologist and now a with distinguished research history at Melbourne University in social and community analysis.
Treasurer is Michael Brophy, with a background in consulting with Deloitte.
Tony says marketing of the launch meeting was difficult, particularly in accessing the towers where many retirees live. Blitzing groups and individuals with emails runs up against the ‘spam’ factor and getting flyers on to community noticeboards not easy. He also arrived late at the social media marketing gate, but got Bearbrass Facebook started with help from Danny Lim.
In the final days before launch he fell back on tradition and letterboxed about 600 flyers in North Melbourne and Port Melbourne over two days, with surprising success in gaining the club’s president and treasurer. “Without that last-minute letterboxing, the launch would have struggled,” he says.
Robert Renshaw has launched two outer-suburban clubs this year, after previously launching eight since 2016. The recent clubs were Clarinda Probus (January 23) and Keysborough Probus (February 6). Another Melbourne club, Armadale, started February 7, and March will see launch of Warrigal & District Probus (March 16) and Mornington Beach (March 26).
In the Probus fiscal year since last April, 49 news clubs have started with close to 60 targeted by end-March.
Probus welcomes new clubs because a swathe of clubs founded 30-40 years ago have aged. Australasian membership of Probus is down from 175,000 in 2011-12 to 124,000 this year (current Australian Rotary members, 27,000). The Probus member decline has slowed noticeably in the past couple of years after vigorous marketing led by Probus’ Parramatta headquarters.
