JUST a few short months after celebrating its 35th year of existence, the Hawks Nest-Tea Gardens Probus Club has ceased to function.

The club was founded in February 1988 following sponsorship from the Rotary Club of Rutherford-Telarah.

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Until 2019, the club operated as a single-gender club, however whilst the club’s constitution was silent on gender and its membership only open to men, wives and partners were always included in all its social functions and outings and they were also invited and made welcome to the monthly meetings despite having no voting rights.

Following the formation of a new mixed Probus Club in Hawks Nest in 2011, the club’s membership numbers slowly declined from approximately one hundred members to less than sixty over the next several years.

In late 2018 with the intention to address the declining numbers and after much discussion and deliberation, the HN-TG Probus Club began the transition to become a combined Probus Club in 2019.

Following a strong membership drive conducted in conjunction with the transition, membership grew rapidly to 113 members by the end of 2019.

However, when the COVID pandemic struck in early 2020, the club was forced into recession until early 2021.

Further disruptions and restrictions including social outings continued and as a result, the fallout that followed was that many of our newer members resigned without having experienced the real benefits of being part of Probus.

Despite the sadness of the club winding up on June 30, there will always remain the fond memories of the enjoyable times shared along the way, memories that will remain with us beyond Probus.

Since the 35 years since the club’s foundation, members have been able to participate and enjoy a wide range of activities on offer including the many annual trips away, social evenings, mystery lunches, movies, and live shows.

For our many lawn bowlers in the club, we celebrated trophy wins along the way.

We also enjoyed many delicious homemade cakes and scones at our monthly meeting morning teas, not forgetting our many incredibly interesting guest speakers that we had speak at our meetings.

In many ways the club became a victim of its success.

Over 35 years, there were not too many guest speakers around that had not addressed the club and there are only so many trips away before they start to be repeated.

The activities of the club ended with a dinner on 23 June, the last chapter of what has been a great journey for all Probarians that have been part of this once-proud club.

It has been suggested at the farewell dinner that consideration be given to holding a reunion dinner around the time of the club’s foundation anniversary (15th February), the invitation would extend to all past members including life members and widows of past members.

It would be great to see this happen.

It was the unanimous decision of the club to donate the surplus club funds to the Tea Gardens Primary School ‘Breakfast Club’.