About 30 turned up for our meeting and to hear our terrific speaker Robin Bowles on “My life of crime” – in true crime books and some fiction, that is. (Pics: Robin with mutt; the Bowles book we can't put down right now).
President Mel inducted six new members Bill Attard and Margaret Fernon, Rosemary and Dennis Kiellerup, Kathy Barnes and Coral-lee Keep. We are all delighted they’ve joined and sure they’ll gets heaps of enjoyment with us.
Mel reminded that annual subs are now due, and his hard work on formulating privacy, refunds and risk-management policies for the club saw them formally recognised.
Our events calendar is cranking up and we learnt more about our Moulin Rouge party Sept 29, our Bright trip (May 2-3), the Shrine of Remembrance visit May 14, visit to the Johnson Collection in East Melbourne (May 25), train trip to Bendigo for the Mary Quant fashion retrospective June 10 and our two-night trip to Lake Nagambie (August 2-3 ).
Greg Jeffrey gave us all a demo on how easy it is to log on via Clubrunner to our website bearbrassprobus.org and retrieve our user names and passwords to get inside the engine room for member directories and so on. The website is also our go-to place for members to see what’s happening with the club.
Led by Jill De Araugo we had briefing and discussion on communications concerning our multiple channels.
After morning tea there was the much-anticipated talk by author Robin Bowles on her vast collection of books on controversial crimes and murders. She describes how she ‘writes herself in’ to her sleuthing books, and a very colorful character she is, always happy to tangle with society’s bigwigs including irascible judges and ask the real questions about various people’s sudden and untimely ends. Just to list a few of her books tells a tale: Blind Justice (1998), Justice Denied (1999), No Justice (2000), Rough Justice (2007), Death on the Derwent (2019) and Into the Darkness (2017)…
There was quite a scramble afterwards to buy signed copies of her books, and she advised us this morning, “I checked with the library on my way out and they have most of my books, as print, E-books and a few audio copies as well. Perhaps you can let your members know please.”
We lunch in our usual A-list style at Tap831 Bourke St. We were really impressed by the staff’s ability to look after our group so briskly and tastily.