newsApr25 | PROBUS Blue Mountain

Next Meeting: April 17th

Collingwood Legion
Member's Guests are Welcome

April Speaker: Sean Patrick Dolan - Author - My Father's Secret

Membership 188

April 2025 Newsletter

For the April 2025 President’s message, it is a time to reflect on the seasonal transition from winter activities into the club’s traditional spring/summer events.

Some members are gladly returning to Canada from warmer US vacation spots and all of us are looking forward to the start up of golf, biking, paddling and hiking with our Probus buddies. However, once again I am sure all our esteemed members are very concerned about recent threats made to Canada’s sovereignty and now our economy in light of Trump tariff announcements made on “Liberation Day”. It has been a chaotic week for global economies and stock markets with the impact of “Game Show” on again/off again tariff announcements from the White House creating massive uncertainly for businesses and resentment against America, across the world.

These events have brought about a reawakening of Canadian national identity and a resolve to take action to protect jobs and establish a growth agenda. Movements to buy Canadian, stop travel to the US, and eliminate inter-provincial trade barriers are short-term reactions. Longer term solutions are to establish international trading partners and build pipelines to our east and west coasts. I would urge our members to be knowledgeable concerning this unprecedented time and refer you to “Elbows Up Toronto” as one example of a community coming together for further discussion and ideas of how we can best react to the situation at www.elbowsuptoronto.ca

Turning to programming at Blue Mountain PROBUS, the club experienced many successful winter outings and now plans are being finalized by Chris Meleskie and his activities team for a great spring and summer of warm weather outdoor events. The schedules for weekly bike rides managed by Tom James, padding excursions managed by Carl Wintermeyer and hiking managed by Bill Brennan are the core of our events for the next few months.

The speakers committee under the leadership of Don Stockman has a great line up of speakers for the next year. Upcoming Social events managed by Dave Thomson include the Duntroon Highlands golf tournament and Kings Wharf, Rock of Ages, play. Georgian Probus Travel Group is offering four amazing group tours, three in Canada - Muskoka Cruise, Rideau Canal Cruise and Agawa Canyon Train trip, as well as a Moroccan tour.

A key opportunity to grow the number of club members is presented each spring as new-to-Collingwood retirees begin to look for interesting and active things to do. Ron Mitchell has taken the lead on finalizing an agreement with Collingwood Today to promote membership in our club over a number of weeks at no cost to our club. We continue to ask all members to bring guests to our monthly meetings and to consider volunteering as activity leaders. Please contact myself, Ron Mitchell, Stephen Hyndman or Chris Meleskie if you have an interest.

Our speaker this month is Sean Patrick Dolan presenting the fascinating topic “My Fathers Secret” and I look forward to seeing you at the monthly meeting April 17th 2025.

Respectfully,

Michael Coward
michael.coward@gmail.com

Sean Patrick Dolan is a local author. His first novel, My Father's Secret, was inspired by the Air India bombing of 1985. He cleverly refashions this Canadian national tragedy into a story set during the time of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. His second novel, The Prophet of Frogs Hollow, a work of fiction about a cult that lands in the Georgian Triangle, is due for release in May.

Since 2000, Sean has written professionally for the education community. He has worked on textbook teams at the Oxford University Press and has been both writer and editor for CBC News in Review. He was also the lead column writer for Canadian School Counsellor magazine for almost a decade. Sean lives in Thornbury, with his wife, Sharon Goodland, and their dog, Mulligan. They have two adult sons.

For more on Sean Patrick Dolan, go to https://www.seanpatrickdolan.com or email seanpatrickdolan2112@gmail.com.

A few updates for the Club:

The new Waiver form is available for your signatures.

Please Login on the Members page to see instructions. There are Buttons on the bottom of the page to allow Group Leaders to see who has a Waiver Signed. Previous Waivers are now stale and need to be renewed with the new form.

Just a note on Email protocols: (not trying to be bossy, but it may come out as such!)

If you are copying several members, please use the BCC (Blind Copy) panel to add recipients.
If you put "Probus" in the Subject panel, it will benefitit those of us who use automatic sorting.
It is always best to keep to one issue in email, rather than just replying to a long string of different subjects.

Cheers ... keep in touch.

Activities/Outings

Details-

Good afternoon PBM Cyclists. I know winter keeps coming back, but it's time to be thinking about the 2025 PBM ride schedule. Your cycling committee has created a ride schedule featuring seven rides. The remainder or part thereof will be scheduled later after we see how the first seven went and how many, if any, rain cancellations we had. So get out your bikes, check them out to ensure they are safe to ride, shine them up and let's ride!

Cycling Schedule

St Anton, Austria, February 5 - 14

Sun Peaks

Ski Legends Membership 2025-26

Hello Fellow Probus Blue Mountain Members.

Ski Legends has announced its ski trips for 2026.

Judging from the interest and excitement at the Legends year end breakfast these trips will go fast so, if you are interested, make sure you get your new2025?26 membership. The application is on the Ski Legends website https://probusskilegends.ca/

PDF copies of the flyers are attached.

St Anton, Austria, February 5 - 14
Sun Peaks, BC, February 25 - March 4
Ski Legends membership application for the 2025/26 is also attached
Online Trip Applications will open on Wednesday, May 21 at 6 pm.

(They will not be available before this time.)
More details will follow soon on the Legends website: https://probusskilegends.ca/

QUESTIONS? Email the trip organiser at legendsskitrips@gmail.com

And lastly, all participants must be PROBUS members and members of PROBUS Ski Legends for the coming season.

Enjoy the remaining ski days for this season!

Monty

The GPTG committee has established the first trip for 2026 which is Morocco, and it should be popular, as it is third on the list of favorite places to travel in the world, rated by Conde Naste. We are presently working on Japan as a destination, as it rates #1 destination in world travel. We are also working on Victoria BC. The trips for 2025 can be found on our GPTG Probus Canada webpage, gptg.probuscanada.ca

The news for the paddling group is that we now have a firm date for the Lake Willow Paddling Adventure. Our guides have chosen Sunday April 13th for this event. Lake Willow and its approaches are in full flood and the trip through the bush waterways should be easy. The date chosen is predicted to be warm, to make for a memorable paddling event. The Lake Willow area is the 4 th largest wetland in North America after the Everglades which is Number 1. Bonus! we don't have to go to the USA to enjoy this kind of wilderness!! Signed up paddlers have been notified! Carl

Paddling Schedule

Hi All The Snowshoe trek in Swiss meadows in March was enjoyable, with sunny weather and a reduced snowpack that was crispy and easily snowshoeable. Our group of four then retired to the Osler Bluff Ski club for lunch with Fred Chenoweth on the sun deck. A lovely day.

What a blast! Lunch at the Fig and Feta. I was very concerned when I booked this venue given our experience last year. The 6 of us couldn’t hear our selves think due to the gaggle of some 50 women seated close to us. This time the restaurant was almost empty and the 11 of us had a blast!!! I had one of the best lunch meals I have had ever.

The Iron Skillet next month!

Our Club enjoyed attending some Collingwood Blues games this winter. We had from 12 to 24 members attend regular season and playoff games. It was exciting hockey with a lot of camaraderie shared at the games and pre game meals. We look forward to another enjoyable experience next season! Thanks to the Blues organization for giving us access to the Founders Lounge for our comfortable viewing of the games!

Jake Johnston

The Kitchen Bridge group continues to meet the first and third Thursday of each month at 1:00 p.m. at the legion. Great relaxed camaraderie.

We welcome all who have an interest in the game of bridge -- whether a beginner or expert.  Play commences at 1:00 pm but, if you cannot come until later, come anyway. We will fit you into a game throughout the afternoon.

George Powell georgegpowell@gmail.com

Now that you're here ...

Take a look at the rest of the website. We have info on activities, calendar, speakers list and so on.

If you need to look up fellow PROBUS MEMBERS, you can login the to the Member's area. A number of members contribute to this content, so please check it out.