Club History
Probus Club History
Looking back through the archives of the Heywood Probus Club the first record we have is the minutes of a meeting held on the 23rd May 1972. This was a meeting held at the Heywood Bowling Club under the auspices of The Heywood Rotary Club to examine the possibility of starting a Probus Club in Heywood. By invitation JW Preen accepted the position of President, Stanley Wilde – Secretary and SA Stokes – Treasurer. To complete the committee, JF Bolton and F Clifford Wilde consented to serve.
The early records are brief and sketchy but we do have neatly typed brief notes – in elegant italic script- of the first few meetings especially the AGM’s. At a meeting on the 30th May 1972,attended by 5 members of the Committee, Heywood Bowling Club agreed to the use of a room at 50p per meeting. It was hoped that a buffet lunch could be provided for a small charge. Members were asked to pay 5p per meeting to defray the room hire charge and annual subscriptions were set at £1 from June 1st 1972.
An initial meeting was held on the 20th June at which 13 members were present and the first visitor – Mr Albert P Farrer from New Jersey - was signed in. The first official meeting of the Club was held at the Heywood Bowling Club on the 30th June 1972 and it was hoped that that this would become the venue for future meetings. The Rotary Club and Committee were asked to seek out suitable people to join.
It was proposed that Club Officers would serve a 2-year term but they could not then apply for re-election for a further year. Guest attendance was limited to not more than twice in any club year.
The Christmas Lunch
The annual Christmas Lunch was one of the founding purposes of the Club and has been held every year since the 18th December 1973.
The December 1974 Christmas Lunch was held at The Birch Hotel at a cost of £1.75 incl. VAT. A quotation from The Crimble for that year of £3.75 plus 25% service was not accepted. The following year the Lunch was again held at The Birch Hotel but the price had risen to £2.
It became customary for the Club to subsidise the price of the Lunch including the cost of the wine enjoyed by members. In the early years, invited guests included the Mayor of Heywood and the President of Heywood Rotary. The tradition of inviting the latter, with his partner, has been maintained to date.
Around 1984, the price of the meal at the Birch had risen to £6 (a special price for Probus as normal price was £7.50.Members were asked to pay £6.60 to cover the meal and gratuities but the club continued to pay for the wine. By 1990, the Birch had raised the price to £8.50 and the committee then paid £40 for wine and £20 gratuities to the Birch staff.
The venue then changed at some point to the Albany Hotel as the minutes for the 15th Dec.1992 Lunch refer to gratuities being paid to the owner, Peter Rush.
The Anniversary Lunch
During the Presidency of Jack Geddes, Stanley Jackson advised members that May 1992 was the 20th Anniversary of the Club’s formation and, to celebrate this, it was decided that a buffet lunch would be served after the meeting on the 19th May 1992 at the Albany Hotel. This has now become an annual fixture in the Club’s programme held, in recent years at the Masonic Buildings in Rochdale.