Membership

Question: I am a Member of a PROBUS Club where I presently reside but am considering relocation to another community where I believe there is a PROBUS Club. Is there any provision for transferring your membership from one PROBUS Club to another and will I have to pay the "initiation fee" again?

Answer: All PROBUS Clubs are totally independent of each other and operate within their own Bylaws and budget.

To my knowledge most Clubs do not have a set policy and it will be entirely up to the Club in your new community as to whether there will be an initiation fee since other new Members are no doubt required to pay same to assist with the name tag, Probus pin, etc. You may be able to obtain a reduced fee but please do not be offended if you are unable to do so.

Question: Are we allowed to have "associate members"?

Answer: Although I am not certain as to why you might wish to have "associate members" there is nothing to say that you can not do so. It would have to be in your Bylaws along with "Honorary" or "Honorary Life" Members with guidelines for reference purposes. Even though you might have "Associate" or "Honorary" Members, they must be shown in your membership records and included in your annual submission and remittance to Probus Centre-Canada for the record and for insurance purposes.

Question: Are we allowed to stipulate that Members must attend at a specific number of meetings in any given year.

Answer: No, one of the promotional aspects of membership in PROBUS is that there is no compulsory attendance at meetings. We recognize that it can be frustrating if you have Members who do not attend and at the same time have a "waiting list" of people who would like to join.

The best solution is to simply ask non-attendees if they would step aside and allow room for those who would like to attend. There may be a variety of reasons why "paid up" Members do not attend and discussion with them may serve to enlighten you as to what theirs might be. It may also be that they have a "need to belong" or simply wish to support the Club (financially).

The Standard Club Constitution opens with Probus is a local, national, and international association of retired and semi-retired people ... A question arose as to how we define semi-retired, which this article attempts to answer. The question presumably was asked when considering admission of a prospective member.

There are many definitions of the adjective retired available but here is one from Merriam-Webster:

• withdrawn from one's position or occupation : having concluded one's working or professional career

and for semi-retired:

• working only part-time especially because of age or ill health

with semi being defined as

• half in quantity or value : half of or occurring halfway through a specified period of time

There is no useful metric to gauge how 'semi' a prospective member's retirement needs to be for admission, e.g. how many hours are being worked, how many freelance projects are being undertaken, how many consultancy reports are in the works, etc.

It is more meaningful to look at the underlying reason why Probus clubs target the retired and semi-retired population: we want members to be active participants who bring their lifelong experience to create new and lasting connections. They need to be able to make time for that, something that is much easier when no longer working full-time.

If a prospective member is still living and working part-time in the big city and only comes up to the club's geographic area on weekends, then this may not be a good fit. If on the other hand, someone wants to lead Probus activities while also writing another novel, then that would be an excellent fit.