PROBUS Club of the Gateway

President's Message
June 2025

Does time have a habit of getting away from you? Sometimes that happens to me.   Here it is June 11 and it just occurred to me that unless I get my June President’s Message out, it will in fact become the July one.

I do have a quality excuse for my lateness.  My husband and I have just returned from a two week trip to Belgium and The Netherlands.  Many of you have been there, or were perhaps born there, and will be able to relate to our experience.  Both countries are infused with history, have amazingly preserved architecture in spite of damage from war time bombing and occupations, have water and canals everywhere, windmills – some of which still work, countless wheels of gouda, rich and flavorful beer, chocolate to die for, and let’s not forget to mention wonderful people who speak fluent English in addition to their varied mother tongues.

But the thing that made the most impact on me was a full day tour we took to Ypres and the surrounding area.  To stand in Flanders Fields and see the spot where John McCrae operated during WW1, to walk the last remaining trench and learn about the misery of trench life, to see pictures of the havoc wrecked by chlorine gas,  to stand on Hill 60 and imagine the horror of tunneling underground, to walk amongst headstones in cemeteries and be saddened by the sheer number of soldiers “known only to God”, and most of all, to see my great uncle’s name inscribed on the Menin Gate in Ypres along with others who didn’t return from the great war.

I cannot fathom what it would have been like to live in that time but I am very appreciative of those who sacrificed everything so we could be free.  We enjoy a really high quality of life here in Canada, but our world is still fraught with strife in many areas, and  leaders who feel entitled to take what isn’t theirs still exist. 

It’s easy to get discouraged but I want to end with a positive thought.  So here is an inspiring quote from former NDP leader Jack Layton:

Love is better than anger.  Hope is better than fear.  Optimism is better than despair.  So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.  And we’ll change the world.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the June Monthly Membership Meeting.

Joan