Speakers

Corrimal Probus Club Guest Speakers

  • Member Peter Gibbs – “The Snowy Hydro from start to 2.0”
  • Dr Darren Koppel – A young Scientist who spent a few months in Antarctica at Casey Station
  • Member Judy Gibbs – The 25 Australians I dislike the Most
  • George Coward – Reflections on the Good Old Days
  • Mission Australia
  • Margaret Standaloft – The Story of Anthony Hordens
  • Max Davies talk on Short Movies on
    • Robertson Potatoes
    • Junee’s Cherries
    • Dark Forest’s Apples.
  • Members of the newly formed ‘I Click Clan’ photography group, Kevin Latta, Jane Fleming and Lydia Schranz gave a presentation of photos of Vienna together with snippets of history.
  • Australian National Maritime Museum speaker Gillian Lewis who provided a very interesting and excellent historical presentation of the Bark Endeavour.
  • Member Peter Gibbs provided a very interesting and excellent historical presentation of Sir Wilmot Hudson Fysh, KBE, DFC who was an Australian aviator and businessman. A founder of the Australian airline company Qantas, Fysh flew the first flight in Australia with a paying passenger.
  • Illawarra Retirement Trust – Rachel and Cathy from IRT who gave an informative talk on various products offered by the IRT
  • Member Lydia’s Story
  • Nyla Collins from Arcadians – the custodian of the costume wardrobe provided an excellent talk together with a selection of show outfits for display
  • Member Bruce Allan – presentation of his cruise through the North West Passage where they closely retraced the North West Passage route as discovered by Roald Amundson on the ship also named Roald Amundson
  • Colin Burgess – with his very impressive space travel presentation
  • Gillian Lewis from the Maritime Museum who will discuss the WWII Japanese submarine attack on Sydney Harbour in 1942.
  • Bill Fikkers who will talk about his book Dutchies in the Illawarra.
  • Melinda James, ABC Illawarra’s morning presenter, gave a compelling talk and answered questions about how her radio programs are put together. She outlined the 3 Hs (health, heart and hip pocket) as the reasons people will listen to radio. Her ‘fast and furious’ program is designed to inform, entertain and ‘give listeners what they need to know to face the day’. The show has been running for seven years and is a team effort with her capable producer, Jen Courtney. Listeners are people aged in their 50s, over 55s and 40s who are mainly retired or work in education, health, aged care or trades. Melinda said her family always listened to the radio to get the daily news when she was growing up. She felt privileged to have had a career in radio broadcasting and reminded us that ABC Sydney celebrated 100 years on air this year.
  • Mark Matthews who hosts the ABC breakfast radio on Saturday Mornings. Mark is a Wollongong local and his bio brief is -Was the Australian Yamaha Keyboard National Champion at 18 years of age.
  • Andrew Gee who will speak on Cyber Security.
  • Professor McHugh from Wollongong University. Her topic is Minefields and Mini skirts about the men who went to the Vietnam war and the girls who stayed at home.
  • Lisa McGregor from the IRT will be speaking on the services retired people might need in the future, how to apply, how to register, processing time and procedures, all the things you don’t want to be doing when you or your family member need these services
  • Paul Kearney will present the stories, the history and a selection of great old Rock & Roll songs and video clips from the 1950’s
  • Simulated Patient Program. A team from UOW’s Graduate School of Medicine will be speaking about this program which aims to produce excellent medical practitioners who are able to contribute to the enhancement of health care for patients in all geographic settings but particularly in regional, rural and remote communities. One of the key learning activities for medical students is the interaction between students and real people. To do this successfully, they need to involve people from local communities. Graduate School of Medicine has established a Simulated Patient Program at Wollongong, Shoalhaven and Southern Highlands campuses. This consists of volunteers from the community who act as patients for their medical students. This ensures that students learn and continually practice appropriate communi-cations with real people. During the talk they will ask for volunteers to role play a medical condition. It gives students an opportunity to discuss and advise according to the signs and symptoms that are presented. It does not include intimate examinations.
  • JOHN STEWART’S VISIT TO UGANDA . John visited Uganda with other members of U3A to help build a school. John took a long bus ride then a one-and-a-half hour trek to see a group of Gorillas in Bwindi National Park. Gorillas live in groups, are not territorial and have a vegetarian diet which does include insects. The leader of the group, a Silverback, determines the group dynamics, when to move to the next spot and when to stop for a meal and when to stop and sleep. The young are very quiet, but the young adults (blackbacks) like to test the limits with each other. A remarkable look at how a group of Gorillas act and interact.
  • Lily Piccolo. A rare eye condition diagnosed in her late 20s later rendered Lily legally blind and set her on a path into the elite sporting world where she has achieved milestones on the national and world stage that she had never imagined possible. Lily was living a full life as a teacher, wife and mother for 10 years while the disease remained stable, but then, Lily’s vision deteriorated further, and she was declared legally blind. Currently Lily has less than 10 percent of central vision remaining. Her athletic journey started during Covid. Around this time she discovered Exsight Tandems, an organisation in the Illawarra that pairs able-bodied cyclists with vision impaired cyclists so they can exercise. This was the beginning of her sporting career. Lily was crowned State Champion in July 2023 and has gone on to compete in many other para-cycling events. Lily is a motivational speaker and has worked for Vision Australia amongst many other things.
  • Dean or Hannah, exercise physiologists from Elossa Fitness Corrimal. They will be talking about bone health and exercise for seniors. Elossa is a gym run by health professionals that caters for our 60 plus community ensuring safe and effective exercise, as well as having fun doing it.
  • Peter Gray, author of the “Charlie Robertson” thrillers. Charlie is the unlikely hero who becomes a diamond billionaire. Peter is author of several books, Rough Cut, Brilliant Cut President’s Cut to name a few.