Minutes of the meeting of Coleraine Probus Club
Attendance: 42 members were in attendance.

Apologies: John Dobson, John Graham, Cecil Leitch, John McKegney, Ernest Preece and John Tan. (6)

The President, Mike Turner, welcomed members to the meeting together with our guest Chris Evans. He was also delighted to introduce this morning’s speaker Tommy Collins MBE. the topic of his talk being the “Blue Badge Tour Guide”

Tommy, originally a construction engineer with the EBNI, related that after taking early retirement he was encouraged to tell people of the beautiful land and seascapes found in N. Ireland. His ambition was achieved when, after a period of study, he was awarded a Blue Badge Diploma in Tourist Guiding by the Castlereagh College. He now delivers a range of heritage tours in Ireland and the United Kingdom with his core employment coming from the travel company “Travel Solutions” and the Cruise Ships of which 88 called in at Belfast in 2017. Tommy’s extensive talk, which contained many amusing anecdotes, concluded with a series of aerial photographs of the lower Bann valley taken by the well known photographer, Chris Hill.

The question and answer session was omitted because of time constraints. A summary of the talk is available in the speaker’s record book and here on the club website.
A vote of thanks, proposed by Des Moore, was passed to Tommy by the President. The members showed their appreciation of an excellent and detailed presentation.

Weekly Business:
Again because of time constraints the President, with the approval of the members, adjourned the Weekly Business section of the meeting to allow our guest, Chris Evans, to briefly address the meeting.

The Listening Road Show.
Chris, a farmer from Hereford and friend of our President, explained that he was in N. Ireland to promote a “Listening Road Show” where after the E. U. Referendum people with opposing views would be encouraged to take part in one hour structured conversations. Feed back from these meetings would be collated and forwarded to the policy makers in London. Unfortunately “Storm Ophelia” was responsible for the cancellation of the local Road Show but Chris was hopeful that this could be rescheduled in the near future.

Minutes. The minutes of the Probus Club meeting dated 10th October 2017 can be viewed here on the Club Website.

Next Meeting: The next meeting will be held on Tue. 24th Oct. 2017 when the speaker will be Robert Spotten on the subject of “A Goldsmith”. Members were asked to invite wives to this talk.

The President, thanking members for such a good turnout, closed the meeting at 12:13pm.

Signed Mike Turner
President.
Date 24th October 2017.