Probus 2026 Guest Speakers
January 19th
No Speaker
February 23rd
Wendy Crossman
Subject: A Reflection on 35 years in Port Douglas including different business escapades, tourism then and now and the occasional oddity!
Talk on 35 years in Port Douglas.
March 23rd
Kate Green
Subject: “From Peckham to Port – A gallop through hotels, hospitals and the UK Courts”
Kate will be talking about her career in the UK, ultimately as a lawyer in healthcare regulation, and the challenges she faced to make a difference.
April 27th
Liz Kendall
Subject: An American Story
Liz Kendall will look back on her years in the USA. She grew up in small town America in the 1950s and 1960s. Thanks in no small part to the Affirmative Action programs of the 1970s, she went on to graduate near the top of her class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She then had a 15-year career in the US Aerospace and Defence Industry. Her first employer was Boeing in Seattle, where she was the first female engineer at Boeing Marine Services (where Boeing built hydrofoils). She then moved to Los Angeles, where she completed a Masters and PhD at the California Institute of Technology while working full time in industry. Her research was in underwater acoustic tomography. This was motivated by her work at Interstate Electronics in non-acoustic anti-submarine warfare. She also worked in stealth technology at the Lockheed Skunkworks. Her most memorable employment was at Xerox Special Information Systems in the early 1980s, where revolutionary developments were being made in information technology/ computing. Under funding from the CIA (yes, that CIA), in an underground vault in Pasadena, teams at this hidden part of Xerox developed the first personal computer, graphical user interfaces, object-oriented programming, and hypermedia (hypertext). She remembers sitting in a room at Xerox when the team decided - this is going to be BIG!
May 25th
Dean Miller
Subject: Talk followed by tour of GBR Reef Legacy after short meeting at the Tin Shed.
Details of talk
June 22nd
Maybe Nicky Swan
Subject: Mossman Botanical Gardens Project
It’s a welcome return to Nicky Swan who this time around will tell us about her adventures somewhat closer to home than the North Pole – the Mossman Botanic Gardens (MBG). Nicky will describe the history of the MBG, the overall intentions of the project and its benefits not only to the local community but potential national and international significance.
July 27th
Chrissy Gilewicz Erica Mast
Subject: Neighbourhood Centre and Cyclone Preparation
Chrissy Gilewicz and Erica Mast from the Neighbourhood Centre. Chrissy will give an overview of the services offered by the Neighbourhood Centre and Erica will speak on the very important subject of Cyclone Preparation.
August 24th
Tony Brady
Subject: The Australian Dairy Industry
Tony will give an overview of his life working in the Australian Dairy Industry.
September 28th
Dr. Golo Maurer Director Bird Conservation Strategy, BirdLife Australia
Subject: Joining Australia’s largest Citizen Science Event the ‘Aussie Bird Count’ (19-25 October 2026) made easy.
Golo will introduce will give us a quick guide of how to be a scientist for a day by joining BirdLife Australia’s Aussie Bird Count. He will give us some handy tips on how to use the app to join over 64,000 Australian’s this October to count the birds in our backyards, parks or wherever you get your twitters. He will also provide us with some handy tips for local Port Douglas Bird ID and how to spin it on beyond Bird week if you have caught the bird ahem bug of birdwatching for science and conservation.
October 26th
Wendy Morris
Subject: Early Development of Port Douglas
Wendy wil talk about how her father John was instrumental in the early development of Port Douglas.
November 23rd Confirmed 21-02-26
Sandra Waldren Pearson
Subject: psychosocial planning for retirement
Retirement: the action or fact of leaving one's job and ceasing to work. Paradox: a seeming absurdity that may, indeed, be true. Reality Check! The dark side of retirement is a recognised psychosocial phenomenon. Sense of loss: identity and direction, meaning and purpose, routine and reason to get out of bed in the morning, social isolation/loneliness and boredom.
December
No Meeting