Cooma’s Ladies Probus Club has a new president, vice president, assistant secretary and committee member who were all nominated and voted in at the Annual General Meeting held last Wednesday. Taking the reins as president is relatively newcomer Liz Martyn who will be supported by longtime member, Elisabeth Apps, the new vice president. Maria Linkenbagh will continue as secretary and thanks go to Carol Robinson who volunteered from the floor to be assistant secretary. Margaret Wainwright will continue to accurately and efficiently hold the purse strings as treasurer, with Jan Freimanis, Judi Knighton and Margaret Williams continuing in their respective social executive roles. Welcome to new member Elaine Boyle who has joined the committee alongside Glenyss Allen, Hazel Mackenzie-Kay and past president Lynne Brown to whom goes much gratitude for steering the Probus Club for the past year. Founding president Heather Little, aged 98, did a sterling job as Returning Officer chairing the election of office bearers. What a wealth of experience and skill is brought to the Probus Club by these mature, retired professional and business women.

Elisabeth Apps, the new vice president and member speaker for the day shared her childhood memories. Elisabeth sailed to Sydney from London as a three-year-old child with her parents in 1948 and remembers the cruise being luxurious and her family being treated like royalty. Her father had been sent to Sydney to set up an Australian office for his firm in England which organised control systems for businesses. Living in northern beaches suburbs Elisabeth fondly remembers her freedom, roaming the bush tracks near Middle Harbour, playing cricket, going fishing and swimming at the beach but being ‘attacked’ by ticks was not so pleasant. She attended high school in Manly and also learnt ballet which gave her the opportunity to be a young dancer in the visiting Italian Opera for which she was paid nine guineas for performing throughout the season.

Having attended North Sydney Technical College to learn typing and shorthand skills she worked as her father’s secretary and also in the office at the David Jones department store, home of the ‘Ladies in Black’. When asked which department she liked most, Elisabeth explained that in those days, accounts were hand written in triplicate, one for the customer and two for the store and she had to collect, collate and file the duplicate paperwork from each department within the store in her accounts office.

Cooma Ladies Probus Club will next meet on Wednesday 9 April in the Ex-services Club at 10am for 10.30am start.

Friendship is very much on offer and new members are welcome.