Weekly Business
Apologies: John Dobson, Noel Finlay, Jim Gordon, Ivan Gough, Dermot Jennings, John Ludlow, Aubrey McElhinney, Ian Murray, Billy Platt, Ernest Preece, Nigel Semple and Joe Wishart
Minutes: The Minutes of the 1 September 2015 were read, agreed and signed by the President.
Matters arising: None not covered by the agenda.
Correspondence: None.
REPORTS:
Social: Joe Alcorn reminded members that the Club Lunch will be held on Tuesday 29 September 2015. Menus are now available; completed menus should be returned as soon as possible.
Welfare: Cecil Spotten reported that Nigel Semple was going into hospital for tests. Ivan Gough is ill at present and is unable to attend Probus Meetings.
Treasurer: An apology was received from Nigel Semple.
A O B: 1. Probus Ties
The order for Probus Ties is about to be placed. Members wishing to place an order should contact Mike Turner or the Secretary today.
2. Charity Donations
The President reported that in his term of office, two charity collections will be made, the first to take place on Tuesday 15 September when a retiring collection will be made in support of The Nepal Earthquake Disaster a charity supported by Barry Torrens. A second collection will be held on January 2016.
“Peter Ferris – Ultra Marathon Runner”
Peter agreed to give his talk without the projected photographs.
In 1982 Peter Ferris began running marathons for Charities. He has run over 400 extreme and ultra Marathons in some of the world’s most inhospitable places raising over £600,000.00 for charities. 33 years later he is still running marathons. Some of the marathons include the Everest Base Camps Marathon, The North Pole Marathon, The South Pole Marathon and the Marathon of the Sand, run in the Sahara Desert. This is the toughest long distance race in the world. Each runner must be self sufficient. In this race Peter joined a group from the SAS.
The most difficult race for Peter was The North Pole Marathon with the final access to the course being by way of a Russian Transport plane. The race consisted of 10 laps of 2.6 miles over ice fields while navigating ice blocks and crevasses in temperatures of minus 42 degrees with a wind chill of 60. The South Pole Marathon was less hazardous although the sea journey from Argentina to Antarctica was, to say the least, difficult.
Peter still has the desire to run the world and plans to run the 2000 miles from New York to Los Angeles. He also hopes to complete 1000 marathons. His charitable achievements were recognised when Peter received the MBE from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace.
An extensive question and answer session followed and then the projection system finally burst into action Peter was able to incorporate the photographs in his answers.
A summary of this talk is also available in the Speaker’s Record Book and here on the club web site. A vote of thanks proposed by John McHenry was passed on to Mr Ferris by the President. The members showed their appreciation.
Next Speakers Meeting: Will be held on Tuesday 15 September 2015 and the speaker will be Mr Barry Torrens on the subject of “Surviving the Earthquake – Everest 2015”.
The President thanked the members for attending and looked forward to seeing them at the next meeting on 15 September 2015.
Meeting closed at 12.10pm.
SIGNED: John Graham
Date: 15 September 2015.
President.