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THE PROBE VOLUME 30 ISSUE 8 MAY 2018

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE PROBUS CLUB OF ST. CATHARINES

To stimulate interest and participation in activities at a time of life when one often welcomes new friendships and an atmos-phere of sharing ideas and information. The PROBUS Club of St. Catharines meets at 9:30 a.m. on the second Tues-day of each month at the Grantham Lions Club, 732 Niagara St., St. Catharines, On-tario. Mail: 37 Wakelin Terr., St. Catharines, ON

L2M 4K7 Website: www.probusstcatharines.com Password: lionsclub

2017-2018 MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

President: Hugh Gayler 905-684-9097 Vice President Len Thibeault 905-397-6735 Past President John Senn 905-984-5360 Secretary: Jim Stangier 289-213-2460 Treasurer: Denis Woods 905-646-1285 Programme: Tim Kaye 905-945-8677 Membership: Ralph Steffen 905-935-3282 Spec.Evnt/Ed. Visits: Herb Woods 905-401-9905 Probe Editor: Hugh Learmonth 905-934-2268 Webmaster: Russ Milland 289-362-3420

NEXT MEETING

TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2018

GRANTHAM LIONS CLUB

732 NIAGARA ST., ST. CATHARINES

Our speaker at the May meeting will be Col-

leen Beard from Brock University talking

about the history of the third Welland Canal

started in 1872.

GENERAL MEETING

TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

Call to Order: President Hugh Gayler called the meeting to order at 9:30 a.m.

O Canada: Hugh Gayler led the singing of the na-tional anthem.

Moment of Silence: There was a moment of si-lence observed to honor the passing of member Lorne Finn and also the victims in the Humbolt Broncos fatal bus crash.

Guests: Membership chair Ralph Steffen indi-cated there were five guests present: Frank Park-house, guest of Bill Smith; Jeff Orbornt guest of Art Currie; Duncan McLaren, guest of Bruce Kni-cley; Eric Crawford, guest of Walter Asbil; and

Grant Myers, guest of Jeff Maissan.

Outreach: John Senn indicated that Bill Brice fell and broke his leg. He has undergone an operation and is in the General Hospital and will be in for some time. Vic Cicci's daughter has been diag-nosed with cancer. Jack Inglis is not doing well. Maurice Gomme was welcomed back following surgery.

Romeo Lunch: Art Currie indicated that only about 20 attended last month's lunch. Next lunch will be April. 25

th at the Dalhousie Yacht Club. Art

also reminded members that the Management Bar-becue will be June 7

th at the Yacht Club. The cost

is $15.00/person with drinks $7 for wine and beer. Dinner will be at 6 p.m. Len Thibeault is accepting signups.

Juliet Dinner: Mac Gollet advised that the next Juliet Dinner will be September 27.

Education Visits: Al Higgins indicated that he was taking signups for a tour and tasting at the Lock Street Brewery in Port Dalhousie on April 12. Because of size restraints, the tour was limited to 20 people. Among other tours being considered, the next one will likely be to view the Welland Ca-nal control system. More information will follow.

(Continued on page 2)

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Guest Speakers: Tim Kaye indicated next month's speaker will talk about the history around the third Welland Canal.

Men’s Breakfast: Jim Cameron issued a re-minder of the next men's breakfast on Monday April 18

th at 8:30 a.m. at Angels Diner on Ontario

Street. The gathering is always the Monday after the PROBUS meeting. Those attending are en-couraged to wear their name badge.

Stratford Trip: In Bob Henderson’s absence, Hugh Gayler provided a reminder of the trip to the Stratford Festival to see The Music Man on Sep-tember 21. Hugh also accepted any cheques or signups. The cost is $160 per person.

Cameo Speaker: Art Currie gave us some bene-ficial points on TFSA (Tax Free Savings Ac-counts). (See further details on Page 3.)

Attendance: Ralph reported the attendance was 55% of membership.

(Continued from page 1)

Young adventurer describes his journey to Amazon rain forest

Tim Kaye introduced guest speaker Owen Bjor-gan, who grew up in Queenston, graduated with a BSc in Biodiversity from the University of Guelph and has turned a live-long fascination with nature into an amazing career all by the age of 25.

Owen’s presentation was titled Hidden Corners: East An-des, Ecuador and detailed his journey to the Amazon rain for-est and climb to the summit of Sumaco volcano in the Sumaco Napo Galeras National Park.

When Owen arrived in Ecua-dor rivers were flooded and ani-mals were forced to higher ground. As he pointed out, the rain forest never experiences a dry season it is just wet and wet-ter.

During his five days in the rain forest, Owen encountered and photographed such crea-tures as the Cane toad, which has created such a problem after being imported to Australia. He also had close-up experiences with a variety of stick insects, beetles and worms that were more than two feet in length.

Owen said that he felt very privileged when told that he was probably the first outsider to visit cer-tain areas of the rain forest.

After his trip in the rain forest, Owen was stricken with Dengue fever, a virus carried by mos-quitoes. He said that he was fortunate that he had chosen a hostel directly across the road from a hospital. He lost nearly 10 pounds in 48 hours and

took two weeks to recover.

The trip up the 3,732 metre Sumaco volcano allowed Owen to pass through a variety of eco-systems with many unique spe-cies of flora and fauna. He de-scribed one frightening encoun-ter on the way when he and his guides heard voices and ex-pected to run into bandits only to meet a group of firefighters and a policeman doing wildness training.

Despite the fever, bites, a minor electrical shock and other discomforts, Owen said that he is eager to return to Ecuador because it offers such a unique experience.

That Hidden Corners journey as well as other videos, including one through Niagara, are avail-able online at Biophilic World.

Bruce Knicley praised Owen for his adventur-ous spirit and thanked him for his presentation.

Owen Bjorgan

Music Man tickets still available

There is still time to book your tickets for the PROBUS Club trip to the Stratford Festival to see The Music Man.

Bob Henderson has arranged for outstanding seats at the Festival Theatre for the matinee per-formance on Friday, September 21.

The cost of $160 per person includes the musi-cal as well as lunch at the Queen’s Inn and Can-ada Coach transportation – including driver’s tip.

The bus will leave Mountainview United Church at 9:30 a.m. and return around 7 p.m.

This trip is open to PROBUS members, spouses and friends. The cut-off date for ticket numbers will be Monday, July 30.

Bob will be accepting signups at the May meet-ing. It is best if you get your cheque (made out to the PROBUS CLUB) in early!

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Tips on getting the best value

out of Tax Free Savings Plan

You can designate either in your will or in the Tax Free Savings Plan (TFSA) contract you have with your financial institution who you want to re-ceive the assets in your TFSA. If the designation is in your will, the TFSA could be subject to provin-cial probate tax (Estate Administration Tax). If the designation is in the TFSA contract, probate will not apply. Also changing the TFSA contract is easy and cost free, whereas changing your will can be costly.

You can name anyone as the “Designated Beneficiary” of the assets in your TFSA plan. At death your plan is frozen at its fair market (FMV) value and remains tax free. Any increase in the FMV after death is taxable to the beneficiary. The assets in your plan must be transferred to your designated beneficiary December 31 of the year following the year of death. Failure to do so results in a signifi-cant financial penalty. The beneficiary can contrib-ute the assets to his/her own TFSA only to the ex-tent that they have unused contribution room.

If the beneficiary is your surviving spouse or common-law partner, he/she can “roll over” the assets into his/her own TFSA within the above time

period without affecting the unused contribution room in their plan. If the surviving spouse chooses this option, he/she must file form RC240, “Designation of an Exempt Contribution Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA)” within 30 days after the day the contribution is made or at a later time as permitted by the specified Minister. However, any increase in the FMV after death is taxable in-come to your surviving spouse.

An easier alternative is to name your surviving spouse as the “Successor Holder” of your TFSA plan in the TFSA contract or in your will. Only your surviving spouse is eligible to be named as a Successor Holder. He/she would immediately upon death become the owner of the plan. The TFSA continues to exist and both its value at the date of the original holder's death and any income earned after that date continue to be sheltered from tax under the new successor holder. At any time, your surviving spouse can consolidate the two plans into one for easier management.

An effective alternative is to name your spouse as the “Successor Holder” and someone else as the “Designated Beneficiary”. This way if your spouse predeceases you, there is no need to change the TFSA document. This can be done within the TFSA contract itself or in your will.

— Art Currie

(Art holds a Certificate in Financial Planning from the Canadian Institute of Financial Planning and taught financial planning courses for ten years at Niagara College.)

Art Currie

Mapping the historic Welland canals

Colleen Beard, Head of the Map, Data & GIS Library at Brock University, has spent the past eight years working both on the ground and buried in stacks of maps to create an open-source digital resource showing the routes of 19th century Wel-land canals as they would appear on today’s land-scape.

On Tuesday, May 8, she will share her research with our PROBUS club, “Mapping the Historic Wel-land Canals One Lock at a Time — My Story.” It is a fascinating audio-visual presentation.

In the early stages of the project, Beard and her team focused on digitizing historical maps and ae-rial photos, and then showcasing them using Google Earth. She detailed this phase of the re-search in a contribution to the 2014 book, Histori-cal GIS Research in Canada.

“Mapping the routes and features on the current

landscape made me realize the vastness of these canals,” Beard says. “The amount of land that was occupied by water, mainly the weir ponds that en-

gineered the locks, is expansive.

The project wasn’t without its chal-lenges. In addition to her extensive archival research and digitization work, Beard hiked every metre of the three historic canals in St. Ca-tharines and Thorold to document the landscape.

The fruits of Beard’s labour on the HWCMP have already been put to use. As she points out, “The digital map data created for the canals has been used by architectural students for 3D model-ling of the canals, as well as faculty for planning a local archaeology dig of a ship buried on the bank of Twelve Mile Creek at the old Shickluna Dry Dock site.”

— Submitted by Art Currie

Colleen Beard

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2018 Management Barbecue

There is still time to sign up for the Management Barbecue but the reservations are filling up. See Len Thibeault at the May meeting.

Date: Thursday, June 7 at 6 p.m.

Location: Dalhousie Yacht Club (Lighthouse Road).

Menu: Choice of hamburger or sausage on a bun + green mixed salads, cold slaw, potato salad, dessert, coffee and tea.

Price: $15 per person including all taxes and gratuities.

Cash Bar: (no credit or debit cards please).

Invitees: Members, spouses and friends.

Sign Up: Please make cheques out to the Probus Club of St. Catharines.

You’ll be able to dine indoors (air conditioned) or outside on the patio.

Space is limited to 90 persons and the last two years sold out. Don’t be disappointed.

Are you in the club’s directory? Members are encouraged to help make the

club’s online directory more complete by having their picture included.

If your picture is not posted or you would prefer an updated one, you can send a “head shot” of yourself to russmilland@probusstcatharines.com and it will be added for you. Or, if you prefer, you can have Wayne Tester take your picture at a regular monthly meeting.

There is also an opportunity to include a brief biography with your online picture. You can send it to Russ Milland at the above email or write it out and give it to Russ at a monthly meeting.

You can check out sample biographies online by clicking on the picture for either Russ Milland or Andy Redman.

DIRECTORY CHANGES Changes/additions to members mail and/or e-mail address will be published monthly in the Probe. Please inform any member of the Management Committee of your changes. Kevin Troughton: (new email address) ktroughton@bell.net John Bullivant: (new address) 306-16 Towering Heights Blvd. St. Catharines, L2T 3G9

SUB COMMITTEES AND SOCIAL

EVENT CONVENORS

The following activities are approved and spon-sored by the PROBUS Club of St. Catharines.

Romeo Lunch: Art Currie 905-938-1264 Juliet Dinners: Mac Gollert 905-934-1813 Andy Reyes 905-937-2982 Wood Carving: Jerry Benner 905-892-5878 Curling: Jack Corbett 905-682-9923 Poker: Doug Wright 905-988-5539 Theatre Visits: Bob Henderson 905-682-3724 Outreach: John Senn 905-984-5360 Couples Bridge: Len Thibeault 905-397-6735 Dancing: Andy Reyes 905-937-2982

Condolences to Tester family The sympathy of the PROBUS Club is ex-

tended to Past President and Life Member Wayne Tester and his family on the passing of Wayne’s wife Joan, in her 91

st year on April 22.

Arrangements are in the care of Hulse & Eng-lish Funeral Home. A celebration of Joan’s life will be held May 12 at 11 a.m. at Mountainview United Church.

Ramblings of a Retired Mind

I was thinking about how a status symbol of today is those cell phones that everyone has clipped onto their belt or purse. I can't afford one. So, I'm wearing my garage door opener.

Employment application blanks always ask who is to be notified in case of an emergency. I think you should write, 'A Good Doctor'!

The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat have got-ten to be really good friends.

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

If you can smile when things go wrong, you proba-bly have someone in mind to blame.

Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know 'why' I look this way.

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WEEKLY ACTIVITIES: Wood carving every Thursday at 9:30 a.m. FUTURE EVENTS: Management Barbecue — June 7 Next Romeo Lunch — June 27 Stratford Festival trip — September 21 Next Juliet Dinner — September 27

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8

GENERAL MEETING

9 10

COUPLES BRIDGE

11

POKER

12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31

May 2018