Two guests were welcomed to the meeting on Tuesday, July 2, Gareth Hopkins and Dennis Taylor, hosted by David Holt and Philip Vanner, respectively.

Club business was then discussed with fair emphasis on the summer tea party with the ladies in mid-August at the Quins RFC. Pretty frocks will be worn - that's just the members!

There was early warning for the poems and pints evening and the Christmas draw later in the year.

Business sorted, refreshments were taken before the 'guest speaker' was introduced. I think that it is pertinent, at this point, to comment on the guest speakers. The variety, interest factor and entertainment value of the guest speakers has never been higher. Including July 2's speaker, the last three have covered such diverse areas as prison life, the service of an undertaker and spiritualism. The bald titles totally deny the quality and presentational skills of the speakers. Their selection and briefing is the responsibility of one man - speaker's secretary Philip Vanner. Without his valuable and entertaining input, Probus meetings would be much the poorer.

The speaker on July 2 was Mr. Terry Taylor - a spiritualist medium.

Mr. Taylor introduced spiritualism as the science that was needed to contact 'the other side'. This form of spiritualism is dependant on the concept of soul and life eternal. It did occur to your correspondent that the ideas of reincarnation, life eternal and a 'spirit world' were, somewhat reminiscent of a form of Buddhism, modified by selections from Islam and other, minor, religions such as the Cargo Cult in the S.W. Pacific.

Mr. Taylor then involved some club members in an attempt to define reincarnation. The success or failure of this can only be determined from the individuals concerned. Not for your correspondent to ask. The talk finished with a question and answer session, again highly individualistic. All in all a thought-provoking talk. Club member Frank Harris provided a fulsome vote of thanks.