The February meeting of the Bairnsdale Probus Club was held at the Bairnsdale Bowls Club with a good attendance of members.
The profile speaker was Ray Kleinitz.
Ray was born in the 1930s at the Mercy hospital in Melbourne. His family were living in Bullumwal which at that time was a mining settlement mainly concentrating on surface gold.
When the gold mining became unprofitable many miners moved out with many houses being relocated to Bairnsdale.
The Kleinitz family moved to Bruthen to run the Bruthen Inn Hotel. Ray spoke about his schooldays at Bruthen during WWII and was fascinated by the searchlights and convoys of army vehicles promoting war bonds.
His father was a contractor cutting corn and other crops with equipment powered by a stationary engine, but which could be moved when required.
He spoke about how the schoolchildren were able to get chewing gum from the football sheds the gum being donated by the RAAF in Bairnsdale to the football team.
Running the hotel was hard work for the family including the children but especially his mother.
Many of the workers in the area that supported the hotel were timber workers with hotel hours being flexible to cater for the workers.
Leaving Bruthen the family moved to Nungurner where they lived in a tin shed for a while.
Ray attended Nungurner Primary School which had only 14 pupils.
He went onto Sale Catholic College and then to Bairnsdale Technical school.
On the farm they had 70 cows and milk was separated with the skim milk fed to the pigs and the cream into cans to be collected.
At Christmas a pig was killed in which all the family were involved in the killing and processing.
The guest speaker for the meeting was Craig Ryan-from Latrobe Community Health Service.
Craig spoke about the procedures involved in gaining Home Care packages and the changes expected in July.
Craig said their head office is in Morwell but there is an agency in Bairnsdale and the organisation has more than 1700 staff across Victoria and is secular and not for profit.
Latrobe Community Health has been providing home care services to thousands of people more than 20 years.
Craig explained the procedures involved in applying for funding for support in the home and the many types of packages available.
He gave a visual presentation of the procedures and the levels of funding and responded to many questions about the various programs.
