What does semi-retired mean?

The Standard Club Constitution opens with Probus is a local, national, and international association of retired and semi-retired people ... A question arose as to how we define semi-retired, which this article attempts to answer. The question presumably was asked when considering admission of a prospective member.

There are many definitions of the adjective retired available but here is one from Merriam-Webster:

• withdrawn from one's position or occupation : having concluded one's working or professional career

and for semi-retired:

• working only part-time especially because of age or ill health

with semi being defined as

• half in quantity or value : half of or occurring halfway through a specified period of time

There is no useful metric to gauge how 'semi' a prospective member's retirement needs to be for admission, e.g. how many hours are being worked, how many freelance projects are being undertaken, how many consultancy reports are in the works, etc.

It is more meaningful to look at the underlying reason why Probus clubs target the retired and semi-retired population: we want members to be active participants who bring their lifelong experience to create new and lasting connections. They need to be able to make time for that, something that is much easier when no longer working full-time.

If a prospective member is still living and working part-time in the big city and only comes up to the club's geographic area on weekends, then this may not be a good fit. If on the other hand, someone wants to lead Probus activities while also writing another novel, then that would be an excellent fit.