Service clubs continue to seek new members to stay relevant for community

Mike Puffer recalls how when he joined the Rotary Club of Lindsay in 2018, the chapter had almost 40 members. Today, there are 18 – just six years later.
The declining number of Rotarians in Lindsay isn’t isolated. According to Active History, a website curating the research of Canadian historians, service clubs across Canada have been reporting lower membership numbers since the 1980s.
At its peak in the 1970s through to the early 1990s, the Rotary Club of Lindsay maintained a level of about 75 members, Puffer said. He added that dwindling service club membership is concerning since these organizations are often the fundraising backbone of communities.
“Most local service clubs are experiencing similar circumstances, and some have even closed up or explored merging with others,” Puffer, the Rotary Club of Lindsay’s treasurer, told Kawartha Lakes Weekly.
“If local service clubs continue to decline in membership, the significant funds that have traditionally been raised in support of the community will be in jeopardy.”
Declining membership has meant the Rotary Club of Lindsay is not as active today in fundraising or community events as in previous decades, Puffer added.
Some once-popular annual fundraising events, including the Rotanza car draw and Burger Day, have not been hosted by the club in several years, he said.
“Our ability to support local organizations has been severely curtailed,” Puffer said.
Puffer attributes the downturn of Canadian service club membership to several factors. For starters, communities do not encourage volunteerism and community engagement to the extent they once did, he said.
“Very generally speaking, young and middle-aged adults are not as interested in getting involved in clubs like our parents and grandparents once did,” he said, adding time constraints of modern life are also a factor.
“They are very busy and working hard to raise their families, and the idea of going out to a club meeting at the end of a busy work day doesn’t seem as attractive as it once might have.”
Despite the challenges the Rotary Club faces with declining membership, the organization continues to soldier on with community service. Some of the club’s recent projects in Kawartha Lakes include supporting the Rotary Trail along the Scugog River, the new splash-pad facility in Elgin Park, and helping to raise funds for washrooms and renovations at Wilson Fields and Memorial Park.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lindsay Optimist Club had more than 50 members. While membership plummeted during the pandemic, the service club, which focuses on fundraising initiatives that benefit youth, has started to rebound in the past year, and membership is today in the low 30s, according to club secretary Charlie Bellerby.
Bellerby said continuously focusing on attracting new members helped the Optimist Club improve its numbers.
“I think it has been important to always have the attraction of new members as a priority, and we have some prepared printed information material to give out to prospective new members to help with this,” he said.
Bellerby added that members are asked to recruit at least one person to the club each year, and the club also reaches out to parents involved with its soccer program held in May and June in an effort to bolster membership.
Other programs the Optimist Club supports include a fall and winter dodgeball program for children aged eight to 11 and an annual Christmas tree sale and fundraiser at Canadian Tire every December. The club donates to a variety of local youth initiatives, including scholarships, sports clubs, and cooking and art programs.
“I think the most important thing about keeping our club active is that no other local service club has youth as their sole mandate,” Bellerby said.
For its part, the Rotary Club of Lindsay actively seeks new recruits, Puffer said, noting the club advertises in local media – like The Lindsay Advocate magazine – and reminds the public of the important role the organization plays in community support.
Puffer said attracting membership to the Rotary Club and other service clubs to keep them running is essential to maintaining fundraising initiatives that are valuable to the community. Without them, he said, there would likely be a funding gap for many community projects.
“I don’t believe that government, at any level, is capable of making up the difference that will be seen if Rotary, or Kinsmen, or Optimist, or Lions, or Legions or Masonic Temples face extinction,” he said.