Community club crisis caused by lack of new members and struggles to encourage younger community to join

Several Manjimup community clubs have found themselves struggling to find new active members, with one club on the way to shutting down. The local Apex, Lions, Rotary and Freemasons clubs are all reporting dwindling membership and unable to find younger people to join. All “desperate” for new members, the clubs blame a lack of free time for many people and declining interest in volunteering when competing with other “pressure of life”. In the worst of the local membership decline, Manjimup’s Apex Club is currently going through the process of folding and disbanding due to the lack of members needed to be incorporated, according to club member and president Steven Walsh. “Most people see it as another job, and with the governance and reporting you have to do, you’ve got to put that extra work in,” he said. “I work five days a week and my kids work two days a week as well, so there’s just no family time outside of that and the club.” Mr Walsh had been a member for a decade, including being a secretary and president through his time, and noticed the decline starting four years ago. “Trying to get volunteers to be on a committee and finding active members is extremely difficult,” he said. “What people don’t realise in that you can develop life skills in a club like this, and you become better and get out what you put in.” He said although he feels disappointed for the original establishing members, he also noted that he got burnt out and exhausted trying to “save a sinking ship”. “I have to focus on other things now.” “The people who started the club told me that they were surprised that it went on as long as it did.” Manjimup Lions Club president Paddy Pemberton, who recently was honoured with an organisation award and has been with the club for 20 years, said the club was “desperate for new members”. “There were about 30 members when I joined about 20 to 25 years ago and now there’s about 12 members, with one relocating to Perth because of their job,” he said. He also said that people just did not have the time or energy now to commit to a club during this time. “People are definitely happy to help out the Lions, but it’s different when it comes to getting people to become members and commit,” he said. “It seems that they are spending time doing their own thing and they don’t have time for volunteering.” Mr Pemberton encouraged those curious and considering becoming a member to stop by one of their monthly meetings to see the club in action. “Come along to a meeting or have a game of pool,” he said. Manjimup Rotary club president Paul Rumenos, having been a member for six years, also agreed that people being too busy and too worn out to join a community club was a major factor in the decline of members and participation in the community clubs in the Manjimup area. “It’s a known issue and I think it’s been an issue before I joined,” he said. “People are so busy and it’s hard for both young people and FIFO workers to find time, with the pressure of life.” Mr Rumenos said despite the pressure put on individual members, the Rotary club had managed to “get by” and not had the fear of closing down. “We just got to have some support and understanding, since before things were less complicated,” he said. “We’ve just got to prepare to take this on as well and we’re constantly having to call on our current members for help.” The club has been running since 1952, when it was given charter after a formation meeting, and was sponsored by the Rotary Club in Bunbury, and has continued to support the local Manjimup community through their projects. The Freemasons Manjimup Lodge is another community group struggling finding younger people who would be interested in joining, with member Bob Phillips saying the 98-year-old club was losing members because of aging out and not being able to find younger people to carry out club activities. “We’re suffering the same as everything else, whether it’s Cherry Festival, Apex, Rotary or the football clubs in the area,” he said. “Right now, we have 15 members but we’re getting too old, with the average age being about 75 and members coming to meetings less, and we can’t get the younger people into the community efforts.” He believed that mental health was a focal point in the decline in interest in the local community clubs and why younger people weren’t as open to joining as people were in the past. “I believe mental health issues are growing and there’s nothing for people to go out and do if you haven’t got Rotary, Freemasons and things that work for the community,” Mr Phillips said. “It concerns me because just going through the social media phase we’re in right now, are we going to become isolated and more lonely?” Mr Phillips said the club’s activities and philanthropy have been made obsolete by government programs and that community groups were finding it harder to maintain the “sense of community” that were part of the clubs’ pasts. “Centrelink has taken over for what a lot of the community groups were doing in the past with helping out those in need and providing resources to the community,” he said. “Even the footy clubs can’t get the people in, and it’s nothing like in the past, and the whole structure of community is falling over.”