Our History

Our first meeting was June 13, 2018 at Goodwood Hall. 

Town Crier for Uxbridge, Bill McKee, “cried” us into existence, and we were off and running. New Interest groups were created, and a very active social committee sprang into action, booking at least one event every month, and working to balance the more expensive bus trips with local activities that everyone could afford. 

We continued to meet at Goodwood Hall until an email was received from Mill Run Golf Club in December of 2018. Their new GM, Ryan Tracy, wanted to offer his ballroom for our monthly meetings, and after several meetings an equitable rent was decided upon, that included coffee and snacks, and an option for lunch to be served for a nominal rate. They wanted to improve their visibility in the community by sponsoring us in this way, and it was certainly a great opportunity for us to have a premium meeting space. We started meeting at Mil Run in March of 2019.

Tragedy struck our club in 2019. In the early months, Brenda McGowan, who had proven to be a terrific leader, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and asked for volunteers to take over for her. Kathy Clulow, Larry Nancekivell and I stepped forward joined the management team at that point. Brenda passed away in August. Membership by July, 2019 had reached 213. Our relationship with Mill Run continued quite successfully until March of 2020, and we all know what happened then.

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In many ways the world stopped in March of 2020.

The Covid pandemic shut down all in person meetings, and we very quickly became Zoom experts. The March meeting was cancelled, and Management Team met by Zoom on March 27, at which point they cancelled all social interest group and meetings until the end of May! We met several times in the ensuing months to re-calibrate, and do everything possible to keep the club functioning, at least on some level. Refunds were paid for cancelled events, a second monthly newsletter was started, as we all adapted to the new reality.

The challenge seemed a little overwhelming to some of us. We were a social club: our whole raison d’etre was to provide opportunities for people to get together, create events where new friendships could evolve, and have face-to-face fun. The social committee worked harder than ever to find ways to use Zoom for online events like bingo and trivia games to keep people involved. They got everyone’s birthday, and through a British company were able to set up a system where everyone got an animated musical birthday card in their inbox on the appropriate day.

All ideas were listened to. We did try one hybrid meeting, in September of 2020, at Mill Run. A very small masked audience consisting of the Management Team, and members without computers, was present with the speaker, Dr.Carlye Jensen, and the meeting was broadcast on Zoom to the full membership for the first time. 

Although all went smoothly, it was decided that as long as the pandemic continued, we would offer Zoom meetings to the membership monthly, and they would be recorded and posted on YouTube for subsequent viewing. We also added a second speaker, usually a local merchant or celebrity, and that also proved very successful. 

Somehow, with a lot of imagination, collaboration with other clubs, and pure force of will, we were able to keep our club together. When vaccinations became available in early 2021, we made them mandatory for any face-to-face gatherings, because some of our interest groups were starting back up in real meetings. 

Social events also picked up, from Zoom-based trivia nights to socially distanced outdoor coffee events, and even a car rally in September of 2021. We also participated in the Optimist Fantasy of Lights for the first time in December of 2020, building an imaginative display based around a blue and yellow bus with famous Canadians caricatured in the windows. And, in November, of 2021, we came back together.

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Meanwhile, back at the Golf Club, new management and new priorities happened, and we could no longer afford the rent they wanted. We looked for another meeting place, and the Uxbridge Legion came to our rescue.

When we started back to live meetings, in November of 2021 at the Legion, we attempted to simultaneously broadcast them on Zoom and record them for YouTube, but ran into more technical challenges than we could cope with, so after a few tries we went to just recording them for YouTube, and continued that through the summer of 2022. By then we were filling the hall and decided to end the recordings.

Membership fell off through Covid, but once our regular activities began again it shot up. We set a cap at 275, partly because our meeting hall could not handle any more than we were getting—around 100 per meeting. We reached that milestone last fall, and have been running with a waiting list ever since.

What is next for our club? Well, we are considering working with the Port Perry club to sponsor a new Probus Club for the region, to take care of both our waitlists, but the main challenges, meeting facilities and leadership, are still haunting us. As for us, we will continue to provide the kind of club and activity that the Uxbridge members have been enjoying. 

So ultimately, this is a success story, for Uxbridge, for seniors, for Probus, and, hopefully for a long future ahead.

Chuck Heroux (2023)

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