- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor

When the Tara and District Kinettes invited me to hear and write about the thirty-year life of their club and their recent decision to close it, I was surprised and humbled to find myself the oldest woman in the room.

Lisa Langeraap was new in town in 1987, a young wife envious of her husband who was meeting new friends and clearly having a good time at his Tuesday night Tara Kinsmen meetings. The buzz began among the club mates' wives to form their own club, and a year later sixteen of those wives formed The Tara and District Kinette Club.

Heather Christie joined that year - the year she was married - and Linda Herron, already involved with youth in 4H, thought it would be nice to meet other women with similar interests and values. At first Kinettes could only be aged 19 to 40, in theory then moving on to K Ettes, but the friends stayed together in their original club, and four of the originals were still there after thirty years.

Kinsmen began in 1920, founded by Hal Rogers, a World War I vet who missed the camaraderie of army life. An all-Canadian service club, it has become KinCanada with more than 6000 members in almost 500 clubs across the country and has raised over $1 billion in its 98 year history to live up to its motto "Serving The Communities' Greatest Need".

The first fundraiser the Tara Kinettes did was a walk for Cystic Fibrosis, their national cause. One of the walkers was Ellen Simpson's little daughter Becca. Ellen had joined in the second year of the club when membership was opened up to non-Kinsmen women and Becca Simpson began as a "Kin Kid". She remembers Kin Camp and Christmas floats, and as she grew, so did her contributions to the work of the club. Becca won both a local Kinette scholarship and a Canada-wide award from the Hal Rogers Endowment Fund to help finance her education in social work.

Over the life of their club, the Tara Kinettes figure they have raised almost $300,000 by holding pancake breakfasts and the Spaghetti Fling dinner and dance, Home Shopping Expo and Rain Barrel sales. They held seats on various community boards, helped apply for and sponsor grants, and organized the food drive in the Santa Claus parade.

There are lots of concrete reminders of the Kinettes' fundraising abilities all over Tara - the diving board and the bike rack at the pool, the renewed dugouts, new light standards and picnic shelter at the ball diamond, basketball courts, a Zamboni for the arena - all acquired with other local partners for the use of the whole community. "Many people assume that these things were provided by the municipality," Lisa says, "But they are only here because people worked together to make it happen."

Those are the big, public things, but there are many individuals in the community who have received the Kinettes' quiet assistance of groceries or gas cards when they were going through a hard time.

Although they are very committed to their Tara community, their service goes beyond. When Arkwright Hall needed work, the Kinettes were there with paint brushes and curtains. One of the last things the women did with their remaining funds was to help the family in Chesley recently devastated by a house fire.

Ellen was Kinette of the year for a district that reached from Windsor to Niagara to Collingwood and the GTA. Speech and writing competitions, conventions small and large; over the years, the women say they have got to know hundreds of women, and men, from all over the country that they would never have met without KinCanada.

Younger women have joined the club over the past few years. Melissa Anderson, who works at the Owen Sound Hospital, was welcomed when she posted on social media that she was looking for a service club. Jennifer Barned, who was a member of her hometown St. Thomas Kinettes, joined the Tara Club when she moved up to Wiarton. Mary Louise Wiley, an early childhood educator, came back to the community where she grew up to care for her aging parents. She found it easy to reconnect with her "great community" through the Kinettes and other volunteer work in the area.

When I asked the women why they didn't try to boost their numbers by forming a co-ed group when the Tara Kinsmen folded more than a decade ago, there was a distinct pause before someone said "we never entertained the idea of adding men." The "girls night out" element of their club meetings was definitely fun, but they also liked planning and accomplishing their own work. "We appreciated the support of husbands and partners along the way, and we enjoyed being able to do our projects our way. And Kinettes was a great role model for our children about giving back to your community."

"We sure did have some fun times" they all agreed. A memory of pig roasting competitions held by the Shallow Lake Kinsmen brought gales of laughter. "We had no clue what we were doing but for four years we won the People's Choice Award – for our costumes, our entertainment – everything but the meat!"

The women made a conscious decision to close the Tara Kinettes. There are not enough of them to do the work they once did, and while they have enjoyed the structure and socializing of their regular meetings, they understand that it is not every woman's cup of tea. Perhaps because of other options for socializing, the commitments of jobs and children, or a sense of entitlement from the community without a corresponding responsibility for service; the Kinettes see that young women are not drawn to service clubs as they once were. Clubs have closed in Wiarton, Paisley, Hanover, Kincardine among others. The women know that this is not a problem unique to them – churches, Legions and other volunteer-based groups are dwindling too.

They don't deny there is sadness and disappointment at the lack of recognition by their home municipality. "We put in thirty years and now it's like we never existed." Slow nods around the table.

Without any doubt, these women will all continue to serve their communities. They will get together once a month or so for fun, and they will look after each other in good times and in bad. That is so clearly the real heart of their "Kinship".