41 Club

41 Club is the more commonly used and shorter name for The Association of Ex-Round Tablers' Clubs a social networking organisation for men aged over 40 all former members of Round Table (club). Thus, 41 Club forms part of the Round Table Family of clubs, together with Round Table, Table Plus (club), Ladies Circle and Tangent (club).

Round Table itself was formed in 1927, exclusively for men aged under 40, with the intention of offering younger men the benefits afforded by similar groups such as Rotary Club which were dominated by older people. It took off quickly, and within a few years there were more than a hundred Tables in towns and cities across the UK.

It became common practice for retiring Tablers to stay on after retiring age as so-called "honorary members", however it soon became clear that Table risked itself becoming over time a group largely of older people.

The first Ex-Tablers Club was formed in Liverpool in 1936. Former Round Table members from other parts of the UK quickly followed suit, as later did former Tablers overseas (Round Table having become an international group in the post war years).

Today, there are around something over 20,000 members of 41 Club (as the club is run somewhat less formally than Round Table, the exact number is unknown). Many (not all) 41 Clubs have seen a fall in numbers and have therefore opened their doors to non Ex Tablers, although such joiners are usually referred to as Associate Members.

In some areas, a wide gap has developed between the age of members of the Round Table and its associated 41 Club. This was largely due to a change in the rules (in the UK) for leaving Round Table in 1999, when the leaving age was raised form 40 to 45. This resulted in no-one retiring from Round Table for five years, hence the age gap.

This age gap has been seen to discourage those leaving Round Table from joining 41 Club. In response to this, former members of Canterbury Round Table created an interim group in 2007, Table Plus (club), for men aged 40-60, thus designed to sit between the two. This new group has yet to catch on widely.

External Links

References

Wilkinson, Alan (2005), Continued Friendship: Sixty Years of Forty One: The Story of the Association of ex-tablers' Clubs
Barty-King, Hugh (1977), Round Table: The Search for Fellowship, London: Heinemann
Creasey, John (1952), Round Table: the First Twenty-Five Years of the Round Table Movement, Norwich: Jarrold & Sons