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 who are also former members of Round Table. Thus, 41 Club forms part of the Round Table Family of clubs, together with Round Table, Ladies Circle and Tangent.

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).

The Association was formed in 1945 at a meeting of 41 Clubs in Wakefield and the first President, John Shuter of London Old Tablers Society, was elected. Today there over 18,000 members in 820 clubs across Great Britain and Ireland . Their primary objective remains to support The Round Table in their activities.

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