North Ringwood Senior Citizens Club

NORTH RINGWOOD SENIORS HISTORY OF THE FIRST 50 YEARS.

By Keith Bunnett at the 50th Anniversary luncheon at the Club

11th April 2026

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In July 1975 our Councillor – Cr. Lawrie Lawrenson met with six ladies to discuss the idea of forming a Senior Citizens Club in the North of Ringwood. The Ringwood area already had the Ringwood East Senior Citizens, and the Ringwood Senior Citizens, but nothing for the Northen area.

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It was decided to hold a series of monthly meetings to see if more people would become interested. In September 1975 there were 18 ladies and one man. It was then decided to form a Group. An AGM was held on 6th April 1976, and our Club was born.

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Meetings were held each Tuesday in the local Methodist church hall. They played cards, darts, quoits, rings, hooky, and had lots of sing -a- longs. The annual fee was set at $2, and the weekly attendance fee at 20 cents.

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Day bus trips were commenced in 1977 – the first one was a picnic to Maroondah Dam, whilst the first longer bus trip took place the next year – it was a trip to Mt Buffalo.

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The first committees pushed hard at fund raising. They had coffee mornings and afternoon teas at various homes, There was “bring a gift and buy a gift”, street stalls and stalls at Eastland. The Club moved to the Uniting Church in 1979 and paid $200 per year for the use of their hall. Indoor carpet bowls commenced there in the same year.

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Then, in 1984 our Council advised that they were going to build us a nice new home (with a flat roof!), which they did, and they turned it over to the Club in November 1985. In January 1986 the Club began operating from it’s new home. The first thing they did was to increase the annual fee by 150% (I wouldn’t be game to do that!) from $2 to $5, and the attendance fee went from 20 cents to 40 cents. They must have had quite a few male members then because the first thing that was purchased was a Billiard table with accessories. Then a piano – we had that for many years but sold it to EPR about 15 years ago. Then they purchased another billiards table and pool room lights, so the Pool Room was completely fitted out before the end of 1986.

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Next was a couple of indoor bowls mats, and one of the original members donated two table tennis tables, so the Club was off and running. The first Thursday afternoon dance commenced this year.

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Then, around the year 2000, the Council added on two more rooms out the back. One was given to the Ringwood Historical Society who moved straight in, never to be heard from again – I’m sure they’re still in their somewhere!. The other room, which was about 1/3 the size of our hall was given to the Ringwood Arts Society. Also, about this time Ringwood U3A, and Ringwood EPR were both looking for a home. I have no idea how this came about, but it ended up that U3A had the use of the hall each morning, EPR had it in the evenings, and we had it in the afternoon. It felt very constricting and we lost a lot of members because of this arrangement.

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We used to hold bi-monthly meetings where the four of us would meet (Ringwood Historical Society never bothered to attend as they knew there were not going to be touched). In the hot weather, I would turn up in shorts and thongs, The Arts Society ladies would be in their After 5 Wear!, and U3A, and EPR were somewhere in the middle! The meetings were somewhat acrimonious at times as we were all trying to get a little more space. The problem was that four nice groups were all trying to use a space that was obviously too small.

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Fortunately, a few years later Council found an alternative spot for the Arts Society, and gave U3A a spot in a disused school a bit further North. EPR moved into the Ats Society area, and, so, we got our Hall back. We were able to do more activities and our membership grew steadily.

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The Club continued to grow until Covid almost killed it. We had to close for about a year, then, when we were able to re-open, the information we had to have for everyone attending was really detailed. As a consequence, we decided to change to a strictly members only Club, which applies to this day. Our numbers decreased mightily because of all this, but, gradually, we have come back to a viable, busy place. Our activities have waxed and waned – carpet bowls died off for a few years, but now it’s back with three mats being used most days, The Pool room almost closed, but it’s back again. The Saturday night dances went into the doldrums, but it’s back as well. We now have 370 members, and undertake 13 activities every week. I recall a couple of years ago that I was asked if we could run a mah jong activity – actually Chinese mah jong! Well, all I had heard about this was that everyone banged their tiles on the table and shouted at each other!! So, I figured we would give it a go but it would die out after a few weeks. Well that was a couple of years ago and it’s one of the reasons that we are now getting the Board room enlarged to cater for more Mah jong and card players.

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I do believe the club is running well, our Annual fee is only $10, and most of our activities cost just $2. Which I think is very reasonable.

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The actual hall has changed somewhat as well. About 16 years ago we had this 5ft 2inches dynamo called Ken Holford as President. He never stopped doing things. One of the first things he said to the Committee was “this place is shabby, we’re going to paint every room. Well, as Treasurer, I immediately said what every treasurer would say – “We can’t afford it, It would cost a lot of money to hire the painters”.

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Ken replied “We’re going to do it ourselves”! He immediately went to work and a few weeks later, all the paint, brushes, rollers etc, arrived, along with scaffolding!! Just have a look at the height of our ceilings. Well one of our members John Niven – he’s not here today – is in his 90’s. When he was in his 80’s he was hanging off the scaffolding, along with some other elderly gentlemen, painting the roof. About 30 members came along and helped us paint the whole place. I don’t reckon we would ever get approval to do that now. In fact, I don’t think Kevin bothered to ask anyone, he just went and did it!

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Then, a few years later we had a pushy President by the name of Brian Hobbs. He decided we needed more room in the hall, so, as we couldn’t extend outside, we would make more room inside. We used to have a stage along the far end of the hall. He got together with Council and they agreed to remove the stage, Then they took away, the little old fashioned windows that we used to have and replaced them with larger ones, and a couple of doors to the outside. Council then gave us a brand new parquetry floor. The new storeroom and verandah is almost completed, and the extension to the Board room is on the way.

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I think the Club is in a very sound position and I hope it keeps going for another 50 years.