In my column in The Herald today I put both up to explain the very uncertain future of such service clubs as Rotary, Apex and Lions, but I'm open to other theories. One, of course, may be that these clubs have come to be seen as peopled by old fogies, and I suppose they are, in view of my belief that membership does require a certain old fogyism.

As reported in The Herald a week ago, the committed efforts of the once-thriving Hamilton Rotary Club to attract people younger than 60 failed to the point that the club has disbanded, and the only thing unusual about this was that the death was reported in the media. Even if this decline is an almost inevitable product of the evolution of generations, it is a shame. Service clubs have done a great deal for their communities and, indeed, for the global community, and I can see nothing about to fill the void. Even government seems to do less at the community level these days, and for a few years now business has been withdrawing from corporate sponsorships. Charities have a much more tightly defined goal and they're struggling more than ever to reach it.

Other than as a punishment handed down by the courts, is the notion of community service dying with service clubs?