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After 70 years, the Mere Club is to shut
A Scarborough social club is to fold after 70 years.
The Mere Social Club, in Seamer Road, will cease trading at the end of this month due to mounting debts and declining membership.
Secretary Denise White said a combination of factors had led to its demise, news of which was broken to members at an emergency meeting.
She said: “It is a great shame but we have all given it 100 per cent and have been left with no other choice but to close. Everybody is struggling at the moment. The smoking ban was one of the final nails in the coffin.”
The club, which was formed in the 1930s, was thousands of pounds in debt and on the brink of closure in 2006 but was given a last-minute reprieve.
A company, which works with social clubs, stepped in to help it with its creditors and give management assistance, but it had already lost a number of members who believed it was closing down.
The club was unable to stop the rot despite launching a variety of team and social nights including a dominoes’ night, men’s snooker, darts, bingo and live entertainment.
Mrs White said: “Looking back, we were just delaying the inevitable really. It used to be my dad Dennis Wilcox’s local, which is why I stepped in to help out a couple of years ago.”
In its heyday the Mere Club had more than 1,300 members, mostly drawn from the Edgehill estate, but suffered a blow when Plaxton closed its Seamer Road site in the 1980s and membership has dwindled in recent years.
She added: “We are missing out on the next generation of members because unfortunately a lot of the younger ones would rather go to bars than working men’s clubs.
“Also, there are not as many people in the estate any more. When the houses were knocked down we lost a big part of the business.”
The club plans to hold a special evening for its members before it closes its doors for the last time on Saturday July 26.
Mrs White said: “We will be having a VIP evening before we close just to say thank-you to the few members who have kept coming in every week. They have been very faithful and it is because of them we have kept it going this long.”
What are your memories of the Mere Social Club? Do you have pictures of the club in its heyday? Contact James Hanley on (01723) 383806 or email james.hanley@yrnltd.co.uk
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Friday 25 May 2012
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