Club (organization)
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A club is an association of people united by a common interest or goal.[1] A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities. There are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.
History
Historically, clubs occurred in all ancient states of which exists detailed knowledge. Once people started living together in larger groups, there was need for people with a common interest to be able to associate despite having no ties of kinship. Organizations of the sort have existed for many years, as evidenced by
Origins of the word and concept
It is uncertain whether the use of the word "club" originated in its meaning of a knot of people, or from the fact that the members "clubbed" together to pay the expenses of their gatherings.
In Shakespeare's day
Of early clubs the most famous, latterly, was the Bread Street or Friday Street Club that met at the Mermaid Tavern on the first Friday of each month. John Selden, John Donne, John Fletcher and
Coffee houses
The word “club,” in the sense of an association to promote good-fellowship and social intercourse, became common in England at the time of
- No permanent financial bond between the members, each man's liability ending for the time being when he had paid his “score” after the meal.
- No permanent clubhouse, though each clique tended to make some particular coffee house or tavern their headquarters.
These coffee-house clubs soon became hotbeds of political scandal-mongering and intriguing, and in 1675 King Charles II issued a proclamation which ran: “His Majesty hath thought fit and necessary that coffee houses be (for the future) put down and suppressed,” because “in such houses divers false, malitious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the Defamation of his Majesty’s Government and to the Disturbance of Peace and Quiet of the Realm.” So unpopular was this proclamation that it was almost instantly found necessary to withdraw it, and by Anne’s reign the coffee-house club was a feature of England’s social life. See English coffeehouses in the 17th and 18th centuries.[citation needed]
18th and 19th century
The idea of the club developed in two directions. One was of a permanent institution with a fixed clubhouse. The London coffeehouse clubs in increasing their members absorbed the whole accommodation of the coffeehouse or tavern where they held their meetings, and this became the clubhouse, often retaining the name of the original innkeeper, e.g. White's, Brooks's, Arthur's, and Boodle's. These still exist today as the famous gentlemen's clubs.[citation needed]
The
The other sort of club meets occasionally or periodically and often has no clubhouse, but exists primarily for some specific object. Such are the many purely athletic, sports and pastimes clubs, the Alpine, chess, yacht and motor clubs. Also there are literary clubs (see writing circle and book club), musical and art clubs, publishing clubs. The name of “club” has been annexed by a large group of associations which fall between the club proper and friendly societies, of a purely periodic and temporary nature, such as slate, goose and Christmas clubs, which do not need to be registered under the Friendly Societies Act.[citation needed]
Worldwide
The institution of the gentleman's club has spread all over the English-speaking world. Many of those who energised the Scottish Enlightenment were members of the Poker Club in Edinburgh. In the United States clubs were first established after the War of Independence. One of the first was the Hoboken Turtle Club (1797), which still survived as of 1911. In former British Empire colonies like India and Pakistan they are known as Gymkhana.[citation needed]
The earliest clubs on the European continent were of a political nature. These in 1848 were repressed in
Types of clubs
Buying club
Buyer's clubs or buying clubs are clubs organized to pool members' collective buying power, enabling them to make purchases at lower prices per individual item than are generally available, or purchase goods that might otherwise be difficult to obtain. There are many legitimate buying clubs – for example, food buying clubs – but many are unauthorized credit card billing scams, in which a customer is induced to enroll in a free trial of a buyer's club membership, and then unexpectedly billed when the trial ends.
Country or sports club
There are two types of athletic and sports clubs: those organized for sporting participants (which include athletic clubs and country clubs), and those primarily for spectator fans of a team.
Athletic and country clubs offer one or more recreational sports facilities to their members. Such clubs may also offer social activities and facilities, and some members may join primarily to take advantage of the social opportunities. Country clubs offer a variety of recreational sports facilities to their members and are usually located in suburban or rural areas.[4] Most country clubs have golf facilities. Swimming pools, tennis courts, polo grounds and exercise facilities are also common. Country clubs usually provide dining facilities to their members and guests, and frequently host special events like weddings. Similar clubs in urban areas are often called "athletic clubs". These clubs often feature indoor sports, such as indoor tennis, squash, futsal, basketball, volleyball, boxing, and exercise facilities.
Members of sports clubs that support a team can be sports amateurs—groups who meet to practice a sport, as for example in most cycling clubs—or professionals; football clubs consist of well-paid team members and thousands of supporters. A sports club can thus comprise participants (not necessarily competitors) or spectator fans, or both.
Some organizations exist with a mismatch between name and function. The
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are social clubs of secondary or higher education students. Membership in these organizations is generally by invitation only.
Hobby club
Hobbies are practiced for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward. Examples include
Professional societies
These organizations are partly social, partly professional in nature and provide professionals with opportunities for advanced education, presentations on current research, business contacts, public advocacy for the profession and other advantages. Examples of these groups include
School club
These are activities performed by students that fall outside the realm of classes. Such clubs may fall outside the normal curriculum of school or university education or, as in the case of subject matter clubs (e.g. student chapters of
Secret club
A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as
Service club
A service club is a type of
Social activities club
Social activities clubs are a modern combination of several other types of clubs and reflect today's more eclectic and varied society. These clubs are centered around the activities available to the club members in the city or area in which the club is located. Because the purpose of these clubs is split between general social interaction and taking part in the events themselves, clubs tend to have more single members than married ones; some clubs restrict their membership to one of the other, and some are for gay and lesbian patrons.
Membership can be limited or open to the general public, as can the events. Most clubs have a limited membership based upon specific criteria, and limit the events to members to increase the security of the members, thus creating an increased sense of camaraderie and belonging. Social activities clubs can be for profit or not for profit, and some are a mix of the two (a for-profit club with a non-profit charitable arm, for instance).
Social club
Some social clubs are organized around competitive games, such as chess and a card game known as
The modern Gentlemen's club is occasionally proprietary, i.e. owned by an individual or private syndicate and run on a for-profit basis, but more frequently owned by the members who delegate to a committee the management of its affairs, first reached its highest development in London, where the district of
Current London proprietary clubs include Soho House, which commenced business in 1995, and Soho's Groucho Club, which opened in 1985 as "the antidote to the traditional club." In this spirit, the club was named for Groucho Marx because of his famous remark that he would not wish to join any club that would have him as a member.[citation needed]
Political club
A political club is a group of people who share a political ideology, or supporters of a particular political party, of which it may function as a local element. For example, a Constituency Labour Party is an association of British Labour Party members who live in a given electoral district; the rival Conservatives instead have groups called Conservative Associations. Most Canadian political parties are likewise organized into riding associations.
See also
- Anti-Flirt Club
- Autograph club
- Childhood secret club
- Club good (eg economics)
- Confidentiality club
- Content club
- Fan club
- FILMCLUB(eg after school film clubs)
- Garden club
- Gentlemen's club (social club)
- Health club
- Private members' club
- Probus Clubs (for retired or semi-retired business people)
- Night club
- Social club
- Sports club
- Strip club
- Student club
- Users' group, (focused on a particular technology, eg computers)
- Youth club
- Burschenschaft
Notes
- ^ "Ontario Tech Student Union". www.otsu.ca. Retrieved 2023-09-08.
- ^ OUPblog (2011-07-20). "Club 'an association'". OUPblog. Retrieved 2023-09-08.
- ^ "The Origin of Clubs". www.pascalbonenfant.com. Retrieved 2023-09-08.
- ^ "country club - definition of country club by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia". Thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 2013-11-28.
- ISBN 978-1-78625-613-3.
External links
- Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. VI (9th ed.). 1878. pp. 38–42. .