When it was founded more than a century ago, the Oneonta Elks Club was one of many fraternal membership organizations locals could join.
These days, however, the organization’s nearly 200 members utilize a 1952 red brick building on Chestnut Street that originally was constructed with 10 times as many members in mind.
The organization nearly had to sell its building amidst the COVID-19 pandemic when it could not be used and membership had declined significantly, leaders said, adding that they have staved off the need for those drastic considerations since then.
“For whatever reason,” the organization’s current leader, Exalted Ruler Thomas Cicio, said Wednesday, Sept. 30, young family members today “are not big joiners of organizations.”
The average membership age, Cicio said, is between 78 and 79 years old. He said many younger people are part of two-income households and have a litany of activities to ferry their kids to and from, limiting their interest in and availability for a group like the Elks.
Cicio said any person who is sponsored by a current member with two other confirmations, is at least 21, an American citizen and believes in God — broadly defined — can join by swearing an oath of obligation to the national organization’s four cardinal principles: charity, justice, brotherly love and fidelity.
Cicio and other members said the organization is not political in nature.
Since its founding in 1914, the Oneonta club has offered and contributed to a wide variety of charitable and community endeavors. Some of the members’ most well-known activities have included serving holiday dinners, collecting food donations and offering student scholarships.
The club offers $15 dinners, free for veterans, on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month, which are open to the public. The club also hosts bingo every Monday night.
Women have been able to join since the mid-1990s, said former exalted ruler and former Oneonta Fire Department Chief Patrick Pidgeon.
He said he has been a member of the club for 42 years, but spent much of his childhood in the lodge, of which his father and Cicio’s father also were members. Pidgeon said he bowled in leagues housed at the lodge from about 5 to 17 years old.
“We’d have over 100 people out here playing bingo both Monday and Tuesdays,” he said. Pidgeon said the club’s membership peaked at around 1,200 members; he didn’t give a specific year.
“Back in the day, this was a place to go and hang out socially,” Pidgeon said.
While the building’s two bars, basement bowling alley, dining hall, card room and other spaces are no longer as full as they once were, they still function as a third space — a place separate from home and work that is a social environment for people.
Joe McLaughlin, a volunteer bartender for the club, was serving some patrons in the building’s main bar, the Esquire Lounge. He joked with them, referencing shared memories and familiar members along the way.
“This represents God and country, and it’s a good spot,” he said while mixing drinks. “They’re a lovable crew.”
While the public cannot just walk into the building, he said, they will usually be let in if people buzz in to go to the bar when it is open.
Cicio said that is one way for potential new members to get started; they will likely be engaged in conversation if they walk in, and maybe invited to a future event.
The club also is pursuing some avenues to engage new members, such as being more active on social media and reaching out to individuals in the community that stand out as potential members.
To contact the club, call 607-432-1312.