Having gone from filling good-sized function halls with their weekly meetings to holding them comfortably around an average kitchen table, the leadership of the Nashua Exchange Club has chosen to disband the club after nearly 70 years rather than continue the struggle to recruit new members from a virtually non-existent pool, an officer said this week.

Rich Guidoboni, club treasurer for several years, said the "six or so" remaining members made the difficult decision three or four months ago.

"The handwriting has been on the wall for a few years now, and we’ve discussed it a number of times," Guidoboni said of the question of whether to disband or continue seeking out new members.

"We agreed we’d do the Ski Swap one last time, and that would be it."

Guidoboni referred to one of the club’s major fundraising events, the annual Thanksgiving weekend Ski and Snowboard Sale, which has also gone by the names Ski Swap, Ski Swap Shop and Ski Swap & Sale over its 33-year life.

Thanks to a lot of help from Nashua High North and South students, Guidoboni said, the tiny band of members was able to pull off the finale, albeit with shorter hours. He said the good news is that a group from Hollis is planning to take over the event with transition assistance from several Ski Swap veterans.

Organized post World War II and chartered in 1947, the Nashua Exchange Club, alternately the Exchange Club of Nashua, gradually built a membership that peaked around 70 in the late 1970s and well into the 80s, former longtime member and club president Don LaChance recalled.

"We were really active back then," LaChance said of that period. While many of the club’s public events were actively promoted and well-attended, and the majority of its members were well-known in the community, "we also did a lot of things that weren’t publicized," he said.

LaChance was club president in 1976, around the time its movers and shakers began raising the club’s profile on a national level. Their signature accomplishment was the election in 1984 of longtime member Harold Acres to the National Exchange Club’s board of directors, which followed by three years his stint on the New England district board.

In 1985, outgoing club president Donald Kamholz received the national Outstanding Club President Award, and the club itself was cited on both the New England and national levels for both the quantity and quality of its programs and initiatives.

Under the presidency of Kamholz’ successor, Michael Dapkus, Nashua was recognized as the "busiest club in the New England District" in 1985-86. Among their initiatives was helping to form new Exchange clubs in Merrimack and the Milford-Amherst area.

At the time, the club boasted five active charter members who were in on its 1947 debut. Edgar Caron, Dr. W. Boyd Weston, Constantine Caros, George B. Law and Louis M. Janelle, who have all since passed, were present at the old White Gobbler restaurant – it was on the Daniel Webster Highway near the state line – when they and 14 other men adopted the constitution and set of by-laws that signalled the birth of the Exchange Club.

Later, in 1998, members spawned the Breakfast Exchange Club of Nashua, which operates independently and isn’t affected by the Nashua club’s shutdown. It meets bi-weekly at Langdon Place of Nashua.

A message on the Nashua club’s website, meanwhile, calls the disbanding "the end of an era.

"It has truly been an honor and a pleasure … to better the lives of many young people in our community," states the message, posted on behalf of its remaining members.

Bob Lavoie, another longtime member who is among the group seeing the club through to the end, said its focus most recently has been on a partnership with the Amherst Street School. While helping provide supplies such as laptop computers, backpacks and books to students who would otherwise go without, the club also installed what will be its last Freedom Shrine in the school.

The shrine, a collection of 32 separately framed historic U.S. documents such as the U.S. Constitution and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, is a hallmark national Exchange Club project in which local clubs install the documents in schools, public spaces, government buildings and other locations.

The project is tied to Exchange’s commitment to Americanism, one of its three so-called Programs of Service along with Service to Youth and Community Service. National leaders in 1979 adopted the prevention of child abuse as its National Project.

Generations of Nashua youth benefited from a wide variety of Exchange programs, from the Bucky Snow Fishing Derby, named after the late longtime member Percy "Bucky" Snow, and Christmas parties for foster children to the annual junior high football banquets, the Youth of the Year selection, police officer and firefighter of the year awards and its Book of Golden Deeds program, which chooses a citizen of the year.

Over the years, numerous members have faced the difficult decision of dropping out of the club, several of them said. Among them is Scott Flegal, a member for some 20 years who left about a decade ago.

"The kids get to a certain age … you need to be around more," Flegal said, referring to the challenge of balancing work, civic and family commitments. "And my wife was getting tired of me being gone every Thanksgiving weekend" to help set up, conduct and break down the three-day Ski Swap Shop.

Guidoboni, the club secretary, said meetings went from every Wednesday evening to every other Wednesday, and eventually became once a month. Moving to lunchtime meetings was considered, but the idea didn’t gain traction.

"The hardest part was getting younger folks involved. You get torn between trying to make meetings and your family obligations," Guidoboni said. "Times have changed."

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-6443, dshalhoup@nashua
telegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.