The Wilmington Senior Men’s Club (SMC) was created on October 7, 1988 when four men, who were relatively new to the Wilmington area met to form a men’s club for the purpose of fellowship, information exchange, concerns, and ideas. The four founding members were Theodore Hobbs (d:1997), David Oliver(d:2002),Lieutenant General James M. Lee (d:2017)(who retired to his home town after a distinguished military career, including command of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade in Viet Nam) and Dickson Baldridge who relocated from Connecticut (d:2019). Theodore Hobbs was elected as the first president and served two terms. It was agreed that the club would meet on Friday mornings except for holiday weeks and the entire month of August.
The club began attracting new members and met in a number of locations before setting up at the downtown YMCA (around 1990) where it remained until 2010. In order to be eligible for membership, prospective members have to be age 60 or above and live in the Wilmington area. The club has never had any restrictions on race, ethnicity, or religion. Jasper Reed, the club president in 1999 was African-American. According to the club’s long time secretary, George Taylor, when he joined around 1990, there were about 30 members meeting in a small room at the YMCA.
The club’s format was, and still is, a coffee hour, a speaking program with Q&A and adjournment. Speakers have come from many different areas including the arts, public service, education, government and the military just to highlight some.
In 2010, the club moved to the Cameron Art Museum on Museum Drive where it remained until 2021 with membership nearly 200. However, in March of 2020, COVID shut down the Cameron and the club until September, 2021. John Gill had just assumed the presidency in January 2020. John remained as president through 2021 and was succeeded by John Weisz in 2022.
During this very difficult period for the entire country, the club lost a number of long time members to COVID and other illnesses. When the club resumed meeting at the Cameron in the Fall of 2021, issues with the museum caused the club to make an emergency move to another location, the Wilmington Senior Center on South College Rd. The SMC was happy to find another location but it came with some restrictions including not being able to meet every Friday and having to move the start time to 11 AM. These changes did affect the membership numbers negatively along with the lingering concerns from COVID. In June of 2022 thanks to Paul Zambuto, John Wiesz, and the gracious staff at Lifepointe Church, the club was able find a new home at the Church where we continue to meet every other Friday at 10 AM
