WELLINGTON COUNTY – The Drayton Farm Show has been a part of Wellington County for more than 40 years and has always been organized by members of the Drayton Kinsmen Club.
But who are the Kinsmen and how has the organization benefitted Canadians?
Kin Canada (formerly the Kinsmen and Kinette Clubs of Canada) is a secular Canadian non-profit service organization that promotes service, fellowship, positive values, and national pride.
Since the organization’s founding, clubs have raised over $1 billion dollars for Canadian communities.
In 1920, not long after returning from the First World War, Harold (Hal) Rogers found himself missing the camaraderie of men with similar ideals and decided to join the local Rotary Club, where his father was a member.
Rogers had worked as a plumbing salesman for his father and because of a Rotary regulation at the time restricting membership to one person per employment classification, his application was denied.
Not one to be easily discouraged, Rogers decided to start his own club.
On Feb. 20, 1920, Hal invited a group of like-minded young men to have dinner at the Nam King café in Hamilton and the Young Men’s Business Club was formed.
Some time later, the club’s name was changed to the Kinsmen Club of Canada – a recommendation of Hal’s father who happened to be reading literature by Mark Twain that mentioned the name Kinsmen.
Trevor Thompson was among the original four members of the Kinsmen Club and played an integral role in expanding operations nationally.
His grandson, Sean Thompson served as national president from 2009-2010 and is a lifetime member of the Gananoque Kin Club.
“Back in the 1920s, there was nothing to stop people from sort of grabbing the world by the tail,” Thompson told the Advertiser.
“As members started to move across the country, new clubs formed with them. A member would move to Montreal, Winnipeg, or Calgary, chartering new clubs, and that’s how Kin started to grow.
“Hal would go out to meetings and speak, whereas my grandfather was considered an operations person who would go out and start clubs. He probably chartered 40 clubs in his lifetime.”
Thompson has worn a lot of hats within the organization over the years.
He credits Kin Canada with much of his success.
“I’ve received so much, whether through learning how to become better at business, public speaking, managing, accounting and all the different things that I’ve become skilled at, I largely attribute to being involved in Kin,” Thompson said.
“I’m a believer that what you put in, you get back tenfold. I’ve put a lot into Kin over the years, and I’ve always felt that I’ve gotten more back.”
Since 1964, Kin Canada has supported Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Canada, often raising over $1 million per year for CF research and treatment. To date, Kin clubs have raised more than $50 million for CF.
“Back in the 60s, one of our members had stopped into a bar and there was a gentleman there who turned out to be a doctor who worked at SickKids. The idea of the Kinsmen engaging with CF came up and it caught fire with Kin, becoming a national project,” Thompson said.
Today, around 7,000 members belong to about 600 Kin clubs from coast to coast.
Kin Canada’s motto is “serving the community’s greatest need,” a saying current national president Cameron Kemp strongly believes in.
“Every individual club gets to assess what their community’s greatest need is on their own,” Kemp said in a March 30 phone interview.
“It could be fitness equipment or parks in one community, or helping the elderly in another, or reducing homelessness in a third, so we don’t mandate that.”
Kemp has been part of the organization for 18 years and has always had a drive to give back to his community through fundraising and spearheading projects and events.
“My slogan this year is ‘be a spark,’ which has multiple connotations,” he said.
“For example, be a spark in your community for volunteerism or be a spark for other members of your community to join Kin. It was designed so there would be a lot of options to be used with the ‘be a spark’ headline.”
Kemp said clubs across Canada make their own decisions regarding how money is used. While the majority of funds stay within local communities, each club decides independently how much to invest nationally or within their district initiatives.
The organizers of the Drayton Farm Show are committed to donating to CF Canada and working towards the betterment of their community.
“It’s very rewarding to see [the Drayton Kinsmen club] continuing to work on a project that has the kind of history in their community that it does,” Kemp said of the farm show.
“We all know that over time those types of projects need to adapt and it’s beautiful to see something running that long still supported by the community at large as well as by the club.”
Prominent members of Kin Canada in the past include Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and Ontario Premier Ernie Eves.
For more information about visit kincanada.ca or email info@kincanada.ca.
