In few hours I will be heading to our local show grounds to celebrate the life of The Mansfield Apex Club. I was a member back in the 80s and early 90s. Apex was a young mans service club. In my time you could be a member until the age of forty. When I left school at 18 and started working at the old shire of Mansfield I was invited to join Apex. It was one of the best decisions I made. I learned through my time what it was like to work to make your community a better place as well as making friends. I have many memories but one that sands out is a number of local members traveling to Macedon after the horrific Ash Wednesday fires to help with the cleanup. I borrowed a pair of Dad’s steel-capped Forestry boots and got a first hand view of the utter devastation that fires can cause. I also learned how to speak in public due to Apex having public speaking and debating contests. My Friend Martin Hunt, David Parsons and I fell one step short of making the Zone debating final. Apex built playgrounds, netball shelters raised lots of money for local and national projects and moulded generations of young men to be community orientated through service. There is so much more I could say but it seams the era of service clubs has come to an end. this is terribly sad. VALE: Mansfield Apex Club.