Without question, he’s the senior statesman of the Fonthill Lions.
Fred Arbour has been a member of the service club for 54 years and worn many hats within the organization: president, secretary treasurer, director, environment chair, membership chair, literacy chair. He is the only Fonthill Lion to have served as district governor, presiding over about 40 clubs from Niagara to Tillsonburg. Arbour’s activities with the Lions include the turkey raffle, pasta dinners, steak barbecue, Canada Day celebrations, clothing drive at Christmas, and Agriculture Night. He even does the scheduling for the canteen at the clubhouse.
In 2021, the Rotary Club of Fonthill honoured Fred as a Paul Harris Fellow, acknowledging his long commitment to the Lions.
Outside of his Lions Club involvement, Arbour has served as president of Pelham Minor Hockey, and is currently manager of the Pelham Farmer’s Market, a position that he has had for eight years. He was a vendor at the market going back 20 years, to the event’s inception.
Arbour and his wife Eleanor, who is also entrenched in the Lions operations, were proprietors of Klager’s Meats (originally run by Eleanor’s father, Gordon) which operated at its Pelham Street site starting in 1934. They retired the butcher shop (located where the Pelham Street Grille is now) in 2015.
Arbour is at the Lions hall, located since the early 1970s on Highway 20 at G. L. Klager Park, pretty much every day. There are always jobs to do at the 7.5 acre property, and events that need to be prepped.
“A few of us were loading up a trailer with empty bottles and cans today, to be shipped off on Saturday morning. And we're going to do a park cleanup this Saturday,” said Arbour. “We've got Sliderfest again this year, on August 12, which we haven't done since before the pandemic. We have slowpitch at least three nights a week at our park, and there's ball hockey going on. We'll throw on a steak barbecue a couple weeks after Sliderfest, and we have our pasta dinners running October through March.”
When he’s not working, Arbour enjoys spending time at their cottage on Wahwashkesh Lake, near Parry Sound.
“We don’t get up to our cottage as often as we used to, but we do still make the trip multiple times each year,” he said. “Some of us go up on the May 2-4 weekend to open it up, then Eleanor and I get up for a few days in June, then again in the middle of the summer, and a couple of times in the fall. The cottage has water access only, so we have a 15 minute boat ride to get us across.”
Asked about recent events which were memorable, Arbour responded, “It's really hard to say because I've had so many, but it was definitely an honour for me to be first member of the Fonthill Lions to serve as a district governor. I've been able to induct 15 to 20 new members into the Lions Club. It's always a joy to be able to do that kind of thing.”
He’ll turn 81 in a couple of months, and Arbour is glad he’s still able to led a productive existence.
“I’ve got one wonky knee, but for the most part, I get around okay. If you asked me 40 years ago if I was expecting to be this active at age 80, I would have laughed. But it all gives me motivation to get out of bed in the morning,” he said with a chuckle.
Lions International, which has been providing humanitarian service for 100 years, is composed of 46,000 clubs and 1.35 million members, making it the world’s largest service club organization. To learn more about the Pelham chapters, go to www.fonthilllions.ca/contact/join-the-club or www.fabulousfenwicklions.org/contact-us
