COMING FULL CIRCLE - a personal history of TARA by Daphne Glazebrook
In 1983 John Hardiman (former Pfizers employee) along with 3 other recently retired men decided to form a club offering physical and social activities. They advertised the proposition of a new club in the local paper and booked Hilderstone Hall for an afternoon, luckily the hall was packed with over 50's interested in joining. The title TARA (Thanet Active Retirement Association)was chosen. The spread of ARA's throughout Kent has followed the formation of this original group and John Harriman eventually became Kent Regional Chairman.
Daphne's husband George joined TARA in 1986 and she followed 2 years later and has been a very proactive member both past and present. She became Chairwoman from 1997 for 6 years and has been an activity and event organiser, so a dedicated member indeed, especially running the Keep-Fit from 1990 until 2013 when no one could be found to step up to the plate. She currently runs the Darts Club and organises the Raffle at each meeting, funnily enough the Raffle Table is where Daphne first helped out so you could say 'she has come full circle' in her 29 years with TARA.
George and Daphne volunteered to put on a show which was performed at the Pavilion, Broadstairs. It was such a success that they had to put on a second show in order to meet audience requests. The video of the show still exists, it would be fun to watch it. TARA originally had many activities on offer including Play Reading and 'putting on concerts' along with the traditional activities still offered today such as Keep-Fit. There was also Barn Dancing, Bingo, George's Glee Club and Craft Clubs for the less mobile.
In 1994 the group transferred from St Peter's Church Hall to the Memorial Hall in order to make a financial saving. During the clubs life it has suffered bouts of good and bad leadership, low and high membership numbers but most importantly it has survived and now thrives due to the dedication of committee members who give up their time to ensure the health and vitality of the retired population of Thanet. In the autumn of 2017, Jo Clark, a committee member of TARA, started recruiting volunteers to form the committee for BradARA. Initially, those on the TARA waiting list were contacted before we opened the membership to all. We now have a thriving club of 130 members as of February 2019.