by Peter Smith
Fifty-seven years ago, the men of the London Chapter SPEBSQSA had an idea to buy a building for the chapter to practise. They sold non-interest-bearing debentures and got the money together to buy 55 MacKay Ave in London. They named it Harmony Manor. The fellows were a handy bunch with various tradesmen in the group and set out to refurbish the old School / Community Center. They put up walls to create a couple of practise rooms and built a kitchen downstairs. They created built in risers at one end of the building. Moved the front door and put in a decorative fireplace. A few extra closets for uniforms and music and the hall was ready for rehearsals.
The hall was never grand, but oh what a grand place it was for the chapter. Through the years many parties were held there, the chorus and quartets used it for practise, members could rent it for celebrations, Christmas dinners. Joe barbershop dinners and meetings, board meetings and shows; she was always there for whatever we needed her for. A grand place indeed.
The years went by and the members changed, the chorus grew and shrunk. The chorus had great success many times in competition, the hall was always there for coaching and extra practises. We stored set dressings, costumes from shows, music and documents were safely put away in closets around the hall. Pictures were hung on the walls of the various chapter quartets and the pictures of the chorus through the many years. It was a great meeting hall, a staple in the lives of the members. Always there and always handy.
As the years went by the chapter struggled with membership. In the eighties, the chorus was over a hundred members with seventy men strong on the risers. In the nineties we dropped to around fifty on the risers, and by the turn of the century we were happy to have forty five singing on stage. As the years went by, it seemed other things in life became more important than a hobby, no matter how rewarding. By twenty-twenty, the membership was around sixteen. We were struggling with the monthly costs of the hall with taxes, electricity, gas, and telephone. Combined with maintaining the hall, new roof etc., we were using up all the reserves the chapter had set aside over the years. We were starting to see the writing on the wall, even with renting the hall out to other chapters in the area, we put every cent we were making into keeping the hall. Then came the pandemic! That put the frosting on the cake. With no performances and no rent, we had no way to generate money, and as we all know now, the pandemic is going to last for a long time.
The hard decision was made by the membership in September of 2020. We raised enough money with non-interest-bearing debentures sold to the members to cover the costs for a year and put the hall up for sale. (Insert lots of heavy sighing, some tears and a couple of broken hearts at this point) A real estate company was contacted, and the president and the secretary / treasurer met with them and set a price. We purposely set it high to maybe hold on to the hall through the Christmas season in the hope we could hold final Christmas parties in the hall. Low and behold in three days we had three offers above our asking price. We accepted an offer with a closing date of November 19.
Back in the fall of 2019 we had planned a garage sale to raise money for the hall, so over the winter months articles gathered in the lower level of the hall, and since Covid wouldn’t allow for the sale in the spring as planned, we had to hold it now that the hall was sold, so we had a masked and distanced sale in front of the hall. We walked the neighbourhood with flyers the week before to try for the best turnout we could get. We searched the hall for items we had on hand to put in the sale and Saturday morning arrived and we had a pretty good turnout for the sale. We did well but in the end, there was still a lot of stuff left over from the sale, and not a long time to get the building cleared out.
So now the real work began. Those of us that were able came in when we could and started taking all the pictures down off the walls and packing them away. Michael Black came down for the garage sale and went through the museum to see what Ontario District might be able to take and archive and left with a car full and plans to return for more later. Robert Ross came out to help with that as well. We took about six truckloads of leftovers from the garage sale to Value Village, and rented a storage unit locally, to start to store away the treasures we would want later. The riser trailer was stuffed full of risers, tables, the sound system, and some riser stools. In October we resumed Monday night meetings, unfortunately not to sing, but to sort through and pack up everything else in the hall. I spent days taking the packed boxes to the storage unit.
The members did those “clearing out” meetings for four weeks. Things were found hidden away that we couldn’t imagine. We sorted through all twenty bankers’ boxes of non-active music and saved one copy of each version, the rest were shredded, about nineteen boxes or so. Rick Browne and his lovely wife Sue took the box of the single versions home and alphabetized them for us. That music and all the current music were stored away in plastic bins. All the trophies, large pictures of the Night Hawks, OC Cash, and the plaques and historic pictures were packaged up to go in storage. The furniture in the hall, tables, 94 chairs, desks etc., were put up for sale online. By the second week in November the trailer had been stored away, a lot of the furniture had been sold or put out with a FREE sign on it and taken away over night. Michael came back for the rest of the stuff he wanted from the museum. We then had delivered out front, through one of our members, a twenty-foot bin from Tri Recycle. The last Monday of that week was a “load up the bin meeting” with all members showing up to cart the stuff out to the bin. A lot of the things discarded would have been useful someday down the line, but you can only store so much, so it had to go. Finally, the hall was empty, with no chairs, and only two tables left that were going to Harmony Woods.
So, came to the last Monday night before closing, and we just had to have one more gathering at the hall. We stuck with the pandemic directives and had people on both floors, to stick to the under ten at a gathering. Everyone was told to bring a lawn chair. We had a couple of former members show up and about twelve of the chapter members. A few have family situation that limit their exposure to groups and so couldn’t attend. We had some pizza and a few beverages, reminisced, and told stories about past members, and sang some tags and even a few of the chorus repertoire, all with masks on and social distancing in place. A toast was given to the hall, and the night was done. We loaded up the tables, packed the last of the items from the fridge and put it all in my truck. That left one bag of garbage to go out for pick up the following night. I was the last one to visit the hall to put out that garbage and leave the keys for the new owner on the mantle of the fireplace that those former members had built so long ago.
I’ve been around the London Chapter and the hall for around fifty years, and an active chapter member for 31 years. One of the hardest and saddest things I’ve had to do in a long time was close that door, for the final time. Fortunately, the chapter will continue, and the Men of Accord will sing together again sometime in the future. It just will never be at Harmony Manor.