THE AGENDA CLUB.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1911, Page 12

THE AGENDA CLUB.

A NOVEL CONSTITUTION. The Agenda Club, an organisation on novel lines, was formally inaugurated by a dinner at the Hotel Cecil on 7th December. The Hon. Sydney Holland took the chair in the unavoidable ansehce of Lord Shaftesbury, and among those present were Lord Brassey, the headmasters of Eton and Harrow, and Mr. W. W. Asquith, the Prime Minister's brother. "The object of the Agenda Club," in the words of its constitution, as quoted by the Daily Mail} "is. to do a few things that need doing and can be^done for the betterment of existing social conditions." The A&enda Club is established "for a limited period of 25 years, and shall forthwith cease to exist on the seventh day of December in. the year of our Lord, 1935." Ih general, the idea behind the club is that there are a gfeat many men in the world who wish to do something for their fellow-men, and are discouraged because there is no businesslike organisation whicb will tell them what to do and help_ them to do it. A second dominating idea is that men can be most usefully employed in "social service" 1 when they are asked to use their own professional or business knowledge to farther the general good. "AGENDA MEN." Mr. Sydney Holland, in dealing with the objects of the club, said : "One aim will be to bring gentlemen, the natural leaders of our country, out of their shell. It may be our duty to slum among dukes, rescue earls, and set young Peers on their legs, 'ever if their last legs. "When politicians seem to think it their duty to set class against class it may be our duty to teach class to love class. We want young and capable met? to com» forward and live up to the noble traditions they have inherited. We want to collect men who^ will live for their country ; there are quite enouga who will die for it." Mr. Holland stated that the club had already spent £800. and would spend another £1500 before May. Referring to this, Mr. Joseph Thorp, the founder of the club, said :—: — "Money is the only thing that does not matter. The worst thihg about modern charity is that a man things, that when he has given a draft on his bankers he is absolved from further responsibility. There will bs no subscription to the Agenda Club. A man wiil be an 'Agenda man' if he does the thing he offers to do or is asked to do."-