From the Charter membership the Club expanded quite quickly to some 28 members. Lawyers, engineers, dentists, civil servants (as they were then), insurance underwriters, clerks and retail salesmen caught the Kinsmen bug and through the era of depression, as was the early thirties, enthusiastically carried the banner of community service. Kinsmen, of course, were not themselves unaffected by hard times as salary cuts and lay-offs forced the need, in a few instances, to subsidize meal costs ($1.00) at the Alexandra Hotel meetings. During the hardest times of 1934, meetings were held monthly only to cut down on members' out-of-pocket costs.

Settling on a permanent meeting place appears to have required extensive consideration and experimentation by our Kinsmen Club as they wandered through the Daffodil Tea Rooms, Chez Henri in Hull, the CNR Recreation Club, Bromley Hall on Metcalfe, the Alex, Standish Hall, once more in Hull, and the Halcyon Club on Sparks Street where two memberships were purchased by the Kinsmen Club in order that meetings could be sponsored in that "private club". By 1937, however, the wandering ceased and a motion was passed to meet permanently at the Chateau Laurier where, with the odd exception, each second Thursday has been Kinsmen Night ever since.

Considering the times of the formative years, it is not strange that the first activities covered by the "Sunshine Fund" were entertaining orphan children and providing Christmas hampers for the many needy families, both of which continued as Service projects for many years. Late in 1930 a speaker at a regular meeting was the late Fred McCann of the Ottawa Boys Club. He was described as giving a "splendid talk on the various aspects of service work and he is such a good fellow that we hope he will come and see us again". McCann did come again and his story "reached all our hearts". By 1934 the Boys Camp, which Kinsmen had been running personally on week-ends during the summer, became affiliated with the Ottawa Boys Club Camp and our relationship with that worthy organization was started.

Another sign of the times was the Royal Ottawa Sanitarium for tuberculosis victims, and during the thirties Ottawa Kin established (financed) the Occupational Therapy Department of that institution which was set up with salaried staff to instruct in the manufacture of items for public sale with up to one hundred patients per month using the department. Similarly a reception (Out Patients) room at the Protestant Children's Hospital was furnished by the Kinsmen Club of Ottawa where, on Christmas mornings, toys were distributed by Kinsmen at parties for the permanent young patients.

In 1936 the "Sunshine Fund" was abolished in favour of a separate trust account for Service expenditures, and a program of emergency welfare was established. The district Governor, visiting our Ladies Night in November 1939, referred to the Service Program in the Capital City Club as a good model for any club in the Association.

Service account funds were raised through bazaars, raffles, theatre nights, choir concerts (Kin Carol Choir), bridge parties, sponsoring rodeos and exhibitions, and, believe it or not, saving Buckingham cigarette wrappers.

Ottawa hosted the District Convention of 1932 and the National of 1935, at both of which Kinsmen wives contributed by organizing activities for the visiting ladies. Although the concept of Ladies Nights as the social highlights of the Kin year was prevalent from the start, a formal permanent ladies organization did not appear until 1939, when, in September, the bulletin announced that "A Kinsmen Ladies Executive has been formed to co-operate as much as possible with the Red Cross". Of course World War Two was on, and Eleanor Macartney, as the first Present of that Ladies Executive led them into a program of War Services Work which carried on throughout the war years and beyond.

As 1940 approached, membership levelled off at about forty and the Kinsmen Club of Ottawa was established as a major Service Club in he city; however, the war years were to be a challenge as the war services activities of Canadian service clubs geared up for the forties, Ottawa Kin's Decade Two.

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