This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) The topic of this articlemay not meet Wikipedia'sgeneral notability guideline. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citingreliable secondary sources that areindependent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to bemerged,redirected, ordeleted. Find sources: "Apex Clubs of Australia" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Apex Clubs of Australia" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Association of Apex Clubs of Australia is an Australia-wide association of autonomous clubs dedicated to fellowship, self-improvement, and community service, similar to otherservice clubs such asLions International but with a younger membership (18–45).^[1] Apex organises a range of activities such as public speaking and debating competitions,ute musters, andBachelor and Spinster Balls. Members call themselves "Apexians".

Apex had its beginnings in Geelong, Victoria in December 1930 with the formation of the "Geelong Young Business Men's Club"^[2][3] by architects Ewen Laird, Langham Proud and John Buchan with the support of the local chapter ofRotary International, the mayor of Geelong, and theGeelong Advertiser.^[4]Although Rotary has no formal connection with Apex, it figures in the club's formation, as Buchan's father was a Rotarian, and the three friends might have joined but for that organisation's rule of no two members in the same profession.^[5]

This was the time of theGreat Depression in Australia,^[6] when there was a great need for service-oriented men to work together, and the club soon had 60 members. On 10 March 1931 they adopted the name "Apex" with the triangular badge symbolizing the club's three ideals: service, citizenship and fellowship. That day has since been recognised as the birth of the organisation. Within a few months a club was formed in Ballarat, with assistance from Rotary. Bendigo followed, then Camperdown, Albury, Warrnambool, Wagga, Launceston and Orange. By the start of the Second World War there were 41 clubs scattered across Australia, from Perth to Brisbane.^[5]

Each year conventions were held, both at region level and association-wide, where apart from socializing and attendance at workshops and speeches, decisions affecting all clubs were voted on.In 1958 a move was made to found Apex clubs overseas, and to that end the word "National" was dropped from the associations, "National President" became "President of the Association", and "National Council" became "Executive Council".^[1]

Projects and causes adopted by the Association include:^[a]

• Seat belts in passenger vehicles
• "Learn to Swim" campaign
• "Operation Apex Sea Lift" encouraging each club to sponsor a British family as migrants
• Full citizenship to Aboriginal people
• Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
• Aid to the mentally retarded
• Miss Apex Australia quest
• Guide Dogs for the Blind
• Improved pensions for civilian widows
• Improved pensions for families of jail inmates
• Recruiting blood donors
• Daylight saving
• Guthrie test forphenylketonuria (1969)
• Aid to the Disabled (1970)
• Autistic children
• Well-sinking in India
• Banning cigarette advertising (1972)
• Foundation 41 neonatal research (1974)
• Multiple sclerosis research
• Children's Leukemia and Cancer Foundation
• Drug awareness (1978)
• Sudden infant death syndrome^[b]
• Ban on TV liquor advertising
• Apex Australia Fine Arts Scholarship

Proposals that were lost to the vote includefluoridation of water anddecimalization of currency.^[1]

This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Apex Clubs of Australia" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A range of works were undertaken at a local level. Some clubs took on projects that were more ambitious:^[1]

• 1950: Claremont club helped establish a guide dog training centre atBelmont,^[7] transferred toKew, Victoria in 1957.
• 1956: Launceston club built a bowling green for a home for the aged.
• 1959: Coolangatta-Tweed Heads club built a 50-by-24-foot (15.2 m × 7.3 m)brick-veneer holiday home for children withcerebral palsy in one day of ten working hours, fully lined and finished, with well-equipped kitchen, fully wired, plumbed and connected. Around 100 local tradesmen volunteered their services.
• 1965: Mount Barker, South Australia, club restored a century-old derelict windmill to working order
• 1967: Broken Hill club raised $250,000 to build a 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m²) geriatric wing for the town's Home of Compassion.
• 1968: Yass club, with assistance from Rotary andLegacy, built the "Yass Apex Homes", ten flats for aged citizens on land bequeathed to the cause.
• 1976: Tennant Creek club produced theTennant Times, the town's only newspaper.

There were 100 chartered Apex clubs in 1954, 162 in 1956, 200 in 1958. In 1964 there were 410 clubs and 11,000 Apexians, with 70% of membership in the country;^[5] in 1970 there were 615 clubs and almost 16,000 members.^[8] In 1976 membership had reached 17,400 in 796 clubs.

By 1970 there was a small number of Apex clubs in Papua and New Guinea, Singapore, Malaysia, Ceylon, India, East and West Pakistan, Nauru, Fiji and The Philippines.^[8]

Initially Apex membership was restricted to males 18 to 35 years of age, with mandatory retirement at age 40. Beginning in the early 1990s individual clubs could declare themselves "all male", "all female", or "mixed", with the upper age for women set at 45,^[9] but since the 2006 National Convention there has been no gender requirement for membership.

Geelong's last Apex club (Barwon) folded in 2015, but there were still 150 active clubs elsewhere in Australia.^[4]

• Miles Bourke (1925–1982), farmer and founding president (1979) of the Victorian Farmers and Graziers Association (became Victorian Farmers' Federation), was a member of theWarracknabeal Apex Club.^[10]
• Sir John Buchan, businessman and Apex co-founder, president of the Australia-America Association and councillor of theCity of Melbourne.
• Herb Elliott sen., father of athleteHerb Elliott, was president of Perth club and appointed Life Governor in 1953.^[1]
• Sir Harold Roy Fidge (1904–1981), solicitor andmayor of Geelong, a founder of theGeelong Apex Club in 1932 and was secretary-treasurer of the Apex national council 1935–40, 1946–1947, and in 1940 elected a life governor.^[11]

• Donald Bruce Mackay (1933–1977), furniture store proprietor and murdered anti-drugs campaigner, was at various times secretary and president of theGriffith Apex Club and district governor.^[12]

• Ivor Gray Morris (1911–1995), woollens manufacturer, was a founder in 1938 of theIpswich Apex Club and president in 1941, district governor in 1945.^[13]

• William Phelan (1915–1973), businessman and politician, founding member (1939) ofMaryborough, Victoria, Apex club and president 1944–46.^[14]

• William Langham Proud CBE (28 January 1909 – December 1984), architect, born atKorumburra, Victoria, was co-founder of Geelong Apex Club.^[15]

• John Basil Regan (1903–1987), flour-miller, was foundation member (1935) of theTamworth Apex Club.^[16]

• Bevan Rutt OBE was president of the Adelaide Apex club in 1948, became charter president of Adelaide Lions Club in 1961 and later a District Governor. In 1964 he gave up his practice as architect to work full-time for Guide Dogs for the Blind. He became president of the National Guide Dogs Association in 1966.

• William R. Tresise MBE (1907–1975) was a member 1936–1947 and president 1945–1947.^[17] He then founded Australia's first Lions Club inLismore on 29 September 1947,^[18] was first (Australian Lions) District Governor.^[19]

• William John Wallwork (1903–1971), magistrate, was founding president (1936/37) of theBunbury Apex club.^[20]

"Life Governor" is the highest award Apex can award its members.

• R. S. Love andV. M. Branson (1957)Apex: the First 25 Years
• V. M. Branson (1981)The Golden Years of Apex 1956–1981ISBN 9780909854102

• Apex Australia official website
• The Apex Foundation

• Youth organisations based in Australia
• Clubs and societies in Australia
• 1931 establishments in Australia
• Mutual organizations
• Service organizations

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use Australian English from September 2020
• All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English
• Use dmy dates from November 2019
• Articles with topics of unclear notability from September 2021
• All articles with topics of unclear notability
• Articles needing additional references from September 2021
• All articles needing additional references
• Articles with multiple maintenance issues
• Articles needing additional references from August 2022
• Articles with hCards