NORWAY — The 101-year-old Weary Club, located on Main Street and dedicated to the lost art of conversation, has something new to talk about.

Matthew Gruba has been voted as new board president. He succeeds Melinda Dow Butler, who served in the role from 2000 until this August; she will continue with the board as the club’s secretary.

Gruba is new to the Weary Club but not to Norway. He grew up in town, graduating from Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in 1992. After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, Gruba then joined the Marines, serving and traveling the world for 20 years.

Recently he returned to his roots, moving back to town after retiring.

Last year, while attending the Norway Music & Arts Festival, Gruba decided to pop in at the Weary Club, which was open for the occasion and selling special edition cookbooks compiled by its membership.

“I was at the Norway arts festival,” Gruba explained. “The Weary Club was open, selling cookbooks. So I inquired about membership and joined then … I wanted to find ways to get back into the community that weren’t too taxing and [were] fun. I wanted to reestablish my connections.

“I was always curious about the Weary Club. Growing up, I’d gone by a million times and didn’t know much about it except it had a strange name. The concept appealed to me, just being able to have a conversation, once a month, free of a lot of the things that encumber our conversations these days, like cell phones and political stuff. Things that tend to divide us and distract us. The Weary Club is about the only place where those things are not present these days.”

Last month, he was recruited to stand for board president by a longtime Weary Club member who has been instrumental in its continuing presence, Ben Tucker.

With plans to attend the University of Maine School of Law starting in the fall, Gruba saw the position as one he can easily balance with his studies.

“Ben is a good friend,” Gruba said. “I grew up with his son (also Ben), so I’ve always known him.

“I thought that being president would be a relatively easy job. As the name implies, we’re kind of weary. We don’t want to do a whole lot of work – it’s just a nice, relaxing place … it’s a unique place.”

The Weary Club is officially open one day a month between April and October, as well as during the Norway Arts & Musical Festival.

Seasonally, Weary Club members have long supported Oxford Hills’ community service Christmas for Teens program.

The club also awards a scholarship to an OHCHS graduate who goes on to study journalism in college. The scholarship is named for former member and newspaper man Don Seitz (who, incidentally, was responsible for saving Norway’s Ordway Grove off Pleasant Street not once but twice during the early 20th century). Recent Don Sietz scholarship beneficiaries include Ares Heath, Maren Pinkham and Alden Timm.

The Advertiser Democrat has been tied to the Weary Club since its inception. Its founder, Fred Sanders, was the newspaper’s owner and publisher. Tucker and his mentor, the recently passed Robert Sallies, are just two more Advertiser Democrat editors who can be counted as members.

Norway’s Weary Club, dedicated to the lost art of conversation. Nicole Carter/Advertiser Democrat

In the past, the Weary Club was involved in other civic activities: during World War II it was a collection point for citizens to donate used tinfoil to go back into the war effort.

Gruba would like to see the organization return to its tradition of community involvement beyond monthly coffee klatches served with donuts from the Lake Store. It is possible monthly Saturday meetings could extend through the winter months.

He foresees opening up for public tours (it takes less than 30 seconds to walk through the clubhouse, but the conversational background of its storied history takes much longer) during other fairs and festivals.

“Downtown Norway, before my time during the first half of the 20th century, was a very vibrant place,” Gruba said. “Towards the end, things started to close. But now you’re seeing a turnaround with lots of nice, locally owned businesses. A whole new generation of people promoting the town.

“We’ll keep things simple,” he said. “It’s a simple organization based on a simple premise: one day a month dedicated to the lost art of conversation in a place free of technology, politics, religion, marketing and all those things.

“We want to continue those multi-generational interactions in that type of setting. It’s valuable. It enhances the community. The Weary Club is part of Norway’s past, it’s part of it’s future and we want to make sure it’s part of its future, in way that integrates with the other great things that Norway Downtown is doing.

Among the oddities of its 100-year-old rules? An original requirement that one could demonstrate the ability to whittle a “shaving light enough to float.” That went the way of whittling as a pastime.

Another stipulates that membership is capped at 200 participants. The fee to join has doubled since 1923 from $25 to $50, but all memberships are still lifetime.

With a current roster of 170 or so members, anyone looking to dedicate a couple of hours a month to the lost art of conversation will find an open seat at the Weary Club.