The Canadian Canoe Association is an organisation with control vested in its corporate members, the local canoe clubs. Over the years, many clubs have taken out memberships in the C.C.A., some memberships being all too brief, a single year, while others have maintained membership for prolonged periods of time. Of the charter members, only the Carleton Place Canoe Club has maintained continuous membership to this date.

The formality of the procedure, nomination by two member clubs, and acceptance by the member clubs in annual assembly, make it possible to identify the initial date of a club's admission. But the absence of a well-defined exit procedure makes it difficult to develop an accurate history of a club's membership. A particular club might allow its membership to lapse periodically; readmission only required that the club pay its current annual fee.

Within a community, a canoe club might cease to operate for a prolonged period of time, only to reappear in two or three decades, perhaps under a different name. If a canoe club in a community has had "two" such histories, there may be two admission dates.
Text courtesy Fred Johnston