Steve,
It's a mens group like elks, lions, eagles... You probably seen our bronze plaques that mark sites of history along side roads and in front of old buildings around Kali and Nev. Supposedly Clamper justice was big in the gold rush days, say a guy jumped someones claim and killed the miner. Well, the clampers took the place of lack of or no lawmen in those days and made sure the crook got hung. I don't know how much of that is true but the Clamper org. is very big in gold country. We do help widows and orphans with help however needed and give our time and moneys to the community similar to the other groups.
I would say that when it gets down to some serious drinking, the Clampers might just win the prize if there was one. When i joined, it was one serious long weekend of party. I mentioned in other posts that i don't drink anymore, been over 10 years and many Clampers don't drink either... but a lot do. Maybe not now so much but in years past many high up Judges, Mayors, Congressmen and such were Clampers. There are easy over 100 in our little town alone, mostly small business owners, construction guys, and semi retired fellows. We have our own bar downtown and are set up pretty good to make a temporary party, complete with some awsome grub for hundreds of brothers from all over the state, just about anywhere, anytime, or for any reason that our members vote or greybeards choose.
I learned not to have ideas or suggest improvements that i thought needed doing during the monthly meetings. Well, about as long as it takes to second the motion, i got put in charge... i like to think that i helped to get some good things done in our chapter. I'm not that active anymore but new guys join every 6 months. Overall, great bunch of guys that gets together once in awhile for lots of laughs and a darn good time.