The survival of some small clubs

and associations,  guilds or groups must now be under question. When we moved into this house our neighbours behind us belonged to what could only be called a fairly specialised gardening club. It concentrated on just one type of flower - not roses but gladioli.  Our neighbours, being very elderly at the time, are long since deceased. The club would still seem to exist  but I wonder  how many members it has. My guess would be that it is very small now. It was not large back then.
I had a look for other "clubs" too. Membership numbers are not given so I can only guess at their likely size. One way of guessing is whether they have a real presence on the internet  - rather than simply a telephone listing. 
Where there is simply a telephone listing it suggests that members are older and less used to using the internet. They may not have an email address and the idea of a Facebook page may not even occur to them.
At present such groups cannot meet. I wonder if they are going to survive a lengthy shut down? 
I belong to a reasonable size group. There are about seventy members and around forty of those usually attend at any one time. There are some younger members but the office holders tend to be older people, presumably those with more time. They have tried to keep things going this month with an extra newsletter. It is a commendable thing to try. I have no doubt other groups are doing similar things.  
But I still wonder whether it will be enough to keep some small groups going. Will they be like the small cult like "church" to which my mother once belonged? When I was a child this "church" had a congregation of several hundred people in two different locations in the city. It had a building on prime real estate which must have been worth a great deal - and they owned it freehold. Now there are a handful of adherents left - elderly people who meet in private homes. They will soon be gone altogether. 
Some of these other groups may well go the same way. How many young people are interested in bonsai, succulents, gladioli or geraniums? Of course some of them are interested in gardening in a general way but their lifestyles have changed. Belonging to anything other than their beloved footy club is not something for which they can find time.
Service clubs like Lions and Rotary are struggling too. Sometimes there is a family tradition of belonging to such things but, more often than not, people say they have "no time". It is easier to give money than time. 
The group I belong to  should serve two functions. It should provide for the craft involved but it should also be a social support  network for  people in need of like minded company. That can't happen right now. People may look elsewhere. Older members may decide the effort of returning is just too great. Can it survive? I don't know. There are ideas which could be tried but they require an effort  and not everyone can handle such ideas.
People won't be meeting in bigger groups yet.  It may be months before that happens and even then it may need to be done differently. 
But human beings generally need the company and  support of other human beings. We need to find ways of  helping that to  happen. Humans are not natural hermits.