Old magazines, boxes of Kodachrome 35mm slides and even a 1970s Abu Dhabi telephone directory sit neatly arranged on a meeting room table in an upstairs room of <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2024/04/26/how-the-club-an-abu-dhabi-fixture-since-1962-pulled-through-last-weeks-storm/" target="_blank">The Club</a>, the decades-old leisure and beach resort in the UAE capital. In recent weeks, the organisation has collated a trove of large format photos, newspaper clippings and pictures from a bygone era, as part of what might be termed a late summer or early autumn history project. Cupboards and cabinets have been emptied in pursuit of historical documents and fragments. The Club also put out a call to its members asking them to submit materials. That call has been heeded. Prints and photo albums abound, many in their original packaging. One set that captured a social event at the venue around 20 years ago can be found in a FujiFilm sleeve complete with the marketing legend “memories fade, photographs don’t”. Many of the pictures frame happy groups of people at long ago events, such as a star-name concert or an annual staff party. Plenty of these photos are also the kind of wonderfully ordinary images of friends and family we all used to rush to get developed in the days of film and glossy prints. These images are candid and real expressions of laughter and light-heartedness, far removed from the careful curation of today’s social media-influenced world. Connection and community radiate from them. Pictures from the organisation’s most recent annual “welcome back” function at the end of last month, which was heritage themed, paint a similar picture. By its latest estimates, around 55,000 members have enrolled at The Club in Abu Dhabi since its formation in 1962. Its 3,500 current members hail from 86 countries. An almost incalculable number of guests and visitors have enjoyed days, events and evenings at the venue over the years. The organisation says its members consider the premises as a “second home” in the city. Over its 62-year history, The Club has already produced two official histories. The first book, published to mark the organisation’s 40th anniversary, was written by the late cultural historian <a href="https://are01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenationalnews.com%2Fuae%2F2023%2F07%2F02%2Fpeter-hellyer-author-and-chronicler-of-the-uaes-past-dies-aged-75%2F&data=05%7C02%7CNButalia%40thenationalnews.com%7Ce98affbac4144795fbb808dce90baa64%7Ce52b6fadc5234ad692ce73ed77e9b253%7C0%7C0%7C638641483536032339%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=0jUk7wZwBfk%2BuT6axAqFpzoGR3%2BZleNkyRMghgl%2FDT4%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">Peter Hellyer</a>. The second was produced to coincide with The Club’s golden jubilee in 2012. But this latest history drive does not have another book in mind. Rather, its purpose could be described as a review of the past to make sense of what the future might hold. Earlier this year, the social club informed its members that it had received a directive to relocate from “the current site to a new location by quarter four [in] 2026.” The note, which was circulated by email and has been seen by <i>The National</i>, went on to say that The Club was “seeking greater understanding” of the proposal and that it planned to ask for the matter to be reviewed. The organisation’s preference, it said, was to remain "in situ". The proposed alternative location was not initially divulged, but an off-island neighbourhood was referenced in a subsequent communication to members. The Club has been a fixture in the coastal and port area at the tip of Abu Dhabi island since the late 1960s, when it was donated land by Sheikh Zayed in his capacity as Ruler of Abu Dhabi. Its foundation story traces back to the early 1960s, when it was first given permission to organise as a social club. That long history means the terroir for a heritage drive is enormously fertile. A small photo-album of contributed glossy prints titled "photos from around the premises 98-99" offers glimpses of the site a quarter century ago. Another box of pictures has large scale images of the site as it was in the 1970s, as well as wonderful sidebars that raise intriguing queries, such as photos of a hovercraft landing on the beach and a waterlogged 4x4 being hoisted from the sea. The materials reward prolonged engagement. Delightful “how to make a call” instructions on the opening pages of the 1971 Abu Dhabi phone directory tell readers to “lift the receiver and listen for the dialling tone”. The collection of in-house magazine editions, spread over many decades of publishing, settles into a regular form of welcome notes, section reports, long-forgotten in-jokes and images. Through them all, a rough sketch of the hive-mind of that community is loosely formed. A January 1983 edition talks about the recent primacy of films being distributed on VHS rather than 16mm projection. A 1978 edition is brimming with advertisements for British Airways and its “Daily TriStars to London from Abu Dhabi”. Somewhere in the mid-'90s, brighter and better reproduced colour photos were introduced and the layouts became a little sharper. You see the slings and arrows of an organisation at work in these pages, with their notes about the site, reminders to members and discussions of the day’s issues. Nostalgia can play tricks, of course. It can fool you into feeling that life was intrinsically better decades ago, when the reality is not that simple. But there is also something magnetic about seeing such authentic portrayals of yesterday. The Club says it is digitising the fruits of its archival dig and wants to share them with a wider audience. A working title for that possible showcase could easily be "Second home".