50 years of Pickwicks in Frankfurt

Back in 1976, a group of young British professionals in Frankfurt am Main decided to start an English club to meet like-minded English speakers. At the time, there was no internet, no Meetup groups and no Tinder… 😉

So, founding a club seemed like the natural thing to do. It wasn’t supposed to be the archetypal ‘English club’ with gentlemen smoking cigars in leather armchairs; rather, it was intended to be a lively, international and diverse crowd who would go out and about to explore Frankfurt, go on trips and try many other things.

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While the original idea of forming an ‘eingetragener Verein’ (a registered association under German law) was soon abandoned due to the many regulatory constraints associated with it, the club became a ‘nicht-eingetragener Verein’ with statutes, membership fees, a bank account, a treasurer, and a committee. This committee managed to organise a quarterly programme of weekend activities every week for many years – until 2020 when the global lockdowns caused by the Covid pandemic hit most of the world, including Frankfurt.

‘Social distancing’ was not compatible with the idea of a social club, so the weekly meetings had to switch to Zoom and all other group activities, such as excursions, were cancelled. Overall, the pandemic marked a significant hiatus for the club: When it became possible to slowly resume regular club activities in 2022, it seemed that more than two years had passed; and the committee felt much older and more tired. The weekly programme of weekend activities was never resumed, so in reality, the club is now just a weekly Wednesday Stammtisch with the occasional extra activity.

But be that as it may: The Pickwick English Club in Frankfurt managed to survive for a full 50 years, from 1976 to 2026!