About Us

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Who We Are

Affiliations

PrimeTimers®Nanaimo is a chapter of PrimeTimers®World Wide. PrimeTimers® are mature gay or bisexual men (and younger men who appreciate mature men) who enrich their social lives, engage in diverse activities, and enjoy opportunities and friendships with other Prime Timers throughout the world. Membership and friendship with our chapter is open to men who are legal residents of Canada 19 years of age or better.

Distribution

Our chapter is centered in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. We have members and friends up and down the east coast of Vancouver Island from Duncan in the south to Sayward in the north as well as on Gabriola Island and other nearby islands.

woke up gay again

Identities

Although we have an overwhelming number of members and friends who now identify as gay, we also have a significant percentage who identify as bisexual. A significant percentage also have been formerly married (to women) and most of those have children and grandchildren. The majority are part of a couple; but a sizable minority are single. Too many of us have experienced the death of a former partner but are managing to move on.

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Origins

There are a number of American/Canadian dual citizens and American ex-pats and a few British ex-pats. Although the majority of members and friends are Canadian citizens, very few were born in British Columbia and fewer still were born on Vancouver Island. A large number spend at least part of the winter in Palm Springs, Arizona or Mexico. So there are reunions all throughout the springtime.

Likes and Dislikes

Our most popular events always seem to involve food (dining out and potlucks) and our least popular events always seem to involve formal meetings (so we normally only have one membership meeting a year). Other than food and lack of meetings, other activities which attract a crowd are daytrips and tours, including wine, beer and garden tours, group outings to live theater, live ballet and opera via satellite.

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Where We Live

We live along a rugged coastline on Vancouver Island, between the mountains and the ocean, in an area more forest than plain, with settlement more rural than urban. Our home is a temperate rain forest, wet, but green for most of the year. We experience a long spring, moderate summer and a long autumn. Sometimes we have winter; sometimes we don't. Our coast in climate zone 8 in the north and 9 in the south, so we have palms and plants most would consider tropical growing in our gardens and parks.

Perhaps it's living on an island, perhaps it's the climate, perhaps it's the large number of retirees, but most Vancouver Islanders, gay, bi and straight, have a laid back attitude one expects of more tropical climes.

As the map below shows, our members and friends are distributed along the east coast of Vancouver Island from Campbell River in the north to Cowichan Bay in the south. The southern tip of Vancouver Island is the home of our brother chapter, the Prime Timers Victoria Chapter, who graciously invite our members and friends to their events (as we invite them to ours).

LOCATION	MEMBERS & FRIENDS
	2024	2023	2022	2021	2020
Bowser	1			1
Burnaby				1
Campbell River	1	2	4	2	2
Coquitlam
Courtenay		3	4	2	2
Cumberland	1	1
Duncan			2	1
Gabriola Island	2				1
Keremeos				1
Maple Bay				1
Ladysmith	6	7	7	7	7
Nanaimo	31	35	36	27	30
Nanoose Bay		2	4	5	2
Parksville	10	1	2
Protection Is..			1	1	1
Qualicum Beach	2	2	2	2	1
Saltair	3	3	2	2	2
USA	1	2	2
Vancouver				1
Victoria	1	1	1	1	1
TOTALS	59	59	67	57	51
PT-Victoria Chapter

The dispersion of our chapter across 300 km of coastline presents our chapter with a number of challenges. We are moving our dining out and daytrips up and down the coast to facilitate attendance by more people and are encouraging coffee groups and pub nights in cities other than Nanaimo.

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