It's not that they're a bunch of anaphrodisiac killjoys, it's just that members of the Almaden Valley Singles Club prefer to whoop it up on the town free of nerve-wracking anxiety that comes with the pressure of looking for love.

"It's a singles group for people to do things with, without it being a dating situation," says member Linda Hodges. "It's kind of nice because it's just like we're all pals. It's camaraderie mainly."

The club was organized in 1994, by members who have since moved out of the area, for the purpose of bringing together singles 40 and older—though the current members' ages actually start at 50—who live in Almaden Valley, to socialize close to home and participate in community service.

They say the club wasn't created to find love interests, but they acknowledge it does happen.

"We've had marriages, partners come out of this place," says eight-year member Anne Challice, community service chairwoman.

Kermit Olsen, a member since 1995, says he knows of three or four marriages between former club members and has seen a lot of people come and go. While courtships are not encouraged, they are not discouraged either.

What they do encourage is participating in community service.

"We're a social group, but we also like to do volunteer drives," says Hodges.

Hodges has been a member for three years and coordinates the group's ongoing civic work at Parma Park, where the group's members regularly pick up litter, sweep, rake, and weed the grounds as part of the city's Adopt-a-Park program. The club agreed to adopt the park in April 2002 and has logged 83 volunteer hours, said Sandra Freitas, the Adopt-a-Park community coordinator, earning a recognition plaque at the park in the club's name.

"They thought it would be a good idea [to adopt the park] because they wanted to give something back to the community," she said.

Each year, the club opens its sack of goodies looking for ways to give back to the community in a bigger way during the winter holidays.

"We do an 'adopt-a-family' at Christmas," Challice says.

Working with Habitat for Humanity this season, the group will purchase gifts, food, and decorations for two San Jose families, and deliver them personally with their own special Santa Claus.

"We're using Habitat for Humanity, and I'm very excited about that," says club president Barbara Shandera. "You can wrap the gifts yourself, take candy canes, and take it all to them yourself. We wanted a personal touch."

Raising money partly through membership dues—five of the $25 annual fee goes to the annual community pot—and a fundraising effort offered by Westfield Malls and its "Wonder Works" program, the group raised enough money to help out two families. The club will receive a list of needs from the family and base their purchases on that.

"Everything will be new," Shandera says.

New clothes, new toys, and new decorations.

The group continually looks for new ideas for activities, members say, and each month gets together for a breakfast meeting at the Cinnabar Hills Golf Club to discuss ideas.

Events or activities are proposed by various members, and each person has the option to take part, or not, in any of the calendar listings.

"There's no pressure. If you want to participate, you can," Shandera says.

Card-game groups are popular, with monthly get-togethers for pinochle, bridge, or poker—at which, longtime member Jack Lindsley says, the stakes are low so nobody goes home broke. Many of the events, such as the card games, monthly potlucks, or the summer-time favorite, ice cream socials, are held in members' homes, underpinning their ZIP-code predilection.

"We're pretty heavy into 95120," says Lindsley. "We don't have a hard and fast rule about that, but we recommend that people who want to come from outside be recommended by a current member."

Traveling outside its ZIP code, the club has a long and varied list of activities, including dining at different Bay Area restaurants, visiting the Steinbeck Center in Salinas, strolling by the light of a full moon in a Quicksilver Park tour, learning about the NUMMI plant in Fremont, playing at Bonfonte Gardens in Gilroy, and sipping its way through wine country.

Closer to home, often small groups of eight to 15 will go see a movie together.

"Some ladies don't want to walk through dark parking lots alone," Lindsley says. "So it's nice for us to go as a group."

Looking out for one another in parking lots and in their homes, members lend one another a hand when needed.

"We help each other out. Someone might need to borrow a truck from another member," he says. "Or, we'll give someone a ride to the airport."

Shandera says that a couple of the guys from the group—of which there are few—came over and put together an unassembled table she had purchased that was too heavy for her to move once assembled.

Of the members currently on record—some are retired and some are still working—the number of one gender in the group is disproportionately skewed in favor of the women.

"There are about 53 members right now. Let's just count the men, it's a lot easier," Challice says about the gender ratio. "There are about 11 men."

Lindsley came up with a monthly meeting idea, called the "nonreaders book club," based on what he calls "a problem with men."

"See, men don't read books," he says. "I'm an avid reader, but I don't read books. I read magazines."

Once a month, members volunteer to "pitch," as Lindsley likes to call it, an article or book they have read, recount a trip they have taken, or talk about a sensitive topic, and give a condensed summary to the group. Sometimes the topic is pure entertainment, sometimes it is educational.

"One woman gave a pitch on funeral preparation," Lindsley says. "I can't believe how good it was. She gave us a lot of good information."

They share information, laughs, friendship, and community service, but what many of them won't share is their age.

"You can just say I'm the senior male in the organization," said Lindsley.