![\"Ken](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Large-Ken-Men.jpg\")
<\/a>Kensington is like many communities in Uptown for we have a host of organizations looking for members. Ken-Tal, probably our oldest, for service and education. Garden Club and Sidewalk Gardens (beautification), Litter Pickers (trash), Planning (development recommendations), KSAC (holiday weekend, wreaths and lights), Talmadge Sisters (all-women social, service) plus others I will probably get in trouble for not mentioning.<\/p>\n
The newest kid on the block is Ken Men, a men\u2019s only group created by Doug Cooper in February. Ken Men is a \u201cbuddy group\u201d formed to make new friends and do service projects when needed. Cooper told me his best friend lives in Chicago and, if lucky, they get together once a year. Cooper needed new male friends and figured his neighborhood was the best place to look.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just coming home from work, eating dinner, some wine with Lorraine, TV and bed. Then get up and do it again,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n
So he entered local chat rooms and put out a call for some guys.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now are 20 strong,\u201d Cooper continued. \u201cAnd [we] meet once a month for a couple of hours at different member\u2019s houses to share pizza and libations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group has no rules, no elections, no dues, no politics and no formal agenda. I asked Cooper what they did.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur best outing so far was a pub crawl,\u201d he said. \u201cWe started at The Vine wine bar and moved west. We hit the Village Vino and then the hard-core group ended up at the Ken Club. We started with 14 and dropped a few at each stop. Honey-dos, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n
The men went to a Padres Game and a clean-up of the Route 15 entrance ramp. A core group meets every Saturday morning for breakfast. On the table are cooking demos, Ping-Pong tournaments, other \u201cguy things,\u201d and a gun range visit to learn how to safely handle firearms.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never shot a gun,\u201d Cooper confided.<\/p>\n
Ken Men will serve when called. Shawn Murphy, a newly promoted Navy Captain, told me he learned of two homes in need of makeovers. His recognizance showed a house of Sussex was the better candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe like to put in 2 hours on a Saturday,\u201d Murphy said.<\/p>\n
The elderly owner was told what the Ken Men planned to do and said, \u201cI don\u2019t want a bunch of men around here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guy Hanford of Kensington Video knew the owner; he and Murphy calmed her down. The group cleared an overgrown front yard and made progress on the back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll finish it,\u201d Murphy told me.<\/p>\n
How long will the Ken Men be around? Anyone\u2019s guess. The Talmadge Sisters, the women-only group mentioned earlier, was Cooper\u2019s inspiration for starting Ken Men, is eight years old and going strong. Cooper\u2019s wife Lorraine is a card-carrying Sister and has made a ton of new friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all about friendship and having fun to keep the Ken Men alive and growing,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n
Anyone interested in attending a Ken Men meeting or with a make-over project can contact the group by calling Doug Cooper at 619-726-4444.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dale Larabee | Larabee Laments I spent my first week as a college freshman in \u201crush week.\u201d This is a wine-and-dine affair when fraternities went looking for pledges to become \u201cbrothers\u201d and sororities for \u201csisters.\u201d It was a heady experience until you pledged and learned you were in for six months of serfdom. Kensington is […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1368,"featured_media":246762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"For Men Only","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1368"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}