The club was established after former members of the disbanded Exeter RSL sub branch met in the car park of the Exeter Bakery in 2010.

Since then it has grown to become a pillar of the community.

Inaugural club president Peter McCarthy called that meeting, and was this year recognised with the West Tamar Australia Day Citizen of the Year award.

Mr McCarthy said the Exeter Service and Community Club was a not-for-profit organisation, made up of members who wanted to give something back to their community.

"It's a very diverse range of people and things that we assist," he said.

"We like to assist those people that just really have not got any options open to them.

"We like to pay their accounts, we have done car conversions for people who are confined to wheelchairs, we have bought wheelchairs, we have raised money for people that have lost all of their belongings in a house fire.

"We've donated money to the Exeter Primary School when the government decided they would cut the funding for the special needs children.

"It has given the club quite a lot of satisfaction to do this. This was something that we were not doing before as an RSL, but as a community-based not-for-profit organisation the members have really taken it on board."

Mr McCarthy said it was "quite a shock" to receive the award on Australia Day.

"It's nice because it means that not only have I been recognised for the little bit that I've done, but it is a club award really, because of the contribution that the Exeter Service and Community Club have [made] for the West Tamar and the districts that they live in," he said.