By Lisa Jorgensen, Publisher, Lake Chapala Reporter
For sixty-nine years, the Lake Chapala Society has been the beating heart of the English-speaking community at Lakeside. Founded in 1955 by 22 co-founders on land donated by writer and philanthropist Neill James, it is the oldest and largest community service organization at Lake Chapala, and the first place most new arrivals are told to visit.
This article covers what the LCS actually offers, how it works, what has been happening with its governance in 2025 and 2026, how members can protect the organization’s future, and what other community organizations serve the Lakeside expat community.
What the Lake Chapala Society Is
The LCS is a registered Mexican non-profit, an Asociación Civil (AC), located at Calle 16 de Septiembre 16-A in Ajijic. It operates on a campus of approximately one acre that includes a library, classrooms, meeting rooms, gardens, and event spaces.
Its mission is twofold: to serve the English-speaking expat community at Lakeside, and to give back to the broader Mexican community through education, arts, and social services. Both functions matter, and both are worth understanding.
Contact and hours:
- Address: 16 de Septiembre 16-A, Ajijic
- Phone: (376) 766-1140
- Website: lakechapalasociety.com
- Office and libraries: Monday to Saturday, 10am to 2pm
- Grounds: Monday to Saturday, 9am to 5pm; Sunday rear gate open 10am to 11:30am for Open Circle
What the LCS Offers Expats
The library
The LCS library is one of the largest English-language lending libraries in Mexico, with tens of thousands of books across fiction, non-fiction, and reference categories. For expats who read heavily, and many do, this alone justifies membership. The library is open during regular LCS hours and lending is included in membership.
Classes and educational programs
The LCS Education and Culture Department offers a wide range of classes for members and the community, including Spanish language instruction, Mexican culture and history, art, photography, and practical expat topics such as navigating Mexican bureaucracy, understanding healthcare, and driver’s license guidance. New classes are added regularly. Check the LCS website or newsletter for current offerings.
Social events and activities
The LCS calendar is rich with social opportunities: art exhibitions, concerts, film screenings, game groups, special interest clubs, and the annual Art in the Garden show, which draws visitors from throughout the region. For newly arrived expats who don’t yet know many people at Lakeside, the LCS social calendar is one of the fastest ways to build a local network.
Open Circle
The Sunday morning Open Circle, held on the LCS grounds, is one of the most distinctive Lakeside institutions. It is an informal gathering with guest speakers, covering a wide range of topics, from local issues to international affairs to personal journeys. It functions as a community forum and social occasion simultaneously, and is a good early stop for anyone trying to understand the texture of Lakeside expat life.
Health and wellness programs
The LCS offers various health and wellness programs including fitness classes, health screenings, and connections to medical resources. The LCS maintains a referral list for local doctors, dentists, and insurance specialists that is a useful resource for newly arrived residents.
Member referral services
One of the LCS’s most practically useful features for newcomers is its network of referrals for doctors, lawyers, contractors, housekeepers, handymen, and other services. The collective knowledge of a 69-year-old community organization is genuinely valuable when you are new to an area and don’t know who to trust.
What the LCS Offers the Mexican Community
The LCS’s service to the broader Mexican community is significant, and deserves recognition.
The Wilkes Learning Center
The Wilkes Learning Center, named for Neill James’s close friend Melba Wilkes, provides English language instruction and computer literacy programs to Mexican residents of the Lakeside area. This is the most direct expression of the LCS’s commitment to the community that hosts it, and it is genuinely valued. Hundreds of Mexican students have passed through Wilkes programs over the years.
The Children’s Summer Art Camp
The LCS’s Children’s Summer Art Camp serves Mexican children from the local community each summer. In 2026 the program wrapped up with over 200 children enrolled, a meaningful contribution to arts education in a community where such opportunities are limited.
Spay and neuter programs
In partnership with local animal welfare organizations, the LCS supports free spay and neuter services for Mexican nationals of limited means, contributing to the ongoing effort to address the Lakeside street animal population.
Membership — What It Costs and What You Get
LCS membership is open to anyone, and is modestly priced by any standard. As of 2026, annual membership fees are in the range typically charged by community organizations of this type. Check lakechapalasociety.com for current rates, which are voted on annually.
Membership includes access to the library, discounts on LCS classes and events, voting rights at the Annual General Meeting, and the right to participate in the governance of the organization, including calling an Extraordinary General Meeting under the bylaws.
For expats who plan to spend significant time at Lakeside, membership in the LCS is essentially a given. The library alone is worth it.
The Governance Crisis — What Members Need to Know
The Lake Chapala Society has experienced an extraordinary period of governance turbulence in 2025 and 2026 that every member and prospective member should understand.
The resignations
In the period following the 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM), the LCS lost five board officers. The departures accelerated dramatically in February and March 2026, when the organization lost its Treasurer, its Board President, and its Executive Director in rapid succession, the latter just days before the 2026 AGM.
The departing Executive Director’s resignation letter stated plainly that after nearly a year with the organization, it had “not demonstrated alignment in the areas of ethics and governance,” and that in his experience of forty years in non-profit leadership, such alignment was unlikely to come.
The 2026 AGM
The March 2026 Annual General Meeting took place against this backdrop of departures. The LCS’s own post-AGM statement, published on the LCS website, acknowledged that the meeting had been marred by a “procedural breach” and “voting irregularities,” and concluded that “confidence in the integrity of this AGM has been seriously damaged.”
The Extraordinary Meeting
Members exercised their rights under the LCS bylaws to call an Extraordinary General Meeting, held August 20, 2026. Three candidates initially stood for the position of president: LCS member Shelley Edson, former Executive Director Terry Vidal, and acting President Yolanda Martínez Llamas. Both competing candidates withdrew from the election before the vote. The circumstances of their withdrawal have been the subject of considerable concern within the Lakeside community. Martínez won the election, and remains president as of the publication of this article.
Closed-door board meetings
In July 2026, the LCS board held its monthly meeting entirely behind closed doors, described by local news sources as “highly unusual.” The board committed to reporting out decisions at the next open meeting, but the departure from the organization’s recent practice of open meetings generated further concern among members.
The current situation
As of October 2026, the LCS is operating under a board led by Yolanda Martínez as president, with ongoing community scrutiny of its governance and financial management. A search for a new Executive Director was underway as of mid-2026.
The organization itself — its library, its programs, its campus, its community functions — continues to operate and serve members. The governance questions are about leadership, not about the value of what the LCS does or the dedication of its many volunteers.
Your Rights as a Member
The LCS governance difficulties make this section more important than it would normally be in an article of this kind.
LCS members have meaningful rights under the organization’s bylaws — rights that, by the LCS board’s own admission in its March 2026 post-AGM statement, were “regrettably not communicated at the AGM itself.”
Annual General Meeting (AGM)
The AGM is held annually, typically in March. All current members may attend and vote. Board officers and directors-at-large are elected at the AGM. The AGM agenda is published in advance, and members can submit items for consideration. Attending the AGM is the most basic form of participation in LCS governance.
Extraordinary General Meeting
Any member, or group of members, may call an Extraordinary General Meeting by obtaining the signatures of 50 members, and submitting a formal request. This mechanism exists specifically to allow the membership to act when confidence in the board or in a process has been shaken. The LCS bylaws provide this right explicitly, and it has been exercised by members in 2026.
Board meetings
Regular open board meetings are scheduled monthly, and members may attend. Since the 2026 AGM, attendance by members at open sessions has increased dramatically, a healthy sign for organizational accountability.
Speaking to the board
Members may register in advance to speak to the board at open meetings about matters of concern. As of June 2026, at least 30 members had submitted applications to speak on various matters.
The message is straightforward: the LCS belongs to its members. The governance problems of 2025 and 2026 did not arise in a vacuum. They arose in part because member participation in governance had been low. The solution is more participation, not less. Attend the AGM. Come to open board meetings. Use the Extraordinary Meeting mechanism if you believe it is warranted. The organization is worth saving, and the tools to save it are in the bylaws.
Other Expat Community Organizations at Lakeside
The LCS is the largest, but far from the only, community organization serving the Lakeside expat community. Several others deserve mention.
Ajijic Society of the Arts
One of the premier arts organizations at Lakeside, supporting local artists through exhibitions, events, and cultural programming. The visual arts community at Lake Chapala is genuinely rich, and this organization is central to it.
ANAVETS
The Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans organization serves Canadian veterans living at Lakeside, providing fellowship, commemoration events, and community service. It is celebrating its sixth year of community service in 2026.
Rotary Club of Ajijic
Active in community service projects both within the expat community and the broader Lakeside area. The Rotary Club has been involved in solar energy installations for local orphanages and other community infrastructure projects.
Animal welfare organizations
The Lakeside area has a remarkably active animal welfare community including Lucky Dog Lake Chapala, SOS Chapala Dog Rescue, Lakeside Friends of the Animals, and Tails of Mexico. These organizations operate primarily on volunteer effort and donor support from the expat community.
International Friendship Club
The IFC focuses on fostering connections between the expat and Mexican communities at Lakeside through cultural exchange, social events, and charitable activities.
Various churches and faith communities
Several English-language and bilingual congregations serve the Lakeside expat community, including Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, and non-denominational communities. The Sunday Open Circle at LCS itself draws participants of all faiths and none.
Newcomers groups
Several informal newcomers groups operate at Lakeside, providing a welcoming entry point for recently arrived expats. The LCS itself maintains connections to these groups, and can point new arrivals toward them.
The Bottom Line
The Lake Chapala Society has been the center of Lakeside’s English-speaking community for nearly seven decades. Its library, programs, social events, and connections are genuinely valuable, and its service to the Mexican community through Wilkes and other programs reflects the best of what an expat organization can be.
The governance difficulties of 2025 and 2026 are real and have been extensively documented in the community press. They do not diminish what the LCS offers, but they do underscore why engaged membership matters. An organization that belongs to its members only stays true to its mission when its members show up, vote, ask questions, and hold the board accountable.
Visit the LCS early in your time at Lakeside. Join. Volunteer. Use the library. Take a class. Attend an Open Circle. And go to the AGM in March.
LCS contact information:
- Address: 16 de Septiembre 16-A, Ajijic
- Phone: (376) 766-1140
- Website: lakechapalasociety.com
- Email: in**@***ac.org
Next in the Lake Chapala Insider: pets at Lake Chapala: bringing your dogs and cats to Mexico, the new 2026 screwworm requirements, veterinary care, animal welfare organizations, and the surprising rules around bringing birds back to the US.