The wind blew and the rain poured outside, but inside the Orono United Methodist Church on a recent evening, the laughter couldn’t have been warmer as 20 members of Starting Over gathered for their monthly potluck dinner.

Starting Over is just one of the local clubs – it’s an ecumenical support group – devoted to helping those who have, for whatever reason, lost a companion or have had trouble meeting someone in the first place.

Although couples do form, Starting Over is more than a place where a single person of a certain age – most members are at least in their 40s – might meet a companion. It’s a place where members say they’ve found support while going through rough times, found friendship, and for some members, a place that starts to feel like family.

And for almost everyone, it’s been a lifeline.

“I listened for a couple of weeks, but from then on I’ve been extremely involved,” said Karen Hudgins, at Starting Over regular who began attending meetings after her third divorce a few years ago. “I’ve met a lot of great people. It’s like a family. I don’t feel so lonely now. I’m just in a better place.”

The group meets Wednesday nights in the basement of the church. Every third Wednesday, Starting Over holds a potluck dinner with discussion afterward.

The group starts with a warm-up question – on this particular evening, what one would do with a winning lottery jackpot is the subject of lighthearted discussion. Then come announcements. There’s a dance coming up, along with a Halloween party, and by the way, don’t forget the DADGAD Coffeehouse open mike night in Orono.

Then the group gets down to business with a guest speaker or presentation. Starting Over has had visitors talk about how to do one’s taxes, learning to use a computer, and health and fitness. Afterward, participants might go to Governor’s in Old Town for informal coffee talk.

And that’s just the Wednesday meetings.

Starting Over members also get together for dances and parties, outdoor sports and indoor activities – many members must have busier social calendars than those of us in our 20s and 30s.

But those outings have become more than a way to pass the time.

“Many of us are past our 30s and 40s and we’re just now having the opportunity to explore the things we couldn’t do because we had kids or a husband or wife,” Hudgins said. “We have the free time and the financial freedom that we didn’t have then.”

For many of the Starting Over regulars, finding a companion was the initial motive that drove them to join. But ask most of the group’s members why they head to Orono every Wednesday night and actually finding a mate isn’t the impetus anymore.

Many of the Starting Over members say they have trouble finding single friends. Others are widowed and are facing life without their spouse – also a sort of starting over – or feel like their married friends treat them as if they’ve fallen off the face of the earth, as one man put it. One woman, a relatively new member, recently moved to Maine and is having trouble meeting people.

“I don’t have single friends to go out and do things with, so it’s been a great place to meet people,” said another female member. “That’s what I’ve gotten out of this. It’s a great place to make friends.”

Sometimes, of course, friendship turns into something else.

On this recent evening, there are two married couples and another engaged twosome. All three couples met at Starting Over, including one at the group’s 2001 Halloween party. The husband, who had been widowed previously, was living in Millinocket at the time and driving down to meetings. At the party he saw his now-wife across the room and knew he wanted to marry her.

“I puttered around [the house], played solitaire, went to lunch. I was doing the same thing day in and day out,” he said of the time before he joined Starting Over. “I needed to take a chance, I took it, and I made out.”

The couples are readily accepted into the group even though they’re not single anymore. The single members consider the couples their friends, anyway.

Oh, and there are no dues or fees. Everyone comes and goes to whatever meetings and events they can.

The reward is the progress people make after finding the group, like one Old Town woman going through a divorce discovered recently.

“I found myself very depressed and I felt like I had no support,” she said. “Since then, I have gathered a lot of strength from this group and I have always felt very welcomed and embraced. The support here has been a salvation. It’s encouraged me to find strength I didn’t know I had.”

To contact Starting Over, call 945-9326 or 947-2427 or e-mail ernestjbarnes@hotmail.com. Jessica Bloch can be reached at jbloch@bangordailynews.net.