Longtime Council on Aging aide Joe Collins, who co-founded the council’s Dull Men’s Club, died early Sunday at the age of 75.

Collins — who counseled seniors on the complex language of Medicare benefits, helped them find help for heating costs through the town’s fuel assistance program and put in many more hours at the senior center than his position as aide required — is remembered by friends and coworkers for what he did as well as the way he did it.

“He was the ‘Sarge in charge,’” said Ruth Ingalls, outreach worker for the Council on Aging. She worked with Collins for more than a decade. “He helped the seniors a lot. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t have done for this organization.”

She and others at the senior center recall Collins’ sense of humor and some of his favorite sayings.

“When people would start to grumble, he’d say, ‘Prisoners, be happy in your work,’” Council on Aging Director Mary Willis said. The line was borrowed from the World War II film, “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”

A more recent quote came from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

“If anyone said anything, he’d say, “You know the new motto: Yes. We. Can,” and that would get people laughing so that nobody would want to grumble anymore,” Willis recalled.

Though Collins was a part-time town employee, he “did a lot more than that,” Willis said. “He was sort of like my assistant director. He did an awful lot for us, and when he wasn’t here the last few months, I told him, ‘Joe, we didn’t realize how much you did. Now that you’re not here doing it, we’re going out of our mind playing catch-up.’ That made him laugh.”

Willis met Collins when he and friend Connie Church were looking for a location for their bereavement group at St. Thecla Church. The Council on Aging became their new home. Collins’ role at the Council on Aging soon expanded, and he took on the duties of senior aide, helping residents as a SHINE counselor to find the right health insurance plan.

Shortly after he started working at the senior center, Willis asked Collins to see about starting up a men’s group — a push from the state Executive Office of Elder Affairs to keep active a part of the senior population that tended to isolate themselves, Willis said.

“He went on the Internet and he came across the Royal Dull Men’s Society in England, and he went with that,” she said. “They would have topics chosen for each month like hummingbird migration or the park benches around the world. … I don’t know if they talked about that at their meetings, but they went around and talked about everything else.”

The council was awarded the 2003 ROSE Award from the Executive Office of Elder Affairs for their efforts in involving local men through the club and has received other recognitions.

Connie Church, who co-founded the group with Collins, first met him at St. Thecla’s, shortly after the death of his wife. The two had crossed paths many times over the years but never formally met.

The Dull Men’s Club just came naturally, he said.

“We felt there was a need for it. When men have tragedies everything’s ‘OK,’ and now they have somewhere to come and to just do guy talk,” he said.

Church proudly proclaims himself “very dull” and meets with the group every Wednesday at 10 a.m. The group has outgrown the small conference room and now has close to 40 men in its ranks.

“They say a good man is hard to find, and Joe was a good man. He’d help you anyway he could,” Church said. “He came in and rolled up his sleeves and went to work.”

Frank Tobin, president of the Pembroke Social Club, started volunteering at the senior center around the time Collins started there. He was one of the first few members of the Dull Men’s Club and took over running the meetings when Collins had to step down this fall because of his failing health.

Though he wasn’t accepting visitors for many weeks, last Monday, Collins called up Tobin and asked him and Church to stop by for coffee.

“He was a good guy, an intelligent man, and he never spoke down about anyone. He was always positive,” Tobin said. “Every time he spoke to anyone, he always ended up by saying ‘God bless’ to them. Even when I left the other day, he gave me a handshake and said ‘God bless.’”

Services for Joe Collins were held Thursday morning at St. Thecla Church. See the full obituary on page 16.