Yes it would appear so. I was member it but I'm afraid I only took part in few tournaments,
I did not mind being the gambiteer but you also had to take the part of the
player material up and often lagging in development. I always felt uncomfortable
in those situations.
To me, the unbalanced positions were necessary byproducts of the Gambits on offer. I enjoyed the challenge of attempting to create new "non-book" lines or playing those which are rarely seen. Every failure was a triumph in learning.
I found this extremely sad, gambit fantasy has been very successful over the years with over 1000 tournaments. And lots of good fun and keen members.
But is also a bit baffling. There is a weakness in the club system in that it relies on one person and it can take a lot of time to run a successful club. So gambit fantasy has had about 5 different leads (over 13 years?) and so why was it not passed on again? I didn't see any requests. And now the membership has been cleared out, so difficult to restart. I presume that if anyone requests to be lead then they can.
Also the club was still active, the few tournies I tried to join filled up before I could enter.
For sure. He did a good job and worked hard at it. It's a bit of a thankless task and there are a lot of successful clubs abandoned. So it would not be surprising if he had had enough.
So I find it puzzling that after all his time and effort, to then close the club rather try and pass it on. Admittedly, I wouldn't imagine a rush of volunteers fighting for the role.