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Congrats Boomers!

I really have no idea what the Lions Club ever did.
 
bobknightfan said:
The one place where I do disagree strongly with you is in your assessment of the work that local civic organizations do in their own community. I'm specifically thinking here of the Lions Club, of which I was a member for 30 years. The Lions Club has always been a "working club", as opposed clubs that may be more social in nature. Lions do a tremendous amount of things for their local communities. We held "White Cane" drives to raise money to purchase glasses & eye exams for people who could not afford it. We held two local golf tournaments a year to raise money that was used completely locally for things like sponsoring boys & girls' little league baseball & softball teams. Each member personally sponsored a local blind or sight-impaired person for whom we performed errands on a regular basis, etc. I would encourage you to research Lionism and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at what they do on a local basis. And, contrary to what you said, these organizations...at least the Lions Clubs...are much more important in small and mid-sized communities than they are in larger cities, in my observation from 30 years of participation with them.

When I joined the Lions Club in November, 1974 just after turning 28, our little town....and Randleman has less than 5,000 residents....had about 35 Lions Club members. Over the years, that number gradually declined as people evidently came up with more & more demands on their time (not related to community service) until by the time I left the club after 30 years in November, 2004 we had only around 10 active members.....and they were all more than 40 years old. You just couldn't get new, younger people to take the time to serve. And this is something that didn't just start in the last 10 or 15 years.
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thanks for sharing; I think more people would be interested in joining if they'd advertise their works or shift focus to things millennials 'care about'
 
Something one should thing about regarding the semi-demise of groups like Lions, Rotary, etc., is that in the 50s-70s they were among the only ways to make business connections. People were virtually "expected" to join them. Now there seems to be more and more groups. Many of which are more specialized to industries and types of service.

Another factor is these types of organizations were sort of "the boys clubs". Many guys joined as semi-grown up frats. You'd do some service, but you'd also hangout. With two income families and much more shared parenting time the viability for such groups has waned.
 
RJKarl said:
Something one should thing about regarding the semi-demise of groups like Lions, Rotary, etc., is that in the 50s-70s they were among the only ways to make business connections. People were virtually "expected" to join them. Now there seems to be more and more groups. Many of which are more specialized to industries and types of service.

Another factor is these types of organizations were sort of "the boys clubs". Many guys joined as semi-grown up frats. You'd do some service, but you'd also hangout. With two income families and much more shared parenting time the viability for such groups has waned.
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Plus, young people today don't like funny hats.
 
Shorty said:
Plus, young people today don't like funny hats.
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Millennials should not join any service clubs. They should vote to force their neighbors to join service clubs. They should, however, attend the parties.
 
bobknightfan said:
I somewhat resent comparing the Lions Club to Rotary. In my town, Rotary met once a week (that alone would discourage me from joining) for lunch and it always seems to be more of a social club...though I'm sure they did some good things for the community. The Lions Clubs are much more "hands-on", "blue-collar" types of clubs. As I said, they are "working clubs". We met on the 2nd & 4th Thursday night, and while we had a meal, the focus was more on projects we were going to do to help the community.

In addition to things I mentioned earlier, we also sponsored the annual Miss Randleman beauty contest (since 1949, I think it was) which was out largest single fundraiser. While the primary focus in the Lions' charter was to help the visually handicapped (later amended to include the hearing handicapped), we were also regularly making contributions to other worthwhile local projects. All of our money was used locally...other than contributions to "Camp Dogwood" in Sherrill's Ford, NC where the NC Lions Association built a really nice summer camp on Lake Norman where local blind citizens could go to a summer camp for a week free of charge with counselors planning all kinds of activities for them. (And that was another thing that our members did....drive those people to & from that camp each summer. One Lions member would take the blind person to the camp and a week later, another member would go pick that person up.)
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You are using your experience with civic organizations in Randleman, NC as some universal truth that applies to all communities across the country.
 
bobknightfan said:
I'm not aware of anything that I have said here which relates to anything that RJ has said on this thread. I even took exception to one thing he said (comparing Lions with Rotary).
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That's why he said cat fight...

Hey at least I didn't compare you to the Knights of Columbus or the Elks.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
You are using your experience with civic organizations in Randleman, NC as some universal truth that applies to all communities across the country.
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This applies in more ways than one...
 
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