I do not understand....

I just got back from the second monthly meeting of the Parkesburg Lions Club.  I joined them in the fall after Rudy died.  I thought it would be a good way to meet more local people and get out of the house from time to time.  It seemed like a small but active group of people who were trying to do good for the area in Parkesburg.

After the first couple of meetings, one of my friends joked with me that within a few years I would be running the club.  I told her 'no way' as I had done the organizing and getting activities together in many other groups and I was retiring from that,

Well, they asked me to take over as Secretary and I agreed.  How hard can it be... take notes, write up minutes and send out reminders for meetings.  Well, there are monthly reports to Lions International, the local District and then Zone.  I report membership changes, volunteer hours and a bunch of other things.  This was explained to me in a couple of minutes and I have been trying to figure it out each month a little at a time.

Our group is suffering the apathy that many organizations seem to be experiencing.  Because our society has begun placing so much emphasis on extracurricular activities for even young children in order for colleges and the like to consider them for acceptance, many young people today are not joining the older service organizations like Lions and Rotary, etc.  They find themselves getting kids from activity to activity as well doing fund raising for their children's organizations.  So the membership in these service groups is dwindling and it is getting harder and harder to get activities together.

The Lions have many, many International Charities as well as local organizations that they give funds to and in the past, this local chapter had large memberships and lots of fund raisers.  Not so much today.  In fact, our group is having difficulty even planning any fund raising activity.  Our aging group does not do well at night or in the cold, so winter meetings are sparse.  There are some members on the books that I have never seen in the three years I have been a member.  There are very active members who no longer find it a priority to come to the meetings if something better comes along.  I even found a long time officer not attending a meeting (her husband said she had a meeting to go to)... but she posted that she was getting a pedicure on Facebook... oops!

But, taking the bull by the horns, tonight I presented and got approved a two year plan for quarterly service projects in the form of Community Food Drives.  So at least we will be trying to collect food and needed articles for the people in our area who need assistance in getting food for their families.

I just do not understand what is happening to all of the caring folks who used to band together to be of service to their community.  I will work with my service project and hope that we can get other projects on our calendars so our funding will get back to where we can assist more of our locals with their vision issues.