That is the modern-day mantra when it comes to reasons why people don’t join Sertoma, Optimists, Lions or any of the other service organizations that have for decades been the lifeblood of many communities. Many service clubs are losing members. Some have even had to shut down.
Jonathan Isler, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois Springfield, says he believes people are as committed as ever, but community service has taken different forms.
“People are still doing social things and are engaged and community-oriented,” Isler says. “They’re not more selfish or more narcissistic, but there’s this kind of rallying-around-the-wagons mentality in which people want to take care of family and friends first.”
David Parsons of Springfield is busy, too, but he still finds benefits from his involvement in Rotary International.
As CEO of the Central Illinois Community Blood Center, Parsons oversees getting blood supplies to 19 hospitals in central and southwestern Illinois. There are blood collection drives, volunteers, donors, employees, budgeting and education programs to coordinate. He doesn’t do it all by himself, but the buck stops with him.
As of July 1, Parsons will be even busier. On that date, Parsons becomes governor of Rotary District 6460. During his one-year term, he will oversee Rotary clubs in a district that runs from Madison County to Sangamon County and from Kewanee to the Missouri border.
One of his goals will be to convince more people they aren’t really too busy. The district wants to increase its membership by 10 percent this year.
Part of the personal satisfaction Parson finds in his Rotary membership is “knowing that, no matter how small, you had a hand in helping someone.”
Parsons became involved in Rotary in the 1980s, when he lived in North Carolina.
“Frankly, I didn’t know that much about it then,” he said. “I started learning about it and became intrigued with what Rotary could do.”
That includes everything from helping to eradicate polio in the 1950s to promoting world peace today. In Springfield, Rotary sponsored the “Hats Off To Mr. Lincoln” project, in which artists created replicas of Lincoln’s stovepipe hat. The replicas were scattered throughout downtown Springfield last summer. Rotarians’ charitable work supports a huge variety of projects both here and internationally.
“Rotary is just a phenomenal organization,” he says. “It has big, hairy goals. One of them is actually world peace. There are six universities across the world, one in the United States, where we train scholars in what are called world peace centers.”
After Parsons moved to Springfield five years ago, he transferred his membership to the local Rotary. Actually, there are five clubs in Springfield — Rotary Club of Springfield (the original, organized in 1913), Midtown Rotary Club of Springfield, Springfield South, Springfield Sunrise and Springfield Westside.
Having five clubs is a good indicator that interest remains high in Springfield.
“It’s a hotbed there,” says current district governor Larry Thompson.
Parsons is the third district governor from Springfield — Bob Stuart and Rod Buffington both served in that capacity. In addition, Stuart was an international director for Rotary.
Parsons sympathizes with people who just don’t think they can fit one more thing into their lives — especially parents who are involved with their children’s school and athletic activities.
“The lack of time, that’s legitimate for some people,” Parsons says. “They just can’t do anything extra. For me, I think you can always find the time do one more thing and to do it well.
“With something like Rotary, you are doing more than one thing. By doing it well, the impact can be phenomenal.”
Dave Bakke can be reached at 788-1541 or dave.bakke@sj-r.com.
Technology creates new ways to help, sociologist says
One factor in the decline of some community clubs is that modern technology has created different ways for people to help others, says Jonathan Isler, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois Springfield.
For instance, he said, Internet pages like Caring Bridge allow people to support others who have serious illnesses or are otherwise hurting.
Those forms of involvement are not as visible as community service clubs, Isler concedes.
“I do think there has been a slight fall of, maybe, the more public support,” he said. “That might explain why different groups have problems.
“For a lot of the older generation, (new forms of community support) are not as real, maybe because it’s not something you can touch or hear or feel,” he said. “But I’m an optimist. People are still willing to help their neighbors and friends.”
-- Dave Bakke
Loss of Auburn Rotary still affects ex-member
AUBURN -- Just about 10 years ago, Tom Walker had to perform a distasteful task.
He stood up at a meeting of the Auburn Rotary and made a motion to disband the club. The motion passed. After 63 years, the Auburn Rotary Club was no more.
At 63 years old himself, Walker was one of the youngest members at that meeting. That was one problem. The other was that only 10 people ever came to meetings. They had tried to boost membership, including putting an ad in the local newspaper soliciting new members. Nothing worked.
“Disbanding was a terribly hard thing to do,” Walker told The State Journal-Register then. “I almost had some tears when I made the motion. The sadness is because of the older fellas who started the club in 1937. I heard a catch in one voice when we talked about it.”
Tom, who is now 73, still lives in Auburn, and he misses that Rotary Club. It never came back.
“Oh yeah. I enjoyed Rotary,” Walker says. “I especially enjoyed the one international convention I got to go to in Indianapolis.”
After Auburn’s club disbanded, Walker attended a couple of meetings at the Virden Rotary, but didn’t join. It wasn’t the same. The Auburn members had known each other for so long that those friendships had become part of the experience for him.
Strangely, three of the Auburn Rotary club’s charter members died within a year after the club folded. Walker thinks those men lost a lot of life’s enjoyment when they couldn’t go to Rotary anymore.
“They weren’t able to do anything, like go to the dinners and all our activities that we did,” he says.
Tom stays active as a substitute teacher for the Auburn School District.
The school district found another sponsor for the dinners the Rotary used to sponsor for Auburn High School athletes, cheerleaders and scholars, and life went on.
-- Dave Bakke
Lincoln VFW post struggles to stay financially solvent
LINCOLN – When Vince Long joined the Lincoln Veterans of Foreign Wars post in the late 1960s, the group held meetings twice a month, had fish fries every Friday and bingo every Monday.
Four decades later, the fish fries and bingo are a thing of the past, and the group meets only once a month.
A couple of months ago, it even looked like Cronin Brothers VFW Post 1756 wouldn’t be able to meet its mortgage and would have to close. A fundraiser saved the post in the short term, but its long-term future remains a challenge.
“We use to have something going on every Friday and Saturday night,” Long said. “Then, it got to where people started passing away. Things slowly went downhill.”
Last year, Post 1756 had about 215 dues-paying members. This year, the number is down to 188. Some of the former members quit paying dues, others moved away, and some died.
Long, who served on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal during the Vietnam War, is the quartermaster of the post. He said membership is down, but the post is trying to recruit new people.
Most of the leaders in the Lincoln post are from the Vietnam era and are in their 60s. Long wants to make sure there will be a new group of leader to take over in the future.
Post 1756 has managed to sign up about 15 people who served during Desert Storm and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the new members don’t always have a lot of spare time to give to the VFW.
“They are busy raising families, working, and some of them have been re-deployed,” Long said. “…A lot of the (members’ kids) are active in sports. So, the post isn’t quite the community focal point it use to be.”
Earlier this year, the post announced that it might have to close its doors if it didn’t raise $20,000. Post 1756 had taken out a $190,000 second mortgage to buy a parking lot and improve their building. But after the economy nose-dived, the post ran out of money to pay the bills.
The post held a fundraiser that, as of mid-February, had raised $29,000, and additional funds were still coming in.
Post 1756 is out of the woods for now, Long said, but members need to keep having activities to maintain the cash flow.
One idea is a summer fish fry that would also include carnival rides. Among other things, that might attract interest younger VFW members, he said.
Post 1756 also needs to stress its role in the community, he said.
The post is a meeting place for veterans, but it is also involved in fundraisers for other organizations and people.
“We just don’t blow our own horn loud enough. That’s the way it seems to be with all service organizations,” Long said.
Mayor Keith Snyder said the post is an important part of the Lincoln community.
Over the years, members have allowed their facility to be used for community programs, including a concert that raised money for an anti-drug initiative, the mayor said.
“The have big hearts,” Snyder said of the VFW members. “They make their facility available for good programs. The VFW is an important piece in the fabric of our community.”
Snyder said he is proud of the way the community rallied behind the post when its money problems were made public in January.
“It was a sense of, let’s pull together and help them out,” Snyder said. “They’ve helped us over the years – “us” meaning the broader community – so there was a sense that it was time for us to rally around them. They answered the call in their day, in their particular day, and it was time for the community to answer the call for them.”
-- John Reynolds
Social clubs trying several
strategies to stay relevant
While conventional wisdom holds that fraternal,
veteran and social organizations are declining
in membership, Springfield’s Elks Lodge 138 is
bucking the trend.
Nationally, Elks membership is declining
slightly. In Springfield, membership is up.
Not only that, it has gotten younger.
“That’s where we found ourselves three or four
years ago,” lodge secretary Gary Whitson of
Springfield says of the “aging/dying”
perception. “We realized we needed to get
younger people and get them active, not just for
the social aspect. We have a bunch of younger
officers in the lodge now.”
Membership in the local Elks lodge has risen the
past two years, a record other service
organizations would love to have.
It was done, Whitson says, partly by refocusing
the mission to issues more relevant to young
people. The days when these groups could keep
members interested with a meal and a guest
speaker could be gone.
This winter, for example, a large billboard on
South Ninth Street promoted the Elks’ efforts to
keep young people away from drugs. Whitson’s
son, Blake, who is also a member of the lodge,
helps coordinate that program, part of an Elks
International initiative.
The other secret, Whitson says, is hustle.
Current members work to convince prospective
members that the image they may have of the Elks
is outdated.
“We’re not really doing membership drives,” he
says. “But we’re working hard to find people who
are interested in what the Elks bring to the
table.”
Aside from its anti-drug program, that includes
scholarship programs, charitable activities and
working with schools on issues the Elks care
about.
New approaches
These programs are getting a big push from
organizations such as the Lions, Elks, Optimists
and Kiwanis.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars is changing as
well.
“We grew up in VFW with bingo and fish fries,”
says Terry Vance, state adjutant for the
organizations. “Now we’re in the computer age.
The interest of vets today is somewhat different
because of technology.”
Last year, Springfield’s Downtown Rotary club
awarded $33,780 to 30 local charities in
addition to $7,000 in scholarships and
humanitarian funding through Rotary
International.
And yet if the club wants to keep that level of
giving, it has to work hard to retain members.
Nationally, Rotary’s membership has dropped from
its peak, which came in 1996.
Larry Thompson is head of Rotary District 6460.
It’s a large district that includes much of
central, western and southern Illinois. Thompson
says the district’s membership is stable but not
where he would like it to be.
“It’s a struggle this year with the economy,” he
says. “Memberships sometimes get paid by the
businesses of the members. With the economy the
way it is, some of those businesses have stopped
paying their employees’ dues and, consequently,
the employees opt not to be members.”
David Parsons of Springfield, who will succeed
Thompson as district governor, says that
attracting the younger generation is going to
mean two things — getting longtime members to
embrace new ways of doing things and refocusing
the traditional approach.
“Today’s up-and-coming generation,” he says, “is
interested in service, not just sitting at a
meal and chit-chatting socially. They want to be
actually doing something, getting involved.
“Still, you’ve got to keep the meetings for your
older folks. I like to go to dinner meetings,
get there early, chat with people. You have to
do both.”
Worldwide, Rotary International is doing fine.
Growth is particularly strong in Asia, and there
will soon be Chinese clubs joining the group.
But Americans are not joining as they once did.
“It grew until about 2000,” Thompson says, “and
has leveled off since that time. We’re holding
our own, but we have to work extra hard.”
Membership vacuum
Social and fraternal organizations have tried a
number of initiatives to entice new members.
They offer incentives to current members who
sign up new people. Regular informational
meetings are held for nonmembers, including an
audio-visual presentation on the group and the
benefits of joining.
Prospective members are invited to be guest
speakers. Some organizations require each member
to invite at least one potential new member to a
meeting. The American Legion recently instituted
a Lucky 7 program. Legionnaires who bring in two
members and secure five renewals from current
members receive a special Lucky 7 pin.
Two groups that should be seeing an infusion of
younger members are the Legion and the VFW. Wars
in both Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been
going on most of the last decade, have created a
crowd of potential members.
Vance, VFW state adjutant, says Illinois
membership peaked just before Desert Storm in
1990-91. World War II veterans were in their 60s
and 70s then and still active. In the ensuing 20
years, many of them have died or have become
physically unable to remain active. Korean War
veterans, another strong group of VFW members,
have also aged.
It all created a vacuum in membership that has
been only partially filled by veterans returning
from Middle Eastern wars. Part of the problem is
that the new veterans have trickled back to
civilian life over a number of years.
“Vets are coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq
and joining,” he says, “but they are not as
active as those World War II veterans were when
they all came home at once. In the 1940s and
’50s, they came home to Springfield and their
neighbors were veterans, and they all were
together after winning the war.”
Smoking ban hurt
At the Eagles Club on East Ash Street in
Springfield, president Ed Charles says
membership declined after Illinois’ smoking ban
went into effect, but things are looking better
these days.
“We’re starting to come back,” he says. “It’s up
considerably from what we lost. I’m hoping that
it will keep going in the same direction.”
Charles says better than half of the Eagles
membership in Springfield is active. “We’re
turning that around, too,” he says.
Though the Eagles building at Ash is a social
center for members, that isn’t enough. Charles
says the group has adopted a variety of causes —
most of them related to health, such as cancer
research.
Last year, the Eagles tried NASCAR. This is the
second year the group will be sponsoring cars in
the Busch Series of races.
The battle to retain members, raise visibility
and attract younger members is never over for
any of these organizations, but they are all
trying new things in the battle to stay
relevant.
Dave Bakke can be reached at 788-1541.
Rotary
Rotary International is the world’s first
service club organization, with more than 1.2
million members in 33,000 clubs worldwide. There
are 368,000 members in the United States.
Find a local club online at
www.rotary.org.
Use the contact information for that club or
fill out a form on the Web site and the club
will get in touch with you
Kiwanis
Organized in Detroit on Jan. 21, 1915. There are
600,000 men, women and youth members in nearly
16,000 clubs in more than 70 countries and
geographic areas.
Kiwanis and its service leadership programs
volunteer more than 21 million hours and invest
more than $113 million in their communities
around the world. Find a local club online at
www.kiwanis.org,
and contact a club officer.
Optimist International
There are 90,000 Optimists in about 3,000
Optimist Clubs around the world. Every year,
Optimists conduct 65,000 service projects and
serve more than six million young people.
To learn more about joining, visit the My
Sidewalk page online at
www.optimist.org. At My Sidewalk, request
information about a variety of topics. An
Optimist volunteer will contact you.
Veterans of Foreign Wars
The VFW traces its roots to 1899 when veterans
of the Spanish-American War (1898) and the
Philippine Insurrection (1899-1902) founded
local organizations to secure rights and
benefits for their service. There are 2.2
million members.
To join, call VFW headquarters at 217-546-2128;
e-mail
vfwil@vfwil.org; visit a local VFW post and
fill out application; or go online at
www.vfwil.org
and click the “Join the VFW” link.
American Legion
The American Legion was chartered and
incorporated by Congress in 1919. It is the
largest veterans service organization with 2.6
million members
To join: Go online at
www.legion.org/join or contact your local
Legion post
Sertoma
The first official luncheon meeting of the
founding club was held on April 11, 1912, at the
Coates House Hotel, then the fashionable hotel
in Kansas City.
There are 20,000 members in the United States.
During the last 10 years, its annual fund has
provided graduate scholarships to 231 applicants
— the largest number of scholarships to be
granted to the hearing and speech field in the
country.
To join, go online at
www.sertoma.org.
Lions International
With 45,000 clubs and more than 1.3 million
members, Lions is the world’s largest service
club organization.
Founded in 1917, the clubs are best known for
fighting blindness. One million children have
been screened by the club’s vision screening
program.
Membership in a Lions club is by invitation.
Contact a local club, ask if you can attend a
meeting to learn more. At the meeting, ask about
becoming a member.