Membership challenge #2: say yes

Ask any long-time Eagles volunteer how they started volunteering and they’ll tell you the same story.

It goes like this:

“I joined with no intention of getting involved. Then one day someone asked me to help out in the kitchen/help decorate the banquet room/join the ritual team/sell raffle tickets. It just went from there.”

The three key words here: someone asked me. If you’re an active Eagle aerie or auxiliary, it’s your story too.

We’re a volunteer-run organization and all of us have the same problem. We don’t have enough volunteers.

We get deluged with suggestions for wonderful activities we could try for social or fundraising activities. They’ll improve bar revenues, attract younger members, improve our standing in the community, and increase our charity contributions.

As great as these ideas are, the people suggesting them are preaching to the choir. We have the same question every time: who’ll do it?

In my aerie Toronto 2311 every single aerie officer is also heavily involved in at least one other regular activity. In London 4060 aerie meetings a motion to launch a new activity is considered out of order unless it comes with names of the people who will actually take on responsibility for making it happen. In Sault Ste Marie 3991 (where I’m a dual member) I hear members complain that they get the same officers year after year – members who aren’t themselves willing to serve.

Here’s the response at its most basic: if all you can think of is to serve a spaghetti dinner, put on a spaghetti dinner. If that’s still all you can think of, put on another spaghetti dinner – but have different people prepare it. I’ve never heard anyone say “I don’t want spaghetti because I’ve eaten it before”.

I promise you, once you have enough people experienced at spaghetti dinners someone will suggest roast beef.

Building a volunteer base is easier than you might think. All it takes is a willingness to listen and to take the time with people.

The best piece of advice I’ve heard in 35 years as an Eagle came from Honorary Past Grand Worthy President Robert Wahls at this year’s New York State Convention. He’s a past Grand Aerie Secretary and comes from one of the biggest and most successful aeries anywhere, Carlisle Pennsylvania. New York State asks for him to be their Grand Aerie representative every Convention.

Bob said, in part, “if someone asks you if they can help say yes. If you can’t think of something for them to do, give them your job and you find something else to do.”

It’s that important to involve someone new.

Bob had more to say. “New members always ask if they can help. If you don’t say yes right there and then, they won’t come back to you.

“Most people don’t volunteer on their own, but if you ask someone to do something they’re capable of doing, most people will say yes. Ask.”

In my aerie Walter Kato was asked nearly 40 years ago to install Christmas lights in the banquet room. He’s 80 now and still installs those lights. John Talman calls the numbers for Bar Bingo, as he has for 15 years. I don’t think he’s missed a single Friday. He’s 72. Georgina Williams runs a meat roll every second Saturday afternoon, and has for years at the Eagles and at the Naval Club before that. She’s 86.

We have the same people running our darts, shuffleboard and pool leagues as we have for years. Our President is serving his fourth term.

Imagine how close we might be to serious trouble.

Here are five ways to get to yes.
1. Ask a nonmember to join you to help out next time you have something to do at the Eagles, or are participating in something they’d like. If they come along, you’ve got their undivided attention while you introduce them to other members and tell them how much you enjoy being an Eagle. Have an application form ready.
2. On the night of a new member initiation, forget about socializing with Eagles you’ve known for years. Your mission is to invest time with those new members, especially if they’re sitting alone, and introducing them to others. When they express an interest in an activity take them to the person doing it, and say the new person is interested. Get a commitment for a specific day, a specific task.
3. When you need help, don’t look first to the bar; look for someone sitting alone, new member or long-timer. No matter how long they've been around, you might be the first person to take a genuine interest.
4. Jot down a list ahead of time of simple tasks people could do to start getting involved. Don’t approach people who've done it for years, they’ll find their own way there. Go to people who aren’t involved and find something on your list you can ask them to help with.
5. Keep asking. Grand Madam Trustee Gloria Williams made this point at the Eastern Canada Regional Conference. She knew a capable but uninvolved new member and approached her with one thing or another from time to time. She finally became involved after four years and remains one of her auxiliary’s most active members. It’s worth taking the time and making the effort.

Next membership challenge post: ask people to stay.

Membership challenge #1: all you have to do is ask

The Fraternal Order of Eagles is a member-based organization. If you want your aerie to grow and prosper, you have to ask new people to join.

At the very least, they replace the aged and infirm, those who died or moved away and those who lost interest or moved on to pursue other interests. If we don’t do that, we face a future of getting older and smaller.

It sounds so very simple, but we aren’t doing it. One of our slogans is “Every Member Owes a Member Annually”, or EMOAMA.

But according to the Grand Aerie Membership Department, only 5.2 per cent of Eagles are unique proposers – people who signed up one or more new members last year. All year, only one member in 20 has encouraged at least one more person to join.

In Ontario we’re no better. Toronto Aerie 2311’s unique proposers were 7 per cent of members. London 4060 had fewer than six per cent. In Sault Ste Marie 3991 five people did (7 per cent) but three of them serve as bar stewards – people usually face to face with patrons at the bar because they aren’t volunteering for anything.

In Webbwood 4269 new members are seen as the Secretary’s responsibility – only the Secretary has been a unique proposer for years now, a practice that’s curiously common in some Eagles clubs. And in Heyden 4061 no one did.

That’s why Ontario didn’t even replace the members we lost last year, and usually haven’t for some time. In fact, in the FOE overall only seven States or Provinces reported net gains last year. The FOE has lost more members than it gained every single year since 1993, more than 20 years ago.

The critical issue here is that we’re all starved for volunteers. We need more than bar patrons. We need people to prepare dinners or to clean up afterwards. We need people to serve as officers or to sell raffle tickets, to plan and carry out fundraising activities or simply to take out the trash.

We burn out too many of the volunteers we have because we turn to them again and again.

It’s no exaggeration to say that any Ontario aerie or auxiliary signing up three – just three – new dedicated volunteers this year would transform that aerie or auxiliary.

Don’t ask yourself “why don’t they…?” There is no “they”, there’s only “we”. Sometimes there’s only you, and sometimes that’s all we need.

If you have read this far you care. So here’s what you need to do.

Think of a friend or relative who could be a good member, but wait until there’s something happening at the aerie that they would enjoy. You and your spouse could invite another (nonmember) couple to a dinner/dance. Ask someone who likes to play darts to join a dart league at the aerie. Ask a handyman to come by to help out with a renovation project.

You’ll show them a good time, get a chance to introduce them to other Eagles and have their undivided attention while you tell them how much you enjoy being an Eagle. Then ask them to join.

Repeat that process as often as you need to until you sign up one or two new members, and convince your brothers and sisters to take the same approach.

Next membership challenge post: say yes.

Ontario wants to stay with Quebec in Eastern Canada Region

Ontario delegates to the just-concluded Eastern Canada Regional Conference in Sault Ste Marie Ontario voted unanimously to petition jointly with Quebec Provincial Aerie to ask the Eagles’ Grand Aerie to reverse its decision to dissolve the Region.

The decision to reassign Ontario’s Aeries to two other Regions was communicated to the Ontario Provincial Aerie in May (details are here).

Under the reassignment southern Ontario aeries (London Aerie 4060 and Toronto Aerie 2311) would become part of Eastern Region (with Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania). The northern Ontario aeries of Heyden-Goulais River 4061, Sault Ste Marie Aerie 3991 and Webbwood Aerie 4269 would go to Great Lakes Region (with northern Michigan and Wisconsin State Aerie).

All Quebec Aeries, meanwhile, would be reassigned to New England Region with aeries in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts/Rhode Island and Vermont.

The change was set to take effect with the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

Instead, however, Ontario delegates preferred to consult with Quebec Provincial Aerie about a joint petition asking that we remain together.

No Quebec delegates were present. Past Eastern Canada Regional President Bertrand Tetreault had planned to attend with Jean-Charles Raymond (Terrebonne Aerie) but Brother Tetreault was hospitalized after a traffic accident a week before the Sault Conference.

Delegates in the Sault decided to request spokespersons from Quebec to attend the Ontario Provincial Aerie Fall Conference in London ON October 3-4 instead, to consider a joint petition.

Part of the concern of delegates in the Sault was a feeling that reassigning Ontario’s aeries was a precursor to eventual dissolution of the Ontario Provincial Aerie returning its Local Aeries to the Michigan and New York State Aeries they were part of before the OPA was formed in 1995.

Attending the Sault Conference was Grand Trustee Dave Smith from Penticton, British Columbia.

As a new Grand Trustee he was not part of the original decision to dissolve the ECRC but would be part of considering any decision to reverse it.

He is also a Past President of the now-dissolved Canadian Conference of Eagles.

Coincidentally, Brother Smith was scheduled to attend a Grand Trustees meeting in Grove City OH immediately following the Eastern Canada Region Conference.