No. 234 - COULD THIS BE YOUR CLUB?

No. 234

The next password is grace

Jim Davidson...NEWSPAPER COLUMN

COULD THIS BE YOUR CLUB?

Do you belong to a civic or service club of some kind? Maybe you are a member of the Rotary, the Lions, the Kiwanis, the Optimist or some other club or organization with similar objectives. If you are, may I have your ear for a few minutes? One of the greatest blessings Ive ever had is my participation in our local Lions Club. I have been honored to serve as President of our club and have been named Lion Of The Year, a Melvin Jones Fellow and was recently selected by my fellow Lions to receive the prestigious Dalstrom Award.

I can promise you however, the Lions organization has done far more for me than I have ever done for them and thats really the nature of these volunteer organizations. Its the age old principle: the more we do the more we get back. If you could count up the good these organizations have done for people in the various communities across the nation and put a dollar figure on it, you would literally be amazed. This dollar figure would only be a small part as it relates to the benefits of the individual members. We have great fellowship at our meetings, outstanding educational and entertaining programs and develop a spirit of camaraderie with fellow members that makes the total experience very special.

As you may know, its only been in the past thirty years or so that women have been invited to join and participate in most civic organizations. From my perspective, this was long overdue. We have a good number of quality ladies in our club and they do a fantastic job and I would never want to be without them. They are great workers and they add a spark to our meetings that you would not believe unless you were there.

However, a while back I heard about a club that is still in the dark ages and in this particular club the male members are crude and this is very unprofessional and should not be tolerated. While what Im going to say may be unpopular, here is the reason I decided to address this issue. We had a wonderful young lady leave our community to accept a top management position with her company in another state. Since she was a member of our club, it was more or less understood that she would join another club in the community where she was moving. In a telephone conversation with her a few weeks ago, I asked about her status with a club in her new community.

She said he had joined a club, attended a few meetings, but had just recently written a letter of resignation. When I asked her why, she told me the following story. One of the projects of this club was to pick up litter along a stretch of highway just outside of town. The Saturday before her last meeting, the club was picking up litter and one of the male members found an unmentionable item (you could probably guess what it was) and at the next club meeting prior to introducing a lady speaker, this member went into great detail to describe the item and made other crude remarks about it which were out of order.

This young lady wgo was a formerly a member of our club said she just sat there and didnt look up, and the male president, who was presiding never said a word. The following week she wrote a letter of resignation and she told them why. To this day, she has not heard a word from any one in the club. As another friend told me later, this was a male dominated club and apparently what they do not realize is that they are missing a great blessing. In any worthwhile organization you must have quality leadership to be successful. Here is a final question from me. While the details and the story may be different, could this be your club? If it is, there needs to be some changes made. (EDITOR'S NOTE: Jim Davidson is a motivational speaker and syndicated columnist. You may contact him at 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034.)

The next column password is: Grace