To survive, clubs must adapt to changing world

The January 8 letter from the president of the Bristol Host Lions Club discusses something dear to my heart: membership challenges of local service clubs.

I am a 42-year member of the Abingdon Kiwanis club who, for several years, has worked with Kiwanis at the regional and district levels. I now serve on the board of our Capital District, plus a new membership-growth team specially trained by Kiwanis International to deal with the same problems the Lions president discussed.

What we have found and the message we now preach to our clubs is two-fold: People still want to serve their communities as much as in the past, but society has changed and service clubs must adapt to those changes or they will falter.

I can only touch on specifics of the latter, but they include adapting to meeting times and place to current lifestyles, including two working parents; and facing the fact that employers do not pay members’ bills like they once did.

What is Kiwanis doing? We now grant our clubs the greatest flexibility in meeting these challenges. Our district recently chartered is first young professionals club in northern Virginia. They hold one business meeting a month, without a meal, but gather to work on community projects and from time to time for social events. Members of one of our Maryland clubs meet weekly in a conference room on the way home from work, then perform service projects on weekends.

In fact, we have some virtual clubs where younger computer users conduct their business in online chat sessions, then gather on weekends to perform service projects. Whatever works is OK, since the goal of Kiwanis is to serve children and our communities, not to hold particular types of meetings.

Otherwise, we have breakfast, lunch and dinner clubs—even dessert clubs. In some cities, evening meals are so expensive that members go home for dinner, then back out for a Kiwanis meeting with coffee and dessert.

My father was a 42-year Kiwanian, starting in Bristol. His clubs and my own do not fit all of today’s needs. If you would like to serve your community, in Kiwanis, Lions, or any other fine service organization, try to find a club whose schedule and requirements meet your own. If it does not exist, contact me and we may be able to start a new club that will.