Friday, August 10, 2007

Social Club at LVH

Here is the concept... Everyone who pays rent at LVH is a member of the Social Club whether they participate or not. Actually whether they want to be or not.. They are members.

Not everyone is interested to the level of volunteering time and energy. Those that are interested in partaking in what the Social Club does is quite a bit higher actually. But, even then Social Club event participation only reaches less than a third of our community.

Running the club... getting the ducks in a row. Seeing to scheduling, finding money, creating events buying supplies, and decorating, all fall to a few people that number less than the fingers on both your hands. When it comes time to elect new officers to run the club everyone runs from the job as if it were a case of bubonic plague unleashed on the park.

Many folks at the mail room and coffee clubs think that the Social Club needs advice and like to discuss what "THEY" should do. These critics at large are an interesting and diverse group. Over the years as their advice trickles back to those that serve (give of their own free retirement time) is usually hurtful. Mostly, it is insensitive and negative and those on the receiving end usually wear out after a year or so and quit. Then a new cycle is reborn and the quest to build a new Social Club begins again... The cycle runs about 3 or 4 years. Thus, the Social Club really never evolves into a really cool organization it just recycles itself.

Any organization needs buy in. Members must want to be members. They must value their membership. If you just give them a membership they have nothing invested and could care less about the organization. Simple as that. You all know this to be true as a lesson you have learned in life. You protect your car in a garage because of the money that you had to spend for it. You protect your home with insurance because of what you spent for it. And so on.

Free membership in the Social Club is probably at the root cause for why the Social Club does not have the participation it deserves and has not the abundant leaders it needs.

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