Re - Legion Taking Stock

Bill Bowick | Apr 04, 2018

In last week’s News, Craig Bakay had an article about a workshop aimed at rejuvenating the Sharbot Lake Legion. It was a very nice article and I, for one, appreciate the publicity it gives the Legion. However, I may have misled Craig with respect to our mission and membership. It’s true that Legion membership is both declining and changing in nature. Everyone is getting older and there is a lot of competition for the time and energy of younger people who might fill the ranks. Also, there are fewer and fewer veterans in the new members who do join. Fewer veterans means that the sacrifice of those who went before was not in vain.

While changing membership may change the focus of our energies, it does not change our basic mission. The core purpose of the Legion is still to provide support to veterans and their families and to the communities in which they live. Our most important activities are the Poppy campaign and the memorial service on Remembrance Day. Money raised in the Poppy campaign goes directly to veterans programs such as hospitals and the Homeless Veterans campaign.

The purpose of the workshop is to better manage our activities within the constraints of the Legion’s core purpose and the realities of today’s society. We still maintain a building as a social centre for veterans, their families and, more and more, their friends. We run Friday night dinners to pay for services for a body which used to include a lot of veterans and is more and more just the broader community. We run sport and school programs because happy, healthy children build a better community in which our veterans can live.

Let’s hope that on that happy day when there are no more veterans because we no longer have a need for armies, the Legion will still carry on. It should carry on in the memory of those whose sacrifice made the final peace possible and because the things we do for veterans are good for all. In the meantime, we need to do the best job we can with the resources that we have and we need to learn how to work well together to be effective with reduced membership. The next step on that journey will be at the Legion on April 18.

Bill Bowick