Sharbot Lake Legion taking stock and looking to future

Craig Bakay | Mar 28, 2018

The Sharbot Lake Legion is having a good long look at the organization and that’s a good thing, says Bill Bowick, one of the members participating in a workshop last week.

Facilitated by Ken Fisher, the workshop looked back at the history of the Legion and will be followed April 18 (public invited) with a look ahead.

“It was a planning exercise with a ‘journey wall’ and about 20 people attended,” Bowick said. “It was quite fun even if a lot of the early stuff nobody remembered.

“There were a lot of good times, some of which we don’t have as many of any more.”

To that end, they looked at motivation, capacity and infrastructure.

“We’ll be doing a lot of brainstorming because I don’t think there’s a standard formula to be followed,” Bowick said. “It really comes down to two things — what are the real problems and what are we going to do about them.”

Bowick acknowledged that things are changing, and the original purpose of the Legion, to provide support and programs for veterans isn’t perhaps as relevant today as it once was.

“It used to be a fraternity,” he said. “And now it’s become more of a service club.

“But who wants another war just to keep the Legion going?”

Bowick said the Legion isn’t the only organization facing declining membership and while there has been much “navel gazing” going on, he does see light at the end of the tunnel.

“We’ve got a good bunch of people who are pretty positive,” he said. “We may need some changes in direction and change can be hard with an older membership.

“But it’s partly in the numbers and partly in the way you manage things.

“We maybe just need some tweaking.”

To that end, Bowick does have a suggestion.

“I think it’s easier to get volunteers if it’s fun,” he said. “Sometimes we get too serious.

“You don’t want volunteering to become like a job.”