15 Four Links to Luminous Living in Lionism 2018

Four Links to Luminous Living in Lionism

Light is a big deal to folks everywhere. Light lets folks see where they are, what lies ahead, where they are going, and lets them see their objectives. There are many links to luminous Lionism. I am only focusing on four.

Let's start with labor. Generally, the most rewarding outcomes involve work: a purposeful expenditure of energy. Folks experience an uplifting sense of accomplishment after working for a satisfactory outcome. Their lives are so much better, lit with industry and happiness. Folks have lived without labor, in darkness of dependency and misery. Lions can add light to their own lives through voluntary service, and to the lives of folks that Lions help.

Then there is learning. Investigate and educate yourself about what you are about to do. If a project fails expectation, learn what happened, and how to resolve concerns. Same thing applies when a project meets or exceeds expectation. When laboring with learning, folks experience a sense of lightness. Working without knowing can lead to very dark frustration.

Liberty is the first letter in the acronym LIONS. Folks know how dark living with no liberty can be. Liberty is that respect that folks provide to the exercise of freedom by other folks. The light from labor and learning dims, down to darkness, without liberty. With liberty, anything seems possible.

Laboring with learning within liberty makes the light that love brings most likely. Robert Heinlein, in "Stranger in a Strange Land" defined love as a state of being in which the happiness of another is essential to one's own happiness. When Lions show, through their work, concern for the well-being of unfortunate folks they demonstrate love. Additionally, love is enthusiastic enjoyment of work that promotes well-being. Folks can live without love; they are the most miserable of any creature. Love, in whatever form, brings light into life.

Lions laboring with learning, promoting and living liberty, in a spirit of love can bring light into the darkest life, can luminate a better path, and can

Brighten where Lions are

14 No Club Without You 2017

No Club without you 2017

One hundred years ago on June 7, several visionary folks met for the first time to organise what became the life-enhancing experience that we know as Lionism. They saw that LIONS membership means participation, that:

There is no Club without you.

Ignorance of who and what LIONS are about, inaction in the presence of service opportunities, and indifference toward bonds of membership have no place in LIONS. This goes along with the reality that LIONS Club members' actions make the Club what it is to observers. Those Club-oriented actions resulting in praise for members enhance the good reputation of the Club.

There is no Club without you.

You, the brothers and sisters in LIONS, are the sovereigns of the Club. The Club Board Members report to you. I, as President, report to the Board Members, and to you. My job is to coordinate work by Club Members. I do this by coordinating events, such as meetings, fundraisers, service actions. I am responsible to you to help everybody work as LIONS.

There is no Club without you.

You, as members, have responsibilities to yourselves as LIONS, including

To pay up: your dues sooner than later

To show up: at meetings, and other Club events

To step up: as LIONS determine what you want to do, and participate in events

There is no Club without you.

Membership numbers declined from 57 in 1996 to 16 in 2016. At this rate, there may not be a LIONS Club of Acton CA within four years. We LIONS have our work cut out for us to continue the Club's existence as a service source.

We better sort out what we can do differently than currently, and change those actions/directions; quite clearly, now, efforts to grow the Club membership are not working.

There is no Club without you.

Understanding why you are a LION, what you want to see happen within LIONS, and how you want to help accomplish such objective(s) are the very basic beginnings toward growing Club membership. By growing Club membership, LIONS can continue to offer service opportunities to interested members, can continue to fund scholarships and other grants, and can offer a possibility of personal fulfillment through service.

There is no Club without you.

Please consider why you are a LION. Please think about what you see as the most pressing issue(s) regarding your LIONS Club (up to 3), how you want to address the issue(s), and what are you prepared to do?

There is no Club without you.

13 Lions and PAC12 Football Championship Game Promotion

Here an example of corporate infestation of a social-service organisation

[start quote]

All Lions and friends,

Only 37 tickets remain available in our special lower reserved Lions section for the PAC12 Football Championship Game, Levi’s Stadium, 5 PM, Friday, December 1, 2017.   The tickets are available to the public at $90 but we are offering at $50 as a fund raiser for Diabetes Youth Families (DYF) and camp scholarships.  $15 of each $50 ticket sold goes to DYF.  These remaining few tickets will sell fast, so please purchase now.  
  
Stanford will be playing against USC.  Remember, USC has the inspirational long snapper, Jake Olson, who is totally blind. ESPN will be televising nationally.

...[I]mmediately below is the website link to purchase tickets.  Our Lions tickets are only available online.  Purchase online, print for scanning, and bring to the game.  

https://groupmatics.events/Lionsclub2
​
Expect Lions tail gate details in a future email.

​For Lions, this is a hugely important corporate partnership opportunity with the PAC12 university system and Levi’s Stadium Management where they are co-promoting our elite relationship.  Please know that we are already positioning Lions Clubs International for next year's NCAA National Football Championship game which will be held at our own Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara.  


Please go online and purchase your tickets now, share this email and promote with your friends and neighbors, and let’s have some Lions fun.  

[end quote]

bogus

Why not just send $15 to the DYF and watch the game from your house? 

There are travel expences, lodging expences, food expences, and more expences. There is the $50 ticket.All these expences just to donate $15 to DYF.

Do you really want to experience security theatre when you attend the game? Do you really want somebody treating you as a potential security threat just because you show up? 

Far better to just donate directly to DYF. You can donate $50 and view the game from the comfort of your house. DYF gets $50 instead of $15 and you get none of the aggravation that attending the game would impose upon you. It's a win-win.

LIONS is about loving individuals offering nutritive services....corporations are just institutions through which individuals work....this emphasis on corporate options is contrary to what LIONS is about.....

12 Adoration Affirmation and Public Piety

A pledge of allegiance is a promise to obey. A promise to obey a symbol, or a structure that it represents, coupled with lies, is an invalid promise. Rational promises made by competent parties to competent parties are valid because they are real.

Let’s take a look at the adoration affirmation

I pledge allegiance to [I promise to obey] 

 the flag of the United States of America, [a symbol] and to 

the republic for which it stands, one nation, under g-d, indivisible, [a structure through which folks steal from folks to finance assaults against folks by folks] 

with liberty[compared to the rest of the world, US is 18th from top freest government jurisdiction, down from 2d freest government jurisdiction]

and justice [justice does not exist] 

for all [without liberty, no one gains]. 

Francis Bellamy wrote this affirmation in 1892 to motivate school administrators to buy flags to display throughout their buildings, and display on the outside. He was a self-confessed socialist who dreamed of a utopia of regulated folks, indoctrinated through repeated articulation of the affirmation. More folks bought more flags.

Looks to me like the affirmation is a sales tool. Why do folks want to recite a sales tool?

Looking at public piety I see that prayer, like masturbation, is better done in private, unless with somebody to whom you are really close. Christianity's founder warned folks to pray privately, and to avoid public displays of piety. 

11 Membership Numbers Decline

.​​Membership numbers may continue to decline ​because​

as more folks comply with more mandates to spend their income on items for their own good​, less income for anything else, including dues and contributions,​ remain. 

as more folks claim benefits from coercively-funded sources, demand for benefits through voluntarily-funded sources drops. As demand for benefits through voluntarily-funded sources drops​, interest in funding these sources drops. This declining interest in funding leads to declining interest in membership. 

as long as LIONS insist on trying to host parasitic entities representing coercively-funded sources, LIONS will continue to weaken as service-providers, and as a source of personal fulfillment through voluntary service. ​ ​The more government folks do, the less government folks let volunteers ​do. Over time, volunteers spend resources complying with mandates, instead of investing resources in service opportunities, or using these resources to make grants or loans to qualified recipients. Over time, complying volunteers forget their connection to, and lose interest in, LIONS.  

By the way, at what age point is there a significant membership number drop-off? 

I get that LIONS Clubs flourish when folks do not turn to coercively-funded sources for help with social concerns.  
.

10 Leading to Misery

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be [there].
—Rosalynn Carter

Who decides ought? who proclaims should? who mandates shall?

During the 1914-1917 era, U S residents did not want to go to war, but a LION idol, as President, got folks to go to war, anyway. 

During the 1939-1941 era, U S residents did not want to go to war, but a President, lionised by many as a wonderful fellow, got folks to go to war, anyway.

Those presidents decided that war was better for their friends than trade, regardless of the prices other folks paid: diminished liberty, money stolen from them (aka taxation), heartbreak due to combat deaths of loved ones, and more.

Folks did not want war. The leaders led them to war, anyway. 

Leadership is over-rated. Far better to counsel, to consult, to collaborate, to coordinate, than to compel, to coerce, to command, to charge. 

9 About LIONS

• Liberty-that respect that folks get by exercising their freedom (the power to say no) from other parties to interactions. A link to luminous living. Your life without liberty is darker than with liberty. 
• Intelligence- Inquiry. Information, Insight; Individuals through Intelligent  Inquiry by gathering Information achieve Insight 
• Options-LIONS volunteer their lives, and their resources to non-coercively offering options and opportunity to  distressed folks 
• Nurturing- LIONS provide those services and resources that distressed folks require to resume their lives or to upgrade to better living.  
• Service- Who LIONS are; what they do. LIONS look at life, see what is, and what could be, and help bring about better living through voluntary action.

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