One of the first things that I noticed after I joined the El Kalah Shrine in Salt Lake City, Utah, was that they are desperate to recruit new members. I think this is fine, but where are the new members coming from? I would say that they are going to come from men my age or younger. My question is, what does the Shrine have to offer men like me?
I went to a free Steak Fry on Saturday sponsored by the El Kalah Shriners. The food was good, the company was good, but I wouldn't call it a great event. The advertisement said games and socializing at 4 dinner at 5. This is great, but the games consisted of bingo and a raffles. These are fine in small quantities. It was an outside event, we could have played some music and gotten some classic summer activities going. Volleyball, horse shoes, croquette, these would have all been fun. I have no complaints about the food, I'll take a free steak any day of the week (and twice last Saturday).
Probably one of the most frustrating things for me was when a brother noble who is fairly new called up his wife and told her not to come because there were no other kids there. He was affraid I think that his kids would be bored. We need to promote families more. Shriners is one aspect of Masonry that families can and should be encouraged to attend.
So I go back to the question, what does Shriners offer a man like me? Other than helping with the hospital I would say not a lot. I know it is important to maintain the ties to our past, but half of the purpose of Shriners is to have fun, and a lot of what they do now isn't necessarily what I would prefer to do. Even in the Shrine Band, I think one of the reasons we have a hard time recruiting is that it is irrelevant to a younger crowd. I almost feel that we need a club for men under 40. I don't think we would exclude anyone from the activities that the club did, however, it would be totally directed by younger men. I would also like to start a shrine band not for marching, but more just to perform some rock and roll and have fun.
These were just some thoughts and observations from this weekend.
1 comment:
You know, I was wondering the same thing when I was thinking about joining. I thought that maybe they were a little "out of touch" with people my age. At least in my case, I had to do my homework. I found that The one unit that appealed to me, was the Wreckers. (no this won't turn into an advertisement... lol)
I feel that the most identifiable symbol of the Shrine to most people, are the guys in fezzes driving the karts. I remember seeing them in parades when I was a kid, and how much fun it looked like. Turns out, a good friend of ours was president of the unit at the time.
The unit is aware of the issues that the young Nobles are having finding out place within the Divan. and, they decided that they were going to try to "update" for this reason. It just felt right to me, so I joined.
Now, I'm VP of the club, and we have a very capable Noble as President who is ready to go to work. If we do not update the Shrine, It will pass into history.
I guess we need to find our place, and then dive headlong into the fray of progressive change.
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