Occasionally, I give presentations for Rotary or Lions. These events are always nice, because I am permitted to speak in front of people who understand me and from whose feedback and discussion I learn a lot.
For instance, I once heard that these clubs expect their members to definitely attend their events. To the extent that members who miss events several times without a good excuse will be removed from the membership list.
Initially, I found this rather over the top. After some consideration, however, I now think it is rather consistent. If you want to be a member of any club, maybe you should also feel obliged to take part in the club’s activities. Especially if the functionaries of the club are so industrious and organize such nice events.
Now I read that the big FC Bayern plans similar steps. The lucky owners of all-year-round-tickets will allegedly no longer get an extension if they have not actually attended a minimum of matches!
In other words: now they not only want the money, but also the presence of the owners of seasonal tickets. Simply because it is desired that the non-owners of such tickets also get a chance to see Bayern matches. In my opinion, this is a prudent thing to do, especially with respect to positive image marketing.
Thinking about clubs and image, another club currently ever-present in the media comes to mind: the ADAC. As we all know, the ADAC has made it their objective to increase safety on the roads. Basically, this is not something we seem to be too good at; after all, there are still more than three thousand fatal accidents each year in Germany – and even more seriously and not so seriously wounded persons. And the tendency is upwards!
Since the ADAC has really many members, many of them will also be among the fatalities and injured. Well, would it not make sense for the club to come up with the idea of not just helping with the “yellow angels” (which, incidentally, is a rather commercialized affair), but also to perhaps do something about what is probably the worst possible damage our individualized traffic causes among its own, too? How about trying to drastically reduce the number of traffic victims, no matter if fatal or only seriously injured?
Consequently, one would have to organize regular club evenings in order not to risk the consequences of the bloodshed caused by “individualized mobility”. These club evenings would have to aim at reducing the many casualties and the daily misery inflicted on so many persons and their families. For instance by really hard arguments. Followed by a corresponding lobbyism that advertises actions for fewer traffic accidents.
A beautifully utopian idea, isn’t it? But the only way this can work is if all the people actually take part in these events. Consequently, the solution is self-evident: those members who refuse to cooperate with the club when it comes to safety on the road will be excluded from the ADAC! Or even better: all those who are not willing to actively cooperate towards the goal of drastically reducing the number of traffic victims will be excluded from road traffic!
I can think of other clubs that might be well-advised to follow the examples of Lions, Rotary or now also of FC Bayern. One of them is the Catholic Church. Would it not be logical and consistent with church law if all those members who keep missing such important church rituals as the mass with its “holy sacraments”, who ignore the central club dogmata and consequently commit multiple and enduring “deathly sins” and who, in the religious sense, basically do nothing for the salvation of their souls were to be excluded from the club!?
But no, they do not exclude anybody. Instead, they ignore such behaviour and still charge church tax. Nevertheless, all the people living near a church, no matter if they are members or not, will regularly be called to “Service in the name of God” by the loud ringing of bells – which is like unwelcome spam. This happens regardless of the fact that the few members who actually attend the shared club activities do not go to church because of the bells ringing, but because they have been trained to do so for years.
Those members who do not attend are not really concerned by the ringing of all those bells. They do not feel obliged to do their duty just because the bells ring. Once in a while, they will even be bold enough to grumble about all this noise that is bad for the housing estate (regardless of the fact that said noise is created by the very club they belong to in a rather egomaniac manner). And they remain members of the club, because they wish to take advantage of what the club offers a few times in their lives – as a decoration for special events such as marriage, etc.
Nobody in this country wants to know that the noise is annoying for some non-church-members who cannot really come to terms with this “Holy-Club-Droning”. To make up for it, the question asked by a non-church-member if the call to a club event still needs to be done through extra-loud acoustic signals in the twenty-first century is taken as a violation of the “freedom of worship” or even of “religious feelings”.
Here is my idea: the church, too, could exclude those of its members who are passive or act against the club doctrine. And the remaining members might be called to their club meetings through a “quiet alarm” in the future. Just like the firefighters – a club the activities of which are extremely highly regarded by me – when they have important operations.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
You can easily see that the author has slept poorly because he has been reading too many newspaper articles and because he was woken by loud Sunday bells ringing when he finally had fallen asleep.
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