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Show We faced a sad, -but honest moment this week when Vera Cooper told us that she had come to the end of her patience, pa-tience, In trying to keep the Auxiliary to American Legion Le-gion Post 16 alive and active. A meeting is planned Friday Fri-day to give members a choice of either reorganization or dropping the Charter. Mrs. Cooper says she has tried to keep the organization alive, if for no other purpose than Girls' State. -0- As one who probably spends more time in meetings meet-ings than most in town, we are aware of the impossible business of getting members to attend meetings, work parties, projects, functions and socials. Yes! Milford is worse than most communities communi-ties in this regard. -0- Part of the reason is because be-cause there are so many organizations or-ganizations (approximately 70) in Milford, and partly because be-cause of the domination of railroad people in Milford. (Boy, will I catch hell for that one). Harsh talk, but true! Railroad Rail-road people are on call 24 hours per day. They have the perfect excuse for not showing show-ing up. "I got called", "I was due for a call", "I was out", "I'm getting out", or "I got in too late". -0- Most of the time these excuses are valid. However, they are just as handy when they have a headache, there is a good (or mediocre) ball game on TV, or if there is . a work party they don't want to attend. Our suspicions of some are confirmea by tnose railroaders, rail-roaders, who manage to show up for nearly every detail, every meeting, every obligation. obli-gation. To name a few, there's Mayor Young, Marion Mar-ion Walker, Norm Lamb, etc. Confirmation also exists in the number of railroaders who never miss the annual banquet, the steak frys, and the big ballgames. -0- But wait, all the blame does not rest on the rails. With so many organizations, most everyone belongs to several. However, membership member-ship often is in the form of dues payment, so that projects pro-jects such as Girls' and Boys State, can be continued, contin-ued, m almost everyone of these nearly defunct organizations, organi-zations, dues are paid with no intent to be active members. mem-bers. They are kept alive for the sole purpose of carrying car-rying on one or more projects pro-jects started by the healthy organization of the past. -0- Another factor is that those with good intentions soon find that they must shoulder every responsibility, responsibili-ty, serve on every committee, commit-tee, organize every work party, and often do the job alone. This in turn makes lethargic members of ambitious am-bitious members, and soon puts the organization back into the doldrums from whence it came. -0- As one who has been instrumental in-strumental in giving birth to three new organizations as well as the Centennial in the past four years, we have each time hesitated to add to the organizational burden of the community. But in each instance in-stance we felt a need which was not then being served by any existing organization. We also found that existing exist-ing organizations were in such a state of disorganization disorganiza-tion and doldrums, that reviving re-viving them was a bigger job than the project at hand. -0- We commend Mrs. Cooper Coop-er for taking the bull by the horns, so -to -speak. Certainly Cer-tainly it is sad to see a fine organization such as the American Legion Auxiliary fall by the wayside. But it is even more sad to see if s Charter treated with such abandon and apathy. We urge other leaders of disorganized groups to face up to their responsibilities. Organizations should serve some function in a community, communi-ty, either social or community com-munity service. When this function becomes a drudgery to one or two and no one else seems to care then drastic action is called for. Reorganize or disband. |