gmr808's page

Good questions. I am running the carrion crown in my own homebrew, and hadn't really thought of the importance of the order. Right now I think of them as a fraternity like the Masons or The Lions. A group of people who are part of the group to help eachother "get ahead". They try to convince people in high places to join, so they can pull strings for other members. In fact I see many of the lesser member participating in rituals they really know nothing about except "it's tradition". Of course there is an inner circle who understand the significance of the rites and ceremonies though I have not thought much on thier goal.

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I have not ever posted on anything outside of the PBP I am currently in, however, your comment about the Lions was brought to my attention and I would like to add my two cents about "Lionism".

Lions International is the largest "service organization" in the world. The motto of the Lions is "We Serve". That means as a club we look first towards the service of our community and primarily towards sight services as Helen Keller dubbed us "the Knights of the Blind in the crusade against darkness"...or in other words we have launched campaigns, especially in third world countries to stamp out preventable diseases that cause blindness. I myself had a choice of joining Toastmasters to improve my speaking ability, Rotary International to hopefully gain business contacts as well as putting money into community service or the Lions. I chose the Lions. I have been with them for 14 years and as far as I know, have never benefited other than having a couple members occasionally have their cars done by myself or my business and I have personally donated more in gift certificates and other services than any profit we may have made from them.

Many of our clubs and I believe Lions International as a whole, prides itself on taking care of any administrative costs through it's members and therefore 99-100% of any donations made to disaster areas such as the Japan Tsunami, the earthquakes in Haiti, the Katrina disaster, etc goes to a service network that already has "boots on the ground" and does not go through government channels that are much more likely to get sidetracked by possibly corrupted officials.

Like any organization, there are bound to be clubs that may not be as active as others or may not follow the spirit of Lionism as much as others. If you are interested in actually devoting some of your time towards the service of your community whether schools (such as vision & hearing screening, campus beautification and maintenance, parking control during campus events), your senior citizens (or Kupuna as we call them here in Hawaii), or any number of services that may be needed in your particular area (because it is far easier for someone like yourself who is in the community to know what that community needs than someone all the way back in Washington DC) such as graffiti repainting, bus stop shelter creation or maintenance, or whatever else the club may be able to do based on the knowledge, capabilities and number of members in the club. Lions International covers it's members with insurance policies so that they do not have to worry about getting sued if someone "stubbs their toes" after we've repaired cracks in uneven sidewalks as an example.) please feel free to get back to me and I will try to find where the more active clubs in your area are located.