More than 10 years ago the Burns Lake Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 50, faced a crisis of filling out their executive leadership roster.
At the time, Joe Comeau, current branch legion president, wrote a letter to Lakes District News to alert the general legion membership and the community that the Legion Executive Committee might not form because too few people were putting their names forward for nomination.
Without a full executive committee, the Burns Lake Legion - or any Legion - would be forced to close and lose its operating charter.
Now, Comeau is forced to repeat his warning of 10 years ago. If the branch can’t fill its executive positions in upcoming elections, he’ll be forced to notify BC/Yukon Royal Canadian Legion Command, who will step in to temporarily take control of the branch.
If the provincial command cannot pull an executive committee together, the Burns Lake branch would lose its charter, and the legion building be put up for sale.
Comeau will be stepping down this year as branch president. He turns 90 in October and is ready to slow down his volunteer commitment to the legion. Comeau is a 68-year member of the legion, with 20 years of involvement on the executive committee, now in his fourth term as branch president.
With a membership base of about 150 members, it shouldn’t be hard to fill the nine positions required for a full executive committee. But Comeau said volunteers are hard to come by.
“Out of 150 members, many only come in once a year to pay their dues and we never see them again,” he said.
Last June, the local branch celebrated 85 years of holding a legion charter.
Jeanne Parkinson holds two positions with branch 50, secretary and treasurer. As a bookkeeper, she also does the branch’s books, tax and corporate filings, saving the local branch money from having to farm out the work.
She may be stepping down this year as well. Every year, the entire executive needs to be re-elected. Any standing members need to put their names forward for renomination, as well as any new nominees who are interested in volunteering. Executive positions are filled from the top down, and in order. If one of the first four positions are not filled on voting night, then the executive is considered unable to be formed.
This means that president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer must be filled before the remaining five positions can be filled.
“I understand why people are reluctant to commit,” Parkinson said. “Older people don’t want to be tied down to meetings every month, and younger people are busy with kids and involvement in their kids activities.”
But without an executive, the Burns Lake Legion Branch 50 will fold.
Any member in good-standing of the Legion can hold an executive position. Other positions on the executive committee involving oversight of different programs with varying degrees of time commitment.
“The high school poster and essay campaign only runs in the fall,” Parkinson said. “Once submissions are collected from the high school and judged, there’s not much left to do for the rest of the year.”
Other positions, like treasurer, service officer, and sick and visiting officer require a more steady commitment year round. All positions call for regular attendance at twice-monthly meetings.
Food sales have been slow this year since regular kitchen service ended. Currently, the legion is only able to offer its dinner service on Friday evenings. That drives down the number of people coming out for dinner, which makes it more difficult to entice someone to take over the kitchen on a more regular basis.
Bar sales and food sales are the primary source of income for the branch’s day-to-day expenses.
“People think the annual Poppy campaign raises money for the branch, but it doesn’t,” Comeau said. “We don’t use poppy funds to run the Legion. All money raised through poppy sales is placed in trust to serve veterans or seniors.”
Locally, the branch donates proceeds from the poppy fund to Meals on Wheels for seniors and to the Pines care home in Burns Lake.
The local legion also maintains a high school bursary, donates to the cadets, and to the Burns Lake Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department, and the Southside Volunteer Fire Department.
Province-wide , the Royal Canadian Legion is a strong advocate for Veterans, and runs several important programs, like the Veterans Transition Program treating veterans with trauma or PTSD, the Military Skills Conversion Program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, the Cockrell House for homeless veterans near Victoria, B.C., professional training programs for geriatric physicians and nurses, as well as education funding for rural doctors.
The provincial and nation-wide activities of the legion depend on local memberships.
“It would be great to have new volunteers step up,” Comeau said. “Burn-out is an issue for some of our long-serving volunteers.”
Nominations and elections of the executive will take place on Nov. 18, 2013, during the regularly scheduled general legion membership meeting.
People interested in having their names put forward should be there that evening.