I have been a member of Korso Lions Club about a year and a half, and all this time I’ve been wondering about this: how a bunch of middle-aged men get so easily excited about working together.

The Finnish motto of Lions Club is: Many ways to do good.

• Collect money for charities or do charity-activities.
• All the parties, events and meeting expenses are paid by the lions themselves. They are NOT funded with charity money. This means that all the benefits go straight to others, and you are left with the joy of making it happen.

An example of a project gone right

This past February Korso Lions Club set up a winter event for families. Our vice president Eero acted as the project manager. The project went like this:

Pre-event assignments

• December meeting: all the responsibilities and assignments were distributed. There were around 200 assignments.
• January meeting: assignment statuses were updated and responsibilities focused.
• There were few emails between meetings as reminders.
• February meeting: wondering how well everything was working ahead of schedule. More focusing on the event itself, who is doing what. Note: Not one assignment was undone!

The winter event

• Everyone was eagerly at the event, wives and neighbours recruited along.
• Everyone did their job and helped a friend in need.
• We collected around 4300€ for charity.
• The main goal for the event was for families to enjoy a nice winter day, and this was a clear success. The event was graded 9.3.

##Resources and the joy of making things happen

All this was done by about 40 volunteers, who didn’t receive any monetary compensation for their work. Nobody ordered anyone around. The motivation was to do good together and be part of a positive community.

Innovative culture

Lions Club culture is interesting: if someone suggests a new charity-activity, it is not criticized. No, it is not criticized. It is after all an idea to do more good. Together people work on the idea and possibly develop it further to be more productive.

It makes sense, really. The strategy is to do good. If someone suggests a charity event, it is within strategy. So no reason to criticize.

Managing is easy if you can motivate

Can we conclude that managing is easy if you can motivate? People understand why they do what they do. The work environment is so positive that it inspires people. No man is left behind – whether its working or having fun.

Korsonleijonat.fi