charity

Reading the thread about getting totjo recognised in England as a charity.
I wondered if as a whole this place did charity work, under the Totjo banner or left it to individual members?

Is there any specific charity work you do?
If not then surely this isnt really a charity is it? From my understanding helping others, getting out there, known, so that people can come for help or support is what a charity does. Plus raising money ect..

From what I have seen and I may be wrong none of this happens here.
It is all focused inward on individuals that are members of this site..Active members.

It is individual This Temple and many other groups are still very small. We don't have very many members in the same area to do much more than individual tasks anyways.

In order to do physical charity as a group under a "Banner" one would need a healthy physical group to do the representing....frequently.

Which can then be argued....is it really charity? Or are we just using it as an advertising stepping stone.

Myself...Charity is something I should do as a human being......Not because I chose to be a Jedi.

What defines charity?

Is providing the training and guidance we do here for everyone and anyone who comes here not, in itself, charitable? None of our leaders get paid, everything they do is voluntary and, as has been said, our main focus is on the spiritual growth and development of our members. How is that not a charity?

It does not cost anything to be a member here. Many of our resources are offered for free. We may not, as a group, hand out food or build houses or redirect donations to scientific research but I still feel we do good work for free.

Sue wrote: Is there any specific charity work you do?
If not then surely this isnt really a charity is it? From my understanding helping others, getting out there, known, so that people can come for help or support is what a charity does. Plus raising money ect...

The definition of 'a charity' is very wide-ranging - although I agree that people tend to think of them in the way that you described. A charity is basically an organisation that provides benefit to the public, which is something that can be done in many different ways.

Examples of groups that commonly tend to be charities but in a less-traditional sense are sports teams, musical groups, etc Yes, they can be said to have some public benefit, but primarily they are inward looking, existing for the benefit of the members, who want to play sport or make music (or whatever else) for their own personal enjoyment - the public benefit (to non-members) is almost a knock-on effect. Not to mention that in any such organisation, every member was initially, and in reality still is, 'the public'. This is all true of many, many other types of organisations that are also charities, and TOTJO is little different in this regard.

One would hope that members enjoying their time and studies at TOTJO also have a positive knock-on effect in the world (indeed, whether in an individual or collective sense, isn't that hope the very reason that most of us choose to spend our time studying here?). I'm not saying that's our only collective public benefit (for example, our resources are freely available to whoever wants to access them, member or not), or that we wouldn't wish to be of public benefit in a more deliberately charitable manner - but as Trisskar pointed out, it is difficult when we are all so spread out.

The following is a list of purposes that UK law recognises as charitable - for the public benefit. Point (c) is the one that, in relation to your question, you may like to muse on...

The Charities Act lists 13 ‘descriptions of purposes’.

Legal requirement: the ‘descriptions of purposes’ is a list of broad headings that a purpose must fall under to be a charitable purpose.

Each description serves as a general heading under which a range of different charitable purposes fall.

The list of descriptions of purposes, taken as a whole with the range of purposes that fall under each description, covers everything recognised, or which may be recognised, as charitable in England and Wales.


The 13 descriptions of purposes

The 13 descriptions of purposes listed in the Charities Act are:

(a) the prevention or relief of poverty

(b) the advancement of education

(c) the advancement of religion

(d) the advancement of health or the saving of lives

(e) the advancement of citizenship or community development

(f) the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science

(g) the advancement of amateur sport

(h) the advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity

(i) the advancement of environmental protection or improvement

(j) the relief of those in need, by reason of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage

(k) the advancement of animal welfare

(l) the promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown, or of the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services

(m) any other purposes currently recognised as charitable or which can be recognised as charitable by analogy to, or within the spirit of, purposes falling within (a) to (l) or any other purpose recognised as charitable under the law of England and Wales

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/what-makes-a-charity-cc4/what-makes-a-charity-cc4

Advancement of religion, eh?

Perhaps we need a squad of Jedi missionaries! Ha ha ha!

Leah Starspectre wrote: Advancement of religion, eh?

Perhaps we need a squad of Jedi missionaries! Ha ha ha!

Lol door to door in our Jedi Robes

Hmm, maybe that's not such a silly idea after all.

MAYBE regions/areas that have a Knight(s), can name someone(s) to hold regular in-person meetings open to members of their non-TotJO communities - in libraries, cafes, community centres, wherever! I know this happens in some places already, but maybe we could make it part of a Knight's job to do stuff like that, or to help the Knight who does it. Basically to start moving into the non-online world in a small way.

Just an idea

I can say that I would be against most forms of "recruitment." One of the things I love about Jediism is that it doesn't try to recruit or convert people.

Goken wrote: I can say that I would be against most forms of "recruitment." One of the things I love about Jediism is that it doesn't try to recruit or convert people.

Define "recruitment."

I'm thinking open meetings. More like: "if you're interested, come in and we can talk". Making Jediism more accessible and putting a human face into the community.

It would seem more you advance education rather than religion though.
You provide a training program that seems designed to open people to new perspectives, to connections within all religions, all peoples.

Not really charitable to the world at large though I understand the knock on effect from individual members doing personal work.
Advancement of religion would seem that you are opening up avenues for the jedi religion, yet it seems even the members you gave dont all see this as a religion which makes this idea rather confusing.