TOTJO Volunteer Corp

Sirch Nayr wrote: I didn't mean to hijack the thread or take anything away from those who do charity work outside the TOTJO banner.

I know I am new so I might be wrong in this, but I've seen concerns on our credibility as a religion, and our need to reach more people eventually. This can't really happen unless we focus on branding at least a little bit. You don't have to participate in that if you don't want to, and it's ultimately up to upper council whether they want to proceed in that direction, but it will need to happen at some point if we want to increase our base or support.

Getting out there and saying "This is what we do. We help people." Is a great way to spread awareness on what we stand for, while still making a difference in people's lives for the better.

Money and recognition can be self serving and unjust, but it can also mean the difference between helping a few dozen people, and setting up the infrastructure to help hundreds.

I'm dragging this off topic, so I'll regress and we can get back to the topic of what we can do charity wise for the near term. If you'd like to discuss further I'd be happy to chat in mail or a debate thread.

This is on point.

I find evangelism to be distasteful. Doing a little branding while doing some good in the community is a good thing for all of us though. We don't need to invite people to the web site. We don't even need to talk about what we believe. We can just wear shirts while we perform services for our communities. We want visibility. But we aren't seeking followers. We never have. We grow simply on the merit of how we live.

I think that as a group, I can safely assume that many of us participate in charity. Further, we obviously ought to do that.
I'm not a fan of seeking external validation, but gaining third party verification of TOTJO's status as a charitable organization will further our goals of helping people. Also, anyone who is a knight ought to be involved in volunteer work, so logging hours might be a good addition to the ranking or degree programs.
Since we are already out doing work, why not be efficient, and take the opportunity to raise awareness of Jediism. T-shirts or patches are easy ways to have uniform representation without being ostentatious.
In my previous experience working with non-profits, it seems that since TOTJO has a huge member corps without any direction, that we ought to partner up with certain already established charity groups and emphasize our presence at larger events within those charity groups. The groups we partner with might be religious in nature, but I think that TOTJO is all about downplaying differences, so we ought to be able to work for charity, regardless of who's next to us, as long as our goals are the same.
Here are the best groups I could think of for this: Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, UNICEF, World Food Program, Creative Commons, Compassion International, YMCA, Make-a-Wish, Boy/Girl Scouts, AHA, Amnesty International, Habitat for Humanity, Audobon. If we want to partner with a group, I think that group ought to be focused mostly on medical aid, poverty outreach, human rights, or animal rights in order to stay away from politically divisive groups. It isn't too hard to register a TOTJO group for several of these organization's events, the hardest part is just building critical mass in a given area (East Texas sounds pretty populated by us)
Maybe if the website had a calendar for a given region and showed available opportunities in our area, we could become more easily involved?
Just tossing ideas around at this point, but I'd love to be more involved

Early last year Connor L posted this lesson:

7cupsoftea.com

For this lesson, you will go to the website listed above and sign up to be a "listener". You will then undergo a 20-30 minute training course on how to be a good and active listener.

Then, you can begin counseling. For this site, it is all about being nonjudgmental and improving communication skills.

Note: Please JOURNAL about EACH PART of the experience. Talk about the training courses and what you learned. Talk about the people you talked to and how you approached solutions. Talk about the real issues that came up. Protect identity, of course.

If you manage to get the Rookie status (it's a certificate) post it in your Journal. Further training is also available.

It should take almost 30-40 hours of hard work to get the Rookie certificate, but if you do, you will be well trained in compassion and empathy as well as having professional level training for basic counseling, which is VERY important for a Jedi Knight.

If you'd like to substitute a DIFFERENT online therapy program, please let me know by PM and I will check it out for equivalency.

Something like this could be done by individuals from home, it gets automatically logged, is a MUCH needed service to the public and would augment a core skill set that Jedi should look to develop. Thought it was worth flagging!

Two thibgs:

TOTJO already has charitable organization, 501c3 status in the states. A solidified, organized volunteer corps is largely one of the prerequisite items needed to attain that status in the UK as well. Not that it isn't a good thing in and of itself.

#2- I would encourage you guys, and especially the Military groups here, not to forget about Veteran oriented organizations for your volunteer efforts. There are a few great ones already set up that do some good work with vets, and you can pretty easily Google and find them as well as their charity navigator site ranking if you were so inclined. But if you were looking for something a bit more tangible, think locally. Contact your local Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Veterans assisted living facility, and ask them if their is anything you can do to help local vets. Especially that last one. Some of the dudes in the local vet homes are there cuz they have nowhere else to go, and no one comes to visit them.

Can someone please repost the above paragraph to the military Jedi group as well. I'm on my phone.

Trisskar wrote: If TOTJO wants to be recognized as a charity - TOTJO has to do Charity under its own banner so as to be recognized in the act in order to get the legal benafits its looking for.

Sucks.
But thats how this stuff works.

There are many many many many Jedi who do charity all on there own and do great great service for the public at large.....but because it dosn't have TOTJO plastered all over it, we see the results.

I understand that completely. It just seems like the focus was coming off the charity work aspect and moving towards the "look at me" aspect.

That was all I was saying. I know many of us volunteer at all kinds of places for various reasons in support of a wide variety of groups we are involved with. But we need to keep in mind that there is a distinction between a "group" and the "programs" that a group supports.

My pagan group support programs like local food drives/banks and the LGBT center programs and park clean up programs etc. The Marine group I am a part of supports the fallen Marine program, Toys for Tots, the Boy Scouts, Vets centers and operation home front programs. As a part of that group supporting that program I cant be anything other than a member of that group. Meaning It would be impossible for me to translate that into representing myself as a TotJO member.

The work I do for those groups in support of those community programs is self advertising for those groups because the groups provide those resources in the name of their group. So in that spirit TotJO needs to do the same thing. We shouldn't think like we are offering ourselves to the "groups" as members of the temple. Instead we need to organize our own group (tojJO volunteers, for example) and then find programs to support in the name of our group. If done this way we don't need to come up with all kinds of advertising and slogans and buttons and T-Shirts. When we support those programs we just do it in the name of the TotJO. That is all the advertising we need and it will be way more effective than slamming a brochure into everyone's hand.

All that's needed are simple points of contact and resource networking. Word of mouth is the most organic and humble way to get the name of the temple out there as a volunteer/charity resource. Brochures get thrown away and buttons are forgotten. It is action and connection that people remember and utilize over and over.

A possible way to get past the geographic challenge of being so spread out is to coordinate our own individual charitable efforts so that they all occur simultaneously. We can choose a specific day or week and then encourage all members to volunteer for charity in the name of the Temple during that time. It is a way to take the many small works of individuals and turn them collectively into a statement of the Temple's mission.

For example, every member plants a tree on Earth Day and documents it. Or every member donates food to a local food bank during a certain time period. I may go unnoticed planting one tree, but if we can say that TOTJO members planted 500 trees, it will have the impact we are looking for without appearing to be self serving.

The key to this strategy is calling the proper attention to this coordinated effort. Press Releases, social posts, etc will go a long way toward raising awareness. That's where PR comes in, and I'm happy to help with those efforts.

Perhaps May 4th might be a day worth looking at?

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: All that's needed are simple points of contact and resource networking. Word of mouth is the most organic and humble way to get the name of the temple out there as a volunteer/charity resource. Brochures get thrown away and buttons are forgotten. It is action and connection that people remember and utilize over and over.

I think it will work for some people of the temple....But not for everyone.

Ive been apart of some supporting secondary groups that do charity and im sorry but....never again. Its either all me and my efforts or not.....the drama and politics are not worth it Jedi are not the only drama filled people out there

Trisskar wrote:
I think it will work for some people of the temple....But not for everyone.

Ive been apart of some supporting secondary groups that do charity and im sorry but....never again. Its either all me and my efforts or not.....the drama and politics are not worth it Jedi are not the only drama filled people out there

There are leaders and there are followers to be sure and your right, volunteering for stuff is not everyone's cup of tea. But for those that it is, that's when the leaders need to take the followers hand and show them the way.

Believe me I know exactly what you mean about politics having participated in several groups of prima-donna witches over the years :silly: I just consider that the perfect environment to practice patience!

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: practice patience!

I dont think there is any words to impress the level of patience i've had over these many years haha

But as I said. For some people it would be perfect

But I see no reason why we can't find a couple of different options. T-shirts, pins, hats, ect ect...would help me out far more than a secondary waist of time

Senan wrote: A possible way to get past the geographic challenge of being so spread out is to coordinate our own individual charitable efforts so that they all occur simultaneously. We can choose a specific day or week and then encourage all members to volunteer for charity in the name of the Temple during that time. It is a way to take the many small works of individuals and turn them collectively into a statement of the Temple's mission.

For example, every member plants a tree on Earth Day and documents it. Or every member donates food to a local food bank during a certain time period. I may go unnoticed planting one tree, but if we can say that TOTJO members planted 500 trees, it will have the impact we are looking for without appearing to be self serving.

The key to this strategy is calling the proper attention to this coordinated effort. Press Releases, social posts, etc will go a long way toward raising awareness. That's where PR comes in, and I'm happy to help with those efforts.

Perhaps May 4th might be a day worth looking at?

Love love LOVE this idea!! I think this is absolutely worth fleshing out into something, and perhaps as an official kick off for a volunteer group too. Love it!