TOTJO Volunteer Corp

I work as a SAR K9 HRD Handler for Law Enforcement, I volunteer hundreds of hours. If there is any way as member of TOTJO you can claim my service I'm happy to do that. However trying to volunteer for a second thing is beyond my budget and my time. I have three jobs as it is now, on top of being paged night or day for LE.

In the begining of November I took an entire week off of work from all three jobs to go down to advanced training with my dog Obi in Tennessee. I even got to catch up with another Knight on the way down.

So perhaps we should also look at what those of us who are already contributing are doing and see how the Temple can incorporate that. Just a thought. Picture is of Obi Wan Kenobi (My SAR K9 and I in TN)

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.

We could see if certain organizations that do team-based fundraising would allow the team to be geographically spread-out. That could get us involved with some of the charities that do those kinds of fundraisers on a national or global level and, if we're that spread out, definitely get us some press.

Barring that, maybe the gamers of the group could work together to flood Extra Life (or a similar charity) with donations on May 4th, or some other day agreed upon in advance.

Work together while working separately, and we'll all get a little farther I think than we would alone.

steamboat28 wrote: We could see if certain organizations that do team-based fundraising would allow the team to be geographically spread-out. That could get us involved with some of the charities that do those kinds of fundraisers on a national or global level and, if we're that spread out, definitely get us some press.

One option like that would be Random Acts. I believe if somebody from here submitted something to them, the word would get out.

www.randomacts.org

J_Roz wrote: I work as a SAR K9 HRD Handler for Law Enforcement, I volunteer hundreds of hours. If there is any way as member of TOTJO you can claim my service I'm happy to do that. ]

But, as I said before, those hours were volunteered for a different group and I don't think you can just hijack those hours and reallocate them to TotJO.

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.

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

I think this is on the right track. A core group of coordinators needs to be formed that can coordinate what projects to work on and when those projects will be executed (with input from anyone else of course) and then recruit volunteers from the temple to execute those projects. At the time the project is executed each volunteer is responsible for documenting their efforts either through pix or vid or whatever. And then at the end of the work each volunteer submits that documentation to their coordinator(s), who can collect all this data and forward it to the PR team, who in turn will send out to newspapers or news channels, or what have you, to get the TotJO name out there.

It doesnt matter what the event is, like Senan says, plant a tree or work in your local soup kitchen, or do a park or wilderness area clean up, help out at a retirement community, collect and deliver food to a food bank. The biggest stumbling block to this would be that because most of us are in different locations. each volunteer would need to make the effort themselves to locate and build a relationship with their local "whatever charity" on an individual basis instead of being led by the hand by a local leader. However I think one of the founding principles of being a Jedi is to take on the mantle of leadership when the opportunity presents itself. I see this as a perfect opportunity for volunteers to be self starters and take that responsibility. In the end it becomes a twofold benefit. Jedi begin to be seen in the community as providing a benefit and each volunteer gets to practice a bit of character building through assuming a leadership role in their local community!

As for doing it on May 4th, lol. hmm - As that is "Star Wars" day I'm not sure if using that day would serve to improve legitimacy of the temple or hinder those efforts because those we interacted with would associate our Jedi with the movies and not a true spirituality? My personal thought would be to keep the spirituality as far away from any reference to the movies as possible, but that's just me, I know others feel differently.

On the subject of t-shirts I work with a girl whose second job is at a press company. She gives us the employee discount (was a life saver for the reunion shirts I needed) I could reach out to her and ask about possible prices. Not sure how shipping all of them out to people could work but just a thought.

GORGEOUS picture J_Roz xxx

I really like where all this discussion is going, and agree with Kyrin.

Sooooo....

Anyone who is interested in getting the volunteer corp moving forward, please PM me with where in the world you are, any current community service you do or volunteer interests/organisation in your area you're aware of and any ideas you might have.

I'll see about getting a group page set up to make it easier to coordinate.

Lets do this thing

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

J_Roz wrote: I work as a SAR K9 HRD Handler for Law Enforcement, I volunteer hundreds of hours. If there is any way as member of TOTJO you can claim my service I'm happy to do that. ]

But, as I said before, those hours were volunteered for a different group and I don't think you can just hijack those hours and reallocate them to TotJO.

Thats just it though, shes not doing it for TOTJO. Just like if you were Christian you would still be doing it for the organisation youre helping. But she IS Jedi, and her community service is part of her actively living our doctrine.

Its about being a good representation of TOTJO, not doing things in totjos name, if that makes sense? For me thats the line between the "self serving" you talked about and the "good PR and branding" others have mentioned.

Brenna wrote:

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

J_Roz wrote: I work as a SAR K9 HRD Handler for Law Enforcement, I volunteer hundreds of hours. If there is any way as member of TOTJO you can claim my service I'm happy to do that. ]

But, as I said before, those hours were volunteered for a different group and I don't think you can just hijack those hours and reallocate them to TotJO.

Thats just it though, shes not doing it for TOTJO. Just like if you were Christian you would still be doing it for the organisation youre helping. But she IS Jedi, and her community service is part of her actively living our doctrine.

Its about being a good representation of TOTJO, not doing things in totjos name, if that makes sense? For me thats the line between the "self serving" you talked about and the "good PR and branding" others have mentioned.

Yes your absolutely right but there is a fine line between individual effort and group effort. As a Jedi she can be individually commented for her efforts in living the Jedi lifestyle. However she still officially volunteered only for her SAR group and not TojJO. In this case J_Roz gets the credit for her service as an individual Jedi. The work she did can be reflected to others as a character trait that ALL individual Jedi should aspire to.

In addition, at a group level, her SAR group at an organization level also gets credit for organizing and coordinating her efforts, but it ends there. In this case its not appropriate for TotJO as an organization to just go ahead and assume that credit as well for themselves even though she is not only a SAR worker but also a Jedi. In the end it was only the SAR group that put in the volunteer efforts. I dont think you can posthumously forklift her volunteer time into TEMPLE efforts because the TEMPLE as an organization did not make those efforts. Now if TojJO had teamed up with the SAR group at an organizational level to provide resources that would be a different story, but this is not the case in this example as she was not representing TojJO. She was only representing herself as an individual Jedi and as a member of her SAR group.

Yes, I'd agree.

But its not a case of TOTJO taking credit. Shes an ambassador even if shes not with the whole group.

For example, if we were asked what kind of community service the Jedi are involved with, I now have half a dozen examples of Jedi out there doing good works. Its essentially good PR by association.

Just like if one of our members was caught smuggling ivory and mentioned they were a Jedi. it would be negative PR by association, even if its just one Jedi and not the group.

The group effort is simply about being more organised, offering peer support to those who want to do service but not alone, and of course to make more visible the ways in which we offer public benefit. And its fun

Brenna wrote: Yes, I'd agree.

But its not a case of TOTJO taking credit. Shes an ambassador even if shes not with the whole group.

Is she an ambassador of TotJO or is she an ambassador of Jediism in general? There is a distinction there I think.

My understanding was that as a Church, TotJO specifically wanted to put forth better efforts to connect with the community vs just putting forth those efforts as representing Jediism in general. One of the goals in this effort is to specifically get this church a better footing for recognition by govt entities. If its just for Jediism in general then I would agree that those efforts like J_roz perform do count but if its for the temple specifically then I would not agree.

So I guess my next question would be concerning all these buttons and brochures and T-Shirts. Exactly what will be represented on those items? Will they be talking about Jediism in general with no mention of TotJO or will they be specific to TotJO that may or may not also include Jediism in general? If they are for Jediism in general with no mention of TotJO at all then any volunteer effort an individual Jedi puts forth would of course be a valid inclusion in "PR" efforts to publicize Jedi volunteer work.

This may seem a bit like clinging to semantics but I just think a clear definition of exactly what the goals are should be considered. TotJO can definitely spearhead the fight to legitimize Jediism but it needs to be careful in how it executes this. There are many differing Jedi groups out there and many do not think like TotJO does. This temple does not want to represent itself as speaking for Jediism in general and then have some radical fringe group come out of the woodwork (*cough*jedicreed*cough*) and blow up those efforts that have been put in by the temple. If we are going to push efforts to legitimize THIS group of Jedi then we must set that course specifically and if we are to push efforts to legitimize Jediism in general than that will be a wholly different course.