Recently, Karen and I attended the Third District Picnic chaired by Sports and Recreational Director Paul Kornbrekke. When Paul approached the board stating that he wished to bring back the 3D sports picnic, the board happily gave him the go-ahead. The hard work of Paul and his committee, mainly the members of Nansen Lodge, paid off as the picnic was a great success. I am hoping that it will be even bigger and better next year! A big THANK YOU goes to Paul et al.
As I write this message, the time for the Third District Convention is quickly approaching and will be here before we know it. Then the summer months arrive when the district lodges take time off from meetings to have their picnics and get-togethers. This is also a time when members travel or just stay home and enjoy the summer.
With that said, it was very disheartening when I, along with other district board members, was notified from International Board Chairman Ron Stubbings that our dues will be drastically raised starting July 1st.
In 2021 the International Board put out a referendum to go to a board governance format which most of the Third District delegates from the 2018 International Convention strongly opposed and voted “no”, but it passed anyway. Since Sons of Norway went to a board governance format and stopped having international conventions with delegates to represent the members of Sons of Norway, we the members have lost our say in our organization. Just as in colonial times in America where England was taxing the colonists, where it was taxation without representation, we have the same problem not having international convention delegates to represent us. So, we have dues increases without representation. The International Board has all the power, we do not have control anymore. We have no say in our own organization. Those who voted to give the International Board of Directors this power did so in good faith. We can only ask, “Is the International Board of Directors governing with the same good faith?” I want the members of the Third District to know that the change in dues was made solely by the International Board of Directors without any input from district presidents or other district leaders. Everyone to whom I have spoken about this agrees that it will lead to a major decrease in membership and could backfire on the International Board of Directors by bringing less revenue overall to the home office.
The fraternal leg of our beloved “3-legged stool” has taken and continues to take the brunt of the shortcomings of the “insurance leg.”
Just during my term of office which began in June of 2022, we have seen the following changes:
- The number of issues of the Viking Magazine decreased from 12 to 6 issues a year.
- The amount of dues received by districts was drastically reduced. In District 3 we had a 73% decrease from 2021 to 2023.
- Our district convention is not being supported this year as it has been in the past; no longer does the home office supply tote bags, pads, pens, and booklets explaining Parliamentary Procedures and this is the last year that they will supply ballots, instead, they sent a template for districts to print and cut-up on their own. They are also not paying for any representatives from the home office to attend district conventions.
- They are no longer supplying plaques for lodges that reach important milestones such as 50, 75, 100-year anniversaries.
- The recruitment event kits are no longer available from the home office. This box of goodies had signs, applications, and many types of informational handouts for all three legs of our stool: fraternal, foundation, and insurance. This forced districts and lodges to develop and pay for their own information to distribute.
- Just prior to my term of office, the International Board of Directors did away with the Founders Award. Soon after raising the threshold for a lodge to win this award from a 3% increase in membership to a 10% increase in membership, they stopped awarding anything. The award was a nice recognition with a small monetary award for lodges that recruited new members.
One might question their ultimate plan for fraternal. Do they want to do away with the fraternal leg of our stool all together? We must work hard to keep the “fraternal” in Sons of Norway by recruiting more new members and by having more programs at lodge meetings, so members do not mind paying the dues increase. The Third District Revitalization Committee is here to help you do just that! There is a lot of helpful information from the committee on the Third District Website.
I hope to see many of you at our convention. Due to the Convention, there will be no president’s message in June. My next message will be in September. Have a great summer.
Fraternally,
Stephen Helmold