The other day, about the time the first blast of frigid air out of the Arctic reminded us of the inexorable onset of winter, a Stellar’s jay landed on our bird feeder.
I love Stellar’s jays. Deep blue black in colour, iridescent in the sunlight, crest proudly erect against the north wind…
I was fascinated by this bird’s manual dexterity. Most birds just peck away at the seeds lying on the platform. This one plucked an individual sunflower seed from the trough, took it to the edge of the platform where he could grip it between his toes, and split it open with his beak to get at the kernel inside.
The next day, two Stellar’s jays arrived at the feeder. And a couple of days later, two more.
One day, we had six on the feeder at once. Obviously, jays can communicate with each other.
I find myself thinking about those jays, as I read that the Canadian Legion has suffered a serious membership loss. This, despite having had a record-setting year for selling poppies and receiving donations.
The Legion is, of course, an organization for veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces and their families. But it has been almost 70 years since the last big war ended. There are no veterans left from the First World War, and fewer and fewer from the Second. Occasional peace-keeping missions since then haven’t produced enough veterans to keep the Legion going.
The Legion might be excused for believing that its survival depends on having another massive world war.
When I started work at The United Church Observer, over 40 years ago, one of my first assignments was to chronicle the decline of Sunday schools. Membership had tanked. In the process, I also had to examine adult membership figures. I found that the church was much like the Legion—membership peaked after each war, then declined. Sunday schools simply declined a little sooner than adult attendance.
Like the Legion, the church might have been tempted to think that all it needed to restore its heyday was another major war.
Yes, I know, that would be an irrational response. But organizations in crisis are not necessarily rational.
An executive person in a service club stated, “We’re drawing new members through the front door. But they’re leaving just as fast out the back door. We’ve got to close that back door.”
Another organization hit a plateau. They’re pinning some hopes onto a corporate re-design—new name, new logo, new website.
A youth sports organization considered making a rule—you can’t enroll your child unless you agree to help with coaching.
Yet another thinks the social media can save them.
In the past, I’ve done work for organizations that couldn’t understand why their annual meeting or their fundraising drive didn’t produce the results they had hoped for. “But we had a really good write-up in our newsletter,” they’d lament.
The jays on my feeder might have something to tell us.
Whether it’s religion or politics, sports or business, the most effective communication is personal contact. Face to face. Word of mouth.
Or, in the Stellar’s jays’ case, word of beak.
