The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The Flin Flon Order of the Royal Purple welcomed a special guest at their meeting last week. And Supreme Honoured Royal Lady Shirley Gibson of Virden, Manitoba, couldn't have been happier to stop by. "The Royal Purple in Flin Flon does an excellent job. Flin Flon has a very active lodge and I think they're very visible in the community," said Gibson, who serves as national president of the Royal Purple. "I think this community knows who the Royal Purple is. There are a lot of communities, when you go and say, 'I'm here visiting the Royal Purple,' they ask, 'What's that?'" Gibson has been traveling to lodges across Canada to offer encouragement and advice to hundreds of Royal Purple members. When talking to the ladies, the issue of membership Ñ specifically the dwindling membership within Royal Purple lodges Ñ often comes up. "We're trying various methods to increase our membership, but like every volunteer organization, membership is down," said Gibson, who is originally from Shoal Lake, Manitoba. A Royal Purple member for 36 years, Gibson thinks that trend will begin to reverse. "I'm an eternal optimist and I firmly believe that eventually, we're going to see that decline stop and an incline start," she said.
