In their heyday, members typically paid a regular membership fee and went to lodge meetings to take part in ceremonies. If a member became sick they would recieve an allowance to help them meet their financial obligations. The society would have a regular doctor who the member could visit for free. Members of the lodge would visit to provide emotional support (and possibly to check that the sick member was not malingering). When a member died, their funeral would be paid for and the members of their lodge would attended in ceremonial dress - often there was some money left over from the funeral for the widow. Friendly Societies also had social functions such as dances, and some had sporting teams for members to participate in. They occasionally became involved in political issues that were of interest to their members.
Each lodge was generally responsible for its own affairs, but it was associated with an order of lodges such as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, or the Independent Order of Foresters. There were typically reciprocal agreements between lodges within an order, so that if a member moved cities or countries they could join a new lodge without having to serve any initiation time. The ceremonies were also fairly uniform throughout an order. Occasionally a lodge might change the order that it was associated with, or a group of lodges would break away from their order and form a new order, or two orders might merge. Consequentially, the history of any particular friendly society is difficult to follow. Often there were un-associated orders with similar names.