| DG Cy's Monthly Newsletter |
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| Saturday, 02 May 2009 04:55 |
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WHAT’S NEW AND WHAT’S NOT
Regular readers of this monthly “newspaper” probably noticed a lot of new faces in the last issue which heralds the start of a new Lions Year. Another thing you might have noticed in “our” Lions Newspaper is the fact it isn’t getting smaller and the content, if anything, is getting better all the time. I can’t say that for many of the other newspapers you might read – and the price keeps going up.
What is the buzz word for this Lions Year? MEMBERSHIP – it’s that simple. If we do anything this year we MUST boost our membership numbers. Presently district R has a sufficient number of clubs but our total membership numbers are down. We need 1250 members and we are at about 1118. What to do? Simply get more members (I know it’s easy for me to say but not easy to do) However things are happening in the district.
MERL Team. There have been three productive meetings talking about “Extension” – more clubs in the district and LCI has promised help at no expense to the district if we can identify some areas where new clubs can be developed. This effort is continuing and with a little bit of luck and a great deal of effort on the part of a lot of dedicated Lions we may be able to reach our goal which is ONE new club by the end of the calendar year and another new club by the end of the Lions year. If we are able to pick up a third club, so much the better. Keep your fingers crossed and if you receive a call from any of the MERL Team asking for help with a new club please consider helping. What we need are dedicated Lions that will spend some time helping but we don’t want months of your time as a guiding Lion. I feel it’s much better to have a lot of people giving smaller amounts of their time than asking anyone to devote six or more months of their time.
The other part of this membership push involves every club officer. (I know some of you are doing the math and realize two new clubs only means about 40 new members leaving a deficit of nearly 100. The challenge from me to the Club Officers is this: get out there and replace yourself this year, There are 44 clubs in the district. If each President, Vice President and secretary finds a replacement for themselves that’s another 132 members spread through-out the district, Impossible. Absolutely NOT. Three of the districts 44 clubs have already done exactly that, Give it a try – you might like the results.
There is a new organization within LCI to help manage/monitor membership numbers. It’s called the GMT – Global Membership Team. The International President, Eberhard Wirts, is the Chair and every International Director is involved in some way. We (the MD) are indeed fortunate in having ID Dana Biggs (wife of IP Bill Biggs) as out mentor and she is pushing to get us what we need to be successful.
Finally – look for information in this newspaper about an “Expand the Horizon” service day which will be September 25-26 this year. It’s a new idea/concept to get Lions/Lions Club recognized for what we do – in this case collect eye glasses. I hope each club in the district will support this effort and I expect there will be some innovative efforts at promoting the service day. Share your ideas – we don’t ALL have to reinvent the wheel.
TAKE UP THE CHALLENGE AND LETS GROW LIONISM IN THE DISTRICT
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| Last Updated on Sunday, 30 August 2009 02:16 |