President's Report 2010 - 2011
Zone Chairman Derek and Veronica Fellows, Mayor Carol Cox, Guests, Lions,
It gives me great pleasure to present the presidents report for Lions Club of Flinders Island for 2010 - 2011
Derek & Veronica – welcome and thank you for coming to our changeover dinner. We all hope you enjoy your time on Flinders Island.
Ryan and Megan – thank you for doing the catering. We are pleased to see that Ryan is fully recovered following his accident last year.
Thank you Tony for running the bar.
Thank you to all those who helped with setting up for tonight.
Our numbers are now 23 – up from 22 at this time last year. We have been a bit like the frog in the well – jump up 3 feet and slip back 2. We have gained 3 and lost 2. Hopefully we will be able to go up in membership during the next year without losing any members.
Lion Jim Xypteras passed away during the year and Lions Alison & Pat have chosen a rose called “Lions Light” to plant in the rose garden in his memory when Penny comes back from Greece. He was a real “Lions Light” with his obvious love for our whole community and willing participation in not just Lions activities but volunteer ambulance and other activities as well.
Lion Carole Crute – Alan’s little helper moved away to be closer to her family and we all wish her well. We miss her smiling face and help with merino marbles, BBQs and other activities.
Our new members Ken & Carolyn and Neil have already shown what they are capable of in terms of helping with various activities and coming up with ideas for the future.
We do have a couple of prospective new members in the wings. While membership of Lions is by invitation, we don’t mind if someone asks to be invited to join, and very rarely turn anyone down. We ask prospective members to bear in mind that members don’t have to participate in all our activities. Some of us can’t due to mobility or health issues and others have work, family or sporting commitments.
Thank you to those who have assisted as office bearers for the past year. Dianne started out the year as secretary and then took on extra training at work which didn’t allow her enough time to continue in the role. Helen and Alison have shared the responsibility of secretary for the remainder of the year. Jim has been a tower of strength as treasurer and it is due to his diligence that we received a grant from Tasmanian Lions Foundation to purchase our beautiful new trailer to help with distribution of wood and merino marbles. Its’ first job was a delivery of merino marbles for the school garden.
A number of members of the community have assisted in various ways throughout the year. Thank you Terence Klug for being our auditor. Thank you to all who sponsored the fishing competition with a huge number of trophies. These businesses and individuals are listed on the sponsorship page of our club website. www.flindersisland.tas.lions.org.au Thank you to John & Larraine Langdon for assistance with the fishing competition and to John for his assistance with our children’s Christmas party and our Christmas dinner. Thank you to Phil Warren for letting us almost wreck his shearing sheds in our efforts to remove merino marbles. We have had extra helpers at various working bees as well, throughout the year. Thank you to Benson (Wayne) Beeton and Garth Smith of Tasports for moving logs for Operation Pine O Clean. Thank you also to Rodney King of King Trailers in Hobart who gave us a huge discount on the trailer and included fuel containers etc. without increasing the cost and Matthew Bayles of Furneaux Freight who donated the freight on the new trailer.
Thank you to the people who attend events organised by Lions, and buy the merino marbles, raffle tickets, second hand books, tulip bulbs etc. – without these people we wouldn’t raise any of the money we give to various causes, both on and off our beautiful island. We value our generous community and their loyalty to our organisation.
The really big news is that during the year, 2 of our members were awarded Melvin Jones Fellowships (Lions highest award for service) for their dedication to Lions since our club was chartered in 2000. Congratulations to Kevin Haines and Bill Cook who have received awards this year, joining Alison Johnson, Gordon Rorison and James Levin in this honour.
Flinders Island Lions Club has put in over 1000 man & woman hours of voluntary work in the past year. Our money raising efforts have resulted in sales of $4610.00 for our main fund raiser, merino marbles – that’s 922 bags – can we increase on that next year? I figure we can make it 1000 or even more now that we have the help of Neil’s red racing shovel! Add in the money made from raffles, markets, selling tulip bulbs, second hand books, bingo tickets, the coffee machine, Lions mints, BBQs, the show stall, Christmas cakes, the Fishing Competition, Le Tour de Flinders, and more besides, and we have been able to pay almost $11000.00 in donations to various causes during the year. There has been $1500.00 to assist local students with their off island trip, $400.00 to assist playgroup with the Justine Clarke concert, $75.00 for drug awareness materials for Youth Club, $880.00 for Youth Club, $1000.00 for the Patriarchs Wildlife Reserve, a total of $2000.00 in flood relief for Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania and $1000.00 to NZ earthquake victims, etc. For a small club in an area with a population of about 900, this is an amazing effort.
The power of Lions Clubs working together is evident when our club gave $120.00 for Father Chris Riley’s “Youth off the Streets” program and by the time Tasmanian Lions handed him the cheque for the state at the Multiple District Convention the amount was $6000.00.
In keeping with the motto of Lions “We Serve” there are number of things we do just to help people. Some of these include recycling eyeglasses. There is a box at the MPC or just give your old glasses to one of our members. The glasses are refurbished to be given to people with vision problems in developing countries. We cut wood for elderly and infirm local people so that they don’t go cold during the winter. We send donated used stamps off to be sold for Lions Foundation. We thank Polly Coster and Peter Corbould who are our main source of stamps. We cater for the Australia Day BBQ hosted by Flinders Council and we do breakfast after the Anzac Dawn Service.
I was going to name all the members individually and list their many talents, but I decided that we would be here all night and there is no i in team so I would just like to say thank you all for your attendance at meetings, the working bees, the activities, all the behind the scenes work that you all put in, and your support of me during my year as president. I would also like to say a special thank you to Alan for the extra effort he has put in over the year. Without his assistance there is a lot that just wouldn’t happen and I wish him all the best for his term as president.
Margaret Wheatley
Ordinary people doing extraordinary things - supporting people with a disability, community greening, fundraising for worthwhile causes.
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