The Core Theme Of Lions Throughout The World…WE SERVE!
The surprise of my morning as I was dreading doing battle with writers’ block was a fantastic article about cutting edge technology research at the University of Oregon. I always have known that despite the foibles of Oregon’s cultural melting pot that in many ways Oregon is an amazing place for creativity and contributions to the betterment of the human condition. From the establishment of the Oregon Eye Bank (Lions), to the establishment of the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation, to the creation of Casey eye institute the “pioneer spirit” of Oregon continues to plow on and Lions have been intimately embedded in that history and spirit.
This article talked about the research going on to create an implantable prosthesis into the eye to serve the function of damaged and diseased retinas. Should this research come to fruition millions of people who suffer Macular Degeneration or Retinitis Pigmentosa could find restoration of the vision they lost replaced with a life restoring technology.
The impediments to be overcome has to do with how nature protects itself from foreign material. The point that the writer explains is that nature is a force that is fractal in its patterns and structures. Fractal is the repetitious geometrical structures repeated over all scales of measurements. And it reminded me of what we are doing as an organizational structure. Just as in our body we constantly are trying to repeat the patterns and structures which makes our missions possible. It seems that our clubs could be patterned after our districts, which is in turn patterned after our international organization. But that is exactly opposite from what our overall organization is patterned on.
Our pattern starts at the club level – what can we do to serve the community? The district follows the lead of the clubs - what can a non-club overarching organization do to serve and support the clubs’ intents on serving their communities? Then comes the Lions International – How can the organization support and propagate the core theme of Lions throughout the world…WE SERVE!
As we endeavor to rebuild our District it’s the clubs’ intentions that the District is responsive to. We will continue to work together to make your service to your communities successful and satisfying to everyone who takes on the name Lion and roars out……..WE SERVE! And in doing so we are pioneers in changing the world.