Enhancing Friendships
July/August 2020
What a way to finish a Lions year and start a new one – canceling both the District E and G conventions as well as the MD 36 Convention at the state level, the Lions Clubs International Convention in Singapore and who knows how many local, Zone and Cabinet meetings? How many service projects have been cast aside or postponed? COVID-19 has created havoc worldwide and forced us into a ‘new way of doing business’. Instead of meeting in person, now it’s via some sort of electronic media, often by either Zoom or Go to Meeting! This method at least forces us to maintain safe distances from each other. I want the old and accepted method to return as soon as possible, as electronic media does not capture the true ambiance of being together in person!
However, we have to adjust to the here and now creating new methods to solve old opportunities and to recognize that with ingenuity there can be new successful solutions. The need for Lions Service has increased while our numbers have continued to dwindle. The human animal does their best to make the environment change to what is desired, however this time it is WE who have to adjust to Mother Nature’s whims.
There is much good that has been started throughout MD 36 which can continue, either with slight adjustments or perhaps via rethinking and new applications of time and effort. Things like Lions Quest are still available, the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundations is revamping school screening to ensure our students get the best visual evaluations possible and the myriad service programs at more local levels will be completed with the imagination of creative Lions worldwide! I ask that you give like you have never given before – dedicate anew your efforts to make our communities better places of live work and play, make a difference in the lives of the needy and reap those rewards of being the best you can be.
My motto for the year is Enhancing Friendships, meaning that we must reach out to others, perhaps even to those we have not thought about being necessarily our friends. Working with other community-oriented groups like Rotary or Kiwanis, seeing how we can access Chambers of Commerce, even working with the Faith Communities will help get Lions principles into the communities as a whole. Volunteering where we can be of assistance, both in the present as well as when COVID-19 lessens social distancing, helps us be the true voice for the communities in which we live. Always remember that service projects need not mean we are fundraising, but working for those impacted by homelessness, physical injury or malady, even illnesses we can’t imagine. It’s up to us to make this planet better for all of us! Make this the year of Lionistic ideals, of progress for the least that the best may thrive!
Let’s start the year off right, make it memorable, fun and let us share in the bounty that is before us. Lions all, for each other to enhance us each to the fullest. ‘Til next month, your faithful servant CC Paul.