Lions Club Training

The only uncharted Lions Club in the world: Chicago Central.

A Lions Tasmania training session was held this Sunday at the Penguin Lions Centre. It was my first time to attend one of these, and I was most impressed. More of us really need to attend such sessions, if only to meet the fellow Lions of neighbouring Clubs. Amongst the speakers alone we had Zone Chairman John Medwin pictured above!

The session focused on Membership Categories, Communication and Lions on the Internet.

Some points that are interesting include the membership categories available other then a regular member. If members or potential new members are able to partake and volunteer with our club but not able to attend all meetings there is still space for them. What if a member gets a job that requires them to be in Singapore for half the year, or if a member is over-commited at work and cannot regularly attend the meetings but would like to remain a Lion. Click <here> for some of the available membership options and their associated responsibilities.

Also of note was the importance of communications, and that we should have different channels available from telephone to Internet and everything in between. Learning to speak is important too as we are the leaders of tomorrow and we may need to share the knowledge we gain over time with others. We learn to communicate by being Active Members!

Maurice spoke to us about the great world of the wobbly wobbly web and showed us how the Internet has everything to offer us from downloading forms to buying pins, from watching Lions activities on YouTube to local representation of Tasmanian Clubs on the net. Walter (me!) showed the session how a blog can be very useful to a club and how everyone can participate in a blog and how a domain name allows for everyone to have an easy to remember email using an email alias.

Website that were mentioned were (click on them to go there):

Lions
on YouTube
LionNet
LionNet Australia
Windmill Hill
City of Burnie
Australian
Lions in the week's news
Lions Clubs of Tasmania
Australian Lions
Lions Club International

More links can be found here: http://www.lionstasmania.org/links

Note that these links are also noted on the right hand side of this blog if you scroll down to the end... Easy as 3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510.

NB Did you know the entire Administration Manual for Lions Clubs in Australia (2MB pdf file) is on the Internet? It includes the majority of information you may need to run your club - including duties of Club Officers for instance. Consider getting it and keep it on your computer and refer to it when needed. Open it and press Ctrl F to find the bits you are looking for! And by the way... don't even think about printing it all!

Lion Walter---

Formby Road

This is the main road off the highway into Devonport. Formby road is tagged for re-development; <read PDF from the council>. Exactly where does this rainbow end? Right at Transtrain  by the looks of it, where I work!

Lion Walter-----

Latrobe Lions Invitation

Our club has been invited to attend a Latrobe Lions Meeting on Monday April 20th at 630pm.

As greater numbers then usual are expected the venue for the night will be The Axeman's Hall of Fame restaurant on Bell's Parade with a guest speak coming from the Menzies Research Centre . Please RSVP by Friday 17 April to Lyndon Thurlow on 6427 7306.

This will replace our meeting which was scheduled for the following Thursday(20 April), although a committee meeting will still be held at the Gateway Hotel at 730pm - no dinner!

Fun way to make money for The Lions

Today, as per usual, 5 volunteer Lions showed up at the Race Course in Spreyton to sell/collect tickets.

A fun day in the sun, but a shame we can't have a fling ourselves, we just stand at the gate (I still get the odd bet in though!)... 

We all enjoy doing our bit (watching friends go through with eskies...), and on days like this it is not a bad way to make some money for The Club!

Every race run at Spreyton we man the gates and the racecourse pays our Club for our services.

We really do need some younger members in our club! If you feel young, why don't you consider joing a service club like ours!! Contact us on member@devonportlions.info

Town Manager Settled in

Two years ago, in January 2007 our new town manager Ian Robert McCallum came to speak to our club as a brand new import to Devonport (from Narrabri NSW). Now, two years and a bit later he is sold. He loves Devonport, settled into his new job and is holding the reigns.

He has reorganised the council into 4 new departments, each with a brand new director: Corporate Services, Community Services, Planning & Environment and Works & Assets. From having a lot of complaints put to council he now has very few. This may be a result of his new approach which changes the town planning department's three main Responsibilities, the three R's, from the original: Rates, Rubbish and Roads, to his new three R's: Responsiveness, Resourcefulness and Respectfulness!

Mr MacCullum was particularly pleased with achieving momentum in the redevelopment of the access road to the racecourse, getting the lights up at the Devonport sporting oval (State League Games can now be played in Devonport!), the Skate Park redevelopment, the Bluff improvements, (including redevelopment of the Surf Club), the sewerage retention project which is almost complete, the Home Hill restoration, the push for re-development of Formby Road as the main access road into Devonport.... to name but a few! Why not have a quick look at the last Devonport City Council Anual Report Presentation, it really is quite interesting and certainly nicely presented! Check it out, click on that LINK (you do understand all these underlined words above can be clicked on for more information!)!

Also at our meeting we had President Sam dressed up as a bunny handing out chocolate eggs for Easter, impressing our guest Danielle who did not intend to see middle aged men with rabbit ears handing out eggs. We determined that George Russel's favourite colour is BLUE, and that the next meeting instead of being Thursday the 23 of April will be held in conjunction with the Latrobe Club on Monday April 20th. The guest speaker there will be someone from the Menzies Research Centre. Also, congratulations to Erica de Jong, our club 's Youth of the Year winner, made it all the way to Hobart for the Tasmania State Finals last weekend! Unfortunately that is where her journey ended. She will come and speak to us about her quest in June! We'll keep you posted.

Lion Walter----

Daphne passed away

The beloved wife of Kevin Wills passed away late last week after bravely battling her fight with cancer. The funeral was held today and Lion Kevin was supported by several of his fellow Lions. Our thoughts are with him and his family. One never gets over the grief of losing their loved ones, one merely goes through it.

If anyone needs to put in an apology for any of our future meetings please call Lyndon  Thurlow instead (ph 6427 7306). Why not take some time out and visit Kevin sometime this week/month!

Lions Training

A Lions Tasmania training session will be held on Sunday 19th april in the Penguin Lions Centre, Ironcliffe Rd - 9.30 am start. Topics to be discussed include; Membership Categories, Communication and Lions on the Internet. All members are welcome!

Toby Crawford
Chairman of the Tasmanian Lions Foundation

Devonport Skate Park to reopen

The re-developed Devonport Skate Park will be officially opened tomorrow, on Saturday 4th April at the Mersey Bluff at 11am. Representatives of the City of Devonport Lions Club and the Skate Park re-development committee will be attending the launch. Devonport Mayor Lynn Laycock will be officially opening the facility.

Stage 1 of the redevelopment, the installation of the Skate Bowl itself, was completed in early February this year. Stage 2, the removal of the existing facility and installation of the new design, is now ready for tomorrow's launch.

Keen youths are warming up the new concrete already.

The Devonport City Council committed $187,000 of Federal Government funding to the project as well as allocating $75,000 from its Capital Works budget. Additional funding support was also received from the State Government ($59,903) and the City of Devonport Lions Club ($20,000).

Read more about it at <7HO FM>, and at the <Devonport City Council website>.