Lunch at Orana

Twice a year the City of Devonport Lions Club arranges lunch at the Orana Respite Centre. The people that we feed always look forward to the food we cook for them. This was the first time where the ingredients were provided for us - following a corporate OH&S decision by Baptcare. Although the food was not as fresh as when we used to supply the ingredients, it sure made life a lot easier for us Lions and the residents did not complain!

From our foundation...

Our Devonport Lions club (now Lions Club of City of Devonport) was founded officially on 30th September 1959 which means this year 2009 we will have been in existence for 50 years. The club received its charter in February 1960. We started with 23 members then grew to 58 members over some years. It was a simple matter of inviting a friend, associate, a person known to you and nominating him to gain general approval for welcome and induction. I had the pleasure of regularly bringing new members into the club from the beginning and over the years brought in some 50-60 members into the club, most of whom made a wonderful contribution to the life of the club.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of our club has been in the formation of other new clubs in the North West Region of the State. Penguin was our first endeavour and now that club will celebrate 47 years of community involvement and success. Penguin in turn has continued to form other new clubs, the most noteworthy being King Island because of the difficulties in getting there. Lion Will Barker took a prominent role as he was a Parliamentary Representative on the House of Assembly and King Island was part of his electorate. There were others who had interest to go there and the members took it in turn to go there and establish the club which has a fine record. After Penguin we followed with Ulverstone, Kentish, Mersey, Deloraine and in the early years reformed Burnie after they declined and we were asked to revive them and they became a very successful club.

Lion George Russell
Founding Member

Lions Youth of the Year

These three young people were put in the spotlight tonight to compete for a spot in the regional finals of the Lions Youth of the Year Award (Sunday 29th of March in Latrobe). From left to right: Lexie Magill, Erica de Jong and Fred Gott. They were asked challenging questions about the $42B Economic Stimulus Package, the Victorian Bushfires and asked to speak about a subject of their own choice.

Lexie, above, won the speakers award for the night after her passionate speech about street photography. Erica, pictured below, was the Club Winner, her talk gingerly focused on the good and the bad of religion in society. Erica moves on to compete with the other clubs' winners for the regional title and then, if all goes well, the state and then the National Lions Clubs' Youth of the Year award. Fred spoke about his experience as an exchange student for a year in Switzerland which he absolutely loved, but brought home the fact that he was not only Australian, but fore mostly and proudly to be from Tasmania, our bit of paradise!

 

No doubt we will come across all three of the above contestants again and again in the future as all three are very promising youths of Devonport. Congratulations to all three and special thanks to the distinguished judges Diane, Kim and Geoff and Lion Robert Smith for organising it all as the committee chair!

Youth of the Year

Don't forget this Thursday's meeting is the Youth of the Year club judging for us! This means we will have the three finalists for our club speaking and being judged. The winner on Thursday will move on to the state finals. Read more on the Youth of the Year <here >

Crowds at the Taste 2009

 

Thousands of people, a great sunny day and plenty of entertainment and food made the perfect recipe for a fantastic day out. Click the above photo to see the panorama.