From the President

A sincere thank you to all those that have accepted a role on the Board for the next Lions year and to those that have agreed to take on responsibilities in the appointed positions. With this support the club can move confidently into the 2012/13 year. In the past two years the club has moved to change its constitution and to welcome women as members. Perhaps this may also be the catalyst for further changes that will allow the club to cater for the ‘older’ membership and the type of activities / projects enjoyed, along with and as well as for a possible younger demographic that we will need to encourage for the future wellbeing of the club. How we go about achieving this I’m not sure, but past Sec Peter Gibson has in the past suggested some further constitutional changes that may help us expedite the process. We need to keep working on or at least reflecting on how we can keep increasing our membership while maintaining the positive collegiality of the membership. A little challenge for all involved!!

It has been great to receive in the mail recently several letters of thanks from various organisations we have supported recently.  These have included Ronald MacDonald House, Foundation for the Blind and Tawa College. The Board of Ronald MacDonald House has recently received a breakdown of the contributions from the various Lions Clubs and it is gratifying to note that our donation has been one of the more significant. Our thanks to incoming President Ray Lindsay for his representation of the club at the recent Tawa College fundraising gala. The group was most appreciative and Ray was certainly, from all reports, very visible and vocal!

The Board has been keeping abreast of developments in Tawa relating to the walkway development, tree planting and the work of the WCC, Community Board and Ratepayers Association. Although we don’t have anything definite in the pipeline at present we are looking at seat designs, costings, including WCC specifications, and members of the Board are liaising with those involved in the groups above. There are definite possibilities for some type of fairly major project in some form for the Club and you can expect to hear a lot more about this shortly.

President Arthur