Our Plan... by King Lion Bruce

To all of our Members:  Happy New Year and I hope this message finds that all is well!  While normally I would wait until the end of our fiscal year to report where we are as a club—it just seems as though this might be a good time to review where we are and where we are going. This past year our club’s board of directors has undertaken a candid (and sometimes painful) assessment of our performance, our ability to attract and retain new members and an evaluation of how well we communicate with our members and the public.  More importantly, we have taken positive steps in each of these areas that I believe, if properly carried out, will assure the club’s vitality well into the future.  As John F. Kennedy once said:  “There are risks and costs to action.  But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.” I am particularly proud that our board and club has had the courage for this self-evaluation. There was never any doubt that our club had misunderstood its mission of ‘WE SERVE.’  But, like so many things, ‘the devil is in the detail’ and the board recognized that small and subtle changes can be made to refine procedures and enhance results. I am reminded of a quote from Helen Keller, who over the years—and with her courage and tenaciousness--has inspired so many: “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” To get this process started, we hired an outside consultant to provide an assessment of our performance.  We also took advantage of Lions Clubs International (LCI) material on the “Club Excellence Process,” their online resources and we consulted with LCI representatives.  This then served as our blue-print for discussions and the inspiration for what we needed to consider.  The tangible and important steps we have taken are as follows: • At our luncheon/dinner meetings, we should have a greeter to make sure our members and guests are properly welcomed and our visitors and guests are provided with information about our club; • Create a single page document, which highlights the club’s achievements… (This has been done—“By the Numbers”—in various forms and can be found on our website, by clicking here); • We need to update our four-fold, to highlight the services we provide in our community; • We will convene monthly meetings throughout the summer, continue our luncheon meetings at Harpoon Hanna’s on the first Monday of selected months, have a dinner meeting for our second member meeting and eliminate our member meetings for the second meeting in January, and both meetings in February and March.  We have selected the Fenwick Inn for our dinner meetings, with a price of $15 per meal, including gratuity.  The schedule for all meetings in 2015 has been established and can be viewed here (insert hyperlink); • Continue to have our monthly board meetings, year around. • We will continue Visitations, with the objective of selecting area clubs which will provide a positive learning experience for our members.  We will also offer an opportunity for our members, who have participated in this program, to share their experience with other members at future member meetings. • It was proposed that we should encourage our Zone to undertake a project jointly.  It was suggested that something involving Camp Barnes might be appropriate.