My Life as a Lion

Lions at District level are looked after by the district cabinet. This is a collection of committees covering both administration and the promotion of and assistance with the large number of Lions’ projects. The cabinet meetings are held four times a year and are chaired by the District Governor. An overview of the structure can be seen at www.lions105m.org.uk/cabinet.htm

On the administration side there are two committees, Finance and Administration (F&A) and Long Range Planning. In my district (105M) the F&A committee is chaired by the 1st Vice District Governor and includes the District Secretary, District Treasurer, Constitution and Nominations officer, Events Officer, Convention Chairman, Insurance Officer and Health and Safety Officer. I also sit on the committee as 2nd Vice District Governor and chair the Long Range Planning Committee which includes the 1st VDG, the Immediate Past District Governor, District Secretary, Almoner and two Zone Chairmen.

Sitting between the administration and service committees are three support committees, the Membership Committee responsible for promoting the recruitment and retention of members, the Leadership Committee which carries out training activities for district and club lions and the Communication Committee which I also chair. Indeed Monday was the first Communication Committee meeting of the Lions’ year and did not get off to the best of starts when we turned up at the venue to find it closed. My fault for not checking. We adjourned to one of the member’s house which was nearby.

The Communication Committee comprises me as chairman and as District Webmaster and IT Coordinator, Public Relations Officer Ken, Midland News Editor and Deputy Webmaster Joy and District Almoner Mavis. The focus of our first meeting was the preparation of the Communication part of the 5-year plan.

The remainder of the cabinet comprises the three service committees, the Youth Committee, the Health Committee and the International Committee.These committees are concerned with the various projects that have been instigated by Lions Clubs International, more of which in later posts.

All of this talk of cabinet has been leading up to the first cabinet meeting of the year held on Sunday 21st August. Before we get there, however, we need to take a short diversion to Zone A’s zone meeting which I attended on Thursday. This was a well attended meeting with a meal afterwards. I have now been to four different zone meetings this year and my initial observation is that the more social the meeting, the more people attend. In Zone A the presidents submit their reports to the Zone Chairman but, rather than go through them at the meeting, the Zone Chairman just circulates them to the other presidents.

I was once again talking about the 5-year plan and about club websites and the use of social media. None of these topics are necessarily attention grabbing and, although I try to make them as interesting as possible, I am getting used to the glazed expressions. The use of social media particularly numbs an audience mainly comprising people who struggle with the concept of telling the world what you are doing. Nevertheless, Lions Clubs are not going to survive unless they embrace all the media at their disposal to promote their activities. I will shortly be producing guidelines on the use of Facebook and Twitter to help clubs get started.

And so to cabinet. DG Neil had an aim to have the meeting finished by 12:30 and nearly made it. The day started with some of the committees meeting at 9am. I was in the meeting for Region and Zone Chairmen which provides the opportunity for the DG’s Team to hear about the activities of the clubs in the district, especially where there are difficulties. This meeting is un-minuted so that a full and frank discussion can be had.

Following the committee meetings is the cabinet meeting proper which any Lion can attend although only cabinet members can speak and vote. Each officer submits a report in advance of the meeting and all the reports are circulated about a week in advance. This meeting we attempted to display the reports on a screen but this was not particularly successful due to the amount of text. Cabinet officers are given an opportunity to provide any updates to their reports and the reports are approved by the cabinet. Part of the reason for the meeting over-running was down to me as, in my role as District Webmaster, I took the opportunity to name and shame those officers who had not provided up to date information for the website. To be honest though there were several other topics which were debated for much longer than that one. All in all though a lively meeting and an enjoyable one.
That’s about it for this week and I’ve only got two meetings before the bank holiday. If you would like more information about lions please feel free to e-mail me at info@lions105m.org.uk

Lion Simon Moss
@simonhmoss @MarstonGnLions @lions105m @lionsclubsorg

226 miles travelled so far as 2nd VDG
83 hours since 1 July 2011 on Lions’ business