My Life as a Lion

…and what a team it’s going to be.

This past weekend was the first opportunity for this year’s 2nd Vice District Governors to meet each other. This was at a two-day training event organised by the Multiple District at the St John’s Hotel in Solihull. There are 13 districts in MD 105 but two of them, 105A and 105NE do not yet have 2nd VDGs. Three of this year’s team were not able to make this weekend and the rest of us look forward to meeting Mike from 105SE, Marianne from 105SW and John from 105W at an early opportunity. So that left eight of us and our partners

• Liz and Roy from 105 BN
• David and Christine from 105BS
• John and Joan from 105C
• David and Diana from 105D
• John and Pam from 105E
• Paul and Mandy from 105EA
• Pauric from 105I
• Me and Christine from 105M

An overview of the geographic location of the districts within the British Isles and Ireland can be found on the MD website

Saturday started with introductions and then a very interesting session run by Jigsaw@Work. The session took us through exercises which helped us to understand our personalities and preferences and how to use this information when building our district teams and when interacting with others in all situations. Although it sounds heavy it was very light-hearted and served as a good ice breaker.

After a nice lunch we were treated to a session on visiting clubs and attending charter celebrations followed by another on the role of 2nd VDGs and their place within the District Governor’s Team and the Global Leadership Team. A short break for coffee and then we tackled the thorny subject of expenses. There is some financial help for DGs and VDGs from International, Multiple District and District level but this is only ever a contribution. After all it is financed by our member’s subscriptions.

The team at dinner

Three more sessions, on presentation skills, conflict resolution and the role of the Sergeant at Arms, completed the day. The middle session resulted in all of us being given a Lions related topic to give a five-minute presentation on the following morning. It gave us all something to think about but fortunately did not get in the way of a few drinks and an excellent meal. This was also an enjoyable way to get to know at least some of our counterparts a little better. By the end of the evening I was regretting my decision not to stay at the hotel.

Sunday morning greeted us with a dull and damp day outside and at 9 o’clock we all ready(ish) to give our presentations. What a pleasant surprise! Given the short notice and lack of preparation time we managed seven really rather good presentations between us, Pauric had left due to a prior committment.

After our presentations it was time for more learning and a very good session on developing our vision as we approach our time as District Governors. Lions has certainly moved on from the times when each new DG undid some of the work of the previous one. We are now trying to work as a team within a rolling strategic plan and so our vision becomes a contribution to this plan and complements what goes before and comes after. It is still important to have a vision and to be able to lead our districts into a better future.

We then had a coffee break before the final two sessions of the training. The first was given by the Multiple District’s endorsed candidate for 2nd Vice International President, Lion Phil Nathan, and covered the MD’s two signature projects. These are the Lion’s Eye Health Programme (LEHP) and Young Leaders in Service (YLIS) of which more in future posts. Suffice it to say that it was an inspirational presentation and resulted in all of the present 2nd VDGs agreeing to promote the projects throughout their districts.

The final presentation covered the role of our partners. This is certainly a more modern role than it used to be especially as most of our partners are active lions in their own right. At the end of the day you don’t need a partner to be a District Governor but if you do have one you need their support throughout the whole process.

And that was about that for our first weekend together. Initial impressions are that I’ve ended up with a fantastic bunch of fellow VDGs and that we will really gel well once the serious business starts. It is a shame that we have no planned meeting before June next year, although some of my colleagues are going to Maastricht for a Senior Lions Institute. We did try to persuade Pauric to put us all up in Co. Donegal but I don’t think he was convinced. In the meantime I am doing some research into video conferencing options that might allow us to communicate with each other over the web.

Lion Simon Moss
@simonhmoss @MarstonGnLions @lions105m @lionsclubsorg

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