Charter and Autumn Forum

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Charter and Autumn Forum

October 15, 2011 by Lion Simon Moss

Well, it’s been a while since my last post as I have been in Kos for my youngest daughter’s wedding without any internet access.

On my return last Friday I had to pick up the organisation of my Club’s 34th Charter Anniversary Dinner which took place on Saturday night. Fortunately club members Heather and Lin had done most of the work while I was away and I was just left with creating and printing the menus and sourcing the top table gifts. I also had to finish writing a song for the president and preparing for Autumn Forum on the Sunday. More on both of those later.

I can’t remember if I’ve explained about Charters before but there’s no harm in refreshing your memories. When a club is formed it receives a Charter from Lions Clubs International. This is essentially a document confirming the creation of the club and listing the founder (or Charter) members. The Charter is presented at the club’s formation event and most clubs then hold an event, usually a formal dinner, on each anniversary of the inauguration. Marston Green and District Lions Club was formed in or near October 1977 and so we try and hold our anniversary dinner in or around October each year. If done as a formal dinner, a charter anniversary usually contains the following formalities.

Top table (club president and guests of honour) welcomed into the room by the other guests
Grace
Dinner
Loyal Toast
Toast to Lions Clubs International (usually proposed by the club president)
Response on behalf of LCI (the District Governor or another ranking lion if he is unavailable. Often includes a toast to the club.)
Toast to our partners and our guests (propsoed by a lion from within the club)
Response on behalf of guests ( usually a non-lion or a lion from another club)
It is customary to present the ladies on the top table with a gift, usually flowers

Saturday night turned out to be a good event despite lower than normal numbers partly caused by a clash with an event being run by Castle Bromwich Lions. They had tried to change the date of their ferret race but no other date was available probably resulting in a mutual drop in numbers. I was toastmaster for the night and the formal part of the evening went smoothly. There was a slight difficulty before the event in that the District Governor had sent his apologies due to a clash with his own club’s charter. VDG Paul had been booked in his place and then Warwick cancelled their charter due to lack of numbers and DG Neil asked if he could come to ours. If the DG is present, protocol dictates that he should be the representative of LCI. We solved the problem by splitting the response in two with Neil responding and Paul toasting the club. My wife, and Region Chair, Christine proposed the toast to partners and guests and the response was provided by Maggie, the wife of an Australian lion who suffered a stroke whilst on holiday over here postponing their return. Lions throughout the district have rallied round to help, particularly Wim and Pauline from my club.

In Marston Green Lions we have a tradition of providing a small piece of entertainment between the formal bit and the start of the disco and for the last 17 years or so this has taken the form of a song about the president written and performed by “Simon & Our Michael” (me and best mate Mick). This year’s song was only finished about four hours before the event and was well received despite a lack of rehearsal. It focussed on president Tim’s other life as a guitar man. The evening finished with the Roaring Success Disco provided as usual by Lion Paul from Sandwell Lions Club.

The following day was a bright and early start for the district’s Autumn Forum. Each year this event is held comprising a number of seminars and presentations for all lions within the district. My part in the event was twofold, setting up and running the various PowerPoint presentations during the day and, as part of the membership, leadership and communications seminar, encouraging clubs to use the web and social media as a membership tool. The other seminars covered our signature projects, the Lions Eye Health Programme (LEHP) and Young Leaders in Service (YLIS). Each seminar was run three times in the morning and after lunch all the attendees were brought together. The afternoon started with a presentation by DG Neil’s wife Beryl and her project to support the work of Christians Against Poverty (CAP).

After the presentation a video on the International President’s theme for the year ‘I Believe’ was shown. For anyone wanting to understand what Lions do around the world this was an inspirational video.There then followed presentations on the Niger Water Wells project by Lion Pauline, the tree planting project by Environment Officer Lion Bob and next year’s district convention by Lion Josna. All in all I felt that it was one of the best Forums I have attended so well done to all involved.

Finally my writing of this edition was interrupted while I helped out with my club’s litter pick in Marston Green. A beautiful morning for it and a fair amount of rubbish collected from all around the village. Tonight Christine and I are off to Shakespeare Lions charter anniversary where I will be representing LCI.