Vision Screening Update

I received an email from LCI last week with some stats about our Centennial Service Challenge for vision screening that I would like to share with you.  LCI’s goal was to serve 25 million people through vision screening efforts.  We are at the half-way point and have reported 12 million served. This is a reminder to report your vision screening efforts on MyLCI as this is LCI’s only way to know what we’re doing and if we’re on track helping the people we need to help. 

Here’s some tips: 

1. Screenings:  When Lions conduct screening activities, it is important to report the total number of people screened because everyone benefitted in some way, even if a referral was not necessary.  For example, if 100 people were screened, all 100 should be reported.
2. Lions Clinics and Foundations:  Lions clinics and foundations offer vital eye care services on an ongoing basis.  Remember to report the number served each month.  For example:  A large clinic that serves 3,000 people in the month of March, should report all 3,000 people. 
3. LCIF Funded Projects:  When Lions receive LCIF funding to implement sight-related projects, the number of people served each month through these projects should also be reported in MyLCI.  In addition, Lions should continue to submit their detailed progress reports to LCIF staff.  When your Club donates to LCIF, be sure to make a note in the Service Activity that you’re supporting vision screening. 

I know there are Clubs that do not enter their service activities into MyLCI.  Lion Presidents, please remind your secretary to do this on a regular basis.  If we’re to meet our goal of serving 100 million people, we need every, single service activity entered into MyLCI.   #Lions100

Lion Nancy Norton

49A Centennial Coordinator

Lions Want to Have Fun

Touchstone Story #91

Lions Want to Have Fun 

                       

Having fun while doing good has been a Lions specialty from the beginning.

In the early 1920s, many U.S. clubs had pep committees charged with enlivening routine club meetings. Lions soon entrusted the merrymaking function to a single energetic and enthusiastic officer, known as the Tail Twister.

Students of Tail-Twisting lore will find rich veins of anecdote and remembrance among longtime Lions and also in Lions publications.

How did the name Tail Twister come about? The World’s Biggest Doers, a 1949 history of the Lions, described this origin story, as recounted by Lions founder Melvin Jones:

“One Sunday afternoon three or four of us were discussing this matter of putting pep into the meetings. One fellow who had been born on a farm said we needed to do what used to be done on the farm. When a cow refused to go through the gate, someone would grab her by the tail and twist. We all laughed, but one of the boys said, ‘Why isn’t that a good name–tail twister?’”

The fact that lions–real lions–also have tails gave the name another amusing twist.

Now optional for all Lions clubs, the role of Tail Twister had been an established office under charter bylaws for decades. But as a 1941 article in LION Magazine made clear: “Of all the officers in the club, he [the Tail Twister] has no rigid code, no well-defined plan of action. He must be a Lion of originality.”

Indeed, Tail Twisters have been remarkably creative in promoting fun and fellowship and boosting club treasuries by “twisting” small fines from members for minor breaches of club rules, such as not wearing a nametag or talking during a guest speaker’s presentation.

The fines system is both autocratic and democratic. No member can appeal a Tail Twister’s levy, and no member is above paying it.

“President Westfall Fined on Southern Trip,” ran a banner headline over a full-page story in the April 1927 issue of LION Magazine. While visiting the Columbia Lions Club in South Carolina, USA, International President William Westfall forgot his Lions pin when changing “from his train clothes to his speaking clothes.” An alert Tail Twister named Goldschmidt spotted Westfall’s bare lapels and fined him 10 cents, the going rate for such infractions in the 1920s.

Contests, quizzes, brainteasers, jokes, lighthearted songs and poems are time-tested tools of the tail-twisting trade. Today’s practitioners can find and share fresh material on several club websites and on a Tail Twister page on Facebook.

Concepts of humor do not always transfer across different cultures and times, and that has led to a gradual decline in the tail-twisting tradition as Lions have expanded around the world. But every day in countless other ways—from pancake breakfasts to picnics with needy kids to big parades at convention time—Lions still know how to have fun.

Kenai Lions Club February Report

The Kenai Lions Club has completed all four Centennial projects, some in multiples:

• Engage the Youth:  Dictionary/Thesarus/Atlas give away program to Kenai-Nikiski 3rd, 4th and 5th graders in December.  
• Sharing the Vision:  Continue to collect for repurpose eyeglasses (650 pair).  Continue to assist paying for eye exams and eye glasses for those in need.  Eye screening in the community.  Will be at the Kenai Alternative High School doing screening in March/April.
• Protecting Our Environment:  Kenai Lions continue to clean up Spur Highway mile every spring and fall, continue partnering with private companies promoting Clean Up of Kenai in Spring and hosting a BBQ and bicycle-helmet giveaway to a young boy and girl.
• Feeding the Hungry:  Partner with Soldotna Lions to assist in a Split the Pot program for the Central Peninsula Food Bank raising over $1300.  Donating $2500 for a breakfast program at the Kenai Alternative High School.  Lion Hal Smalley has prepared and served breakfasts in this program going on 20 years-2 day a week.

On February 26, 2016, the Kenai Lion's Club celebrated our 50th Anniversary (1966- 2016).  Many Lion dignitaries from across the state came to help us celebrate.  

Recruitment:  Kenai Lions signed up four new members in October/November and signed an additional seven members at our 50th Anniversary Celebration in February.  Plus we inducted two new Kenai Leo members (one on December 15 and one February 26th ).

Hal Smalley

Club President
#Lions100

USS Juneau Presentation Silver: Legacy Project

Many many years ago, the children of Juneau, Alaska, and other locals, saved their lunch money in order to purchase a silver punch bowl to present to the USS Juneau.

Engraved Silver Punch Bowl

The Presentation Silver was put into storage before the USS Juneau was sent to war in 1942 and was only recently located with the help of Senator Lisa Murkowski, the U.S. Navy, and Lion Donna Hurley of the Juneau Mendenhall Flying Lions Club.

The Presentation Silver

It is now on loan from the U.S. Navy and has come home to rest where it will be on display at the City Museum for the next ten years.   The Juneau Mendenhall Flying Lions Club and the City Museum had an "Unveiling Reception" recently for Alaska Legislators and local dignitaries and a second reception open to the public.

How it all began:  

When Lion Donna Hurley started this journey many years ago.... this journey being her interest in the USS Juneau.... I suspect she didn't have any idea where it was going to take her.... All it took was for one person to ask, "whatever happened to the Silver Punch Bowl?" and this project was born.  It was like a starfish with many different legs.  It just kept growing.

First there was the USS Juneau Remembrance Ceremony in November on the docks of Juneau.  It was a blustery day when we honored and gave respect to the 697 sailors and crew that perished at the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942 when a Japanese torpedo hit the USS Juneau CL-52 and sunk it.  LCDR Richard Halbig told the story of the day the USS Juneau was torpedoed and sunk HERE.

The Empire wrote the first article, USS Juneau Returns Home.  From there, the story has gone global. Google USS Juneau and see what you find.

We started advertising the Unveiling Ceremony on February 8.

Captain Eugene Bailey and his wife, Juanita, arrived in town on February 11 to join in the festivities. Captain Bailey was the Captain in 1996 on the third ship named USS Juneau.  He was in Juneau in 1987 when the USS Juneau Memorial was dedicated.

Captain Bailey and his wife, Juanita

Then there was the social at the Buoy Deck for active military and veterans.  We were honored to have International Director Lewis Quinn in attendance where he addressed the military.  It was a great evening of remembering and making new friends.

International Director Lewis Quinn

Then the Unveiling of the Presentation Silver.  First was a private reception for legislators, city assembly, and other dignitaries.  Parents brought their children as this was a piece of history.  Representative Gruenberg talked about his involvement in 1987 when we had the first USS Juneau Memorial service.  More remembering that awful day on November 13, 1942 when the Japanese torpedoed the USS Juneau and sunk it.  After eight days of being in shark-infested water, only ten survived before being rescued.

 

And, last, was the reception we held for the public on Valentines Day, February 14.

The Story has been told.  The Presentation Silver has been shown.  Juneau has a big piece of its history back home.  #Lions100 Legacy Project

Lion Nancy Norton
Juneau Mendenhall Flying Lions