November 2019 Lions Pen
President’s Message
We were busy in October delivering dictionaries and thesauruses to area 3rd and 6th graders. See Lion Karin’s notes below. Thank you, Karin, for organizing this and attaching over 500 labels to the books! We also did the planning for Christmas Tree sales. Lion Bob T (I almost wrote Lion Bob Tree) has purchased the trees and the team has organized the work as described in Lion Bob’s notes below.
One of the focus areas of Lions International is Vision. The mission statement is “to improve the lives of the visually impaired and prevent avoidable blindness.” Our club participates in a small direct way by collecting used eyeglasses. We, along with all the Lions Clubs of Minnesota, also support the Minnesota Lions Vision Foundation. Lion Kathy and I attended the ‘Thanksgiving for Vision’ program on October 26. It was kind of the Vision Foundation’s annual stakeholders meeting. The Foundation was started in 1961 by some visionary Minnesota Lions in partnership with the University of Minnesota.
The Foundation supports the Lions Gift of Sight (formerly the Minnesota Lions Eye Bank), Lions Children Eye Clinic, Lions Macular Degeneration Center, Eye Research and the Minnesota Lions Surgery Center. The breadth and depth of this work is truly impressive. One number sums up the scale of this endeavor. Since 1961 some 68,000 corneas have been distributed for transplant and research. The Foundation is a nationally and internationally recognized leader in all things Vision, just like the mission statement proposes.
Our club has consistently supported the work of the Foundation though our annual contributions channeled through the district 5M6 ‘Parade of Green’ which will be coming up in January.
Also coming up in January (17th and 18th) is the Lions District 5M6 Convention. This is open to all FHL Lions and we’ll be sending out an invitation with particulars to all club members in the next couple of weeks.
Finally, welcome new member Carrie Blandin of Maplewood into our Lions Club! Carrie was sponsored by her boyfriend, Scott Roste.
Lion Paul
Christmas Tree Sales
The trees have been ordered, supplies inventoried and the lot set-up will be happening this Saturday. Now we just need to fill in the schedule on Signup Genius that Lion Paul sent out last week.
As in each of the last few years we will be receiving 525 trees on November 23 and the Roseville Wrestling Team will be on hand to help with the unloading and set up of the trees. We would like about 10 or so Lions to be available to help direct the youth during tree delivery and set up. Tree sales will begin the Friday following Thanksgiving and there will be plenty of opportunities for our members to help out during the next few weeks. We will also have members of the Roseville Hockey Team helping out during the first couple of weekends.
I really look forward to our Lions Christmas Tree Sales. I think it’s great to see all the repeat customers who come in to purchase a tree from us and its fun working along with other members of our club. I encourage each of you to sign up here: Tree Sales.
Thanks!
Lion Bob Tomlinson
October Social Meeting Review
Even Lions who weren’t very interested in robots per se, were blown away by the enthusiasm of the Roseville Area High School Robotics Team (The FireBears). Captain Gwen told us about the team’s build-season and how they are preparing and will compete in the spring. Students from programming, mechanical, electrical, and marketing and promotions teams gave us an idea of how the school year goes and how they cooperate internally and with other teams to form alliances. The team consists of 45 students and 10 adult mentors. The team is in practice mode now until January 3 when this season’s challenge is revealed to all teams. They then have six weeks to build and program their robot before the first tournament. Our Lions Club logo is on the robot because we donated $1000 last year so they could compete in the world championship competition in Detroit. It was a terrific hour!
Lion Kris
Picture of most of the Firebears team with last year’s robot.
November Social Meeting – November 25
Lion Jeff Fenske, from the Lions Vision Foundation, will talk to us about Lions Glasses Collection. We collect them at the city halls, at RASP at Fairview Community Center, at Corpus Christi, and during Christmas tree sales. Last summer, we also collected them at a volunteer event at Fairview Community Center. People Have Questions!! What is acceptable? Sunglasses? Readers? Broken Frames? How many do we collect? What are they used for? Who gets them? Who gets them ready to give away?
Lion Jeff will also tell us about the important Lions Eye Bank at the University of MN and explain some of the current challenges. No PowerPoint Presentation, just heart-to-heart conversation about a great Lions Service.
Dictionary Project
A big thanks to Lions Paul, Jon, Rollie, Ken, and Kris for their help with delivering 263 Dictionaries and 242 Thesauruses to the third and fifth grade classes at Parkview, Brimhall, St Rose and Falcon Heights schools. (See some of us in action at Parkview, below.) The kids seemed very appreciative of the gift. Many fifth graders remembered us and said they still had their dictionaries from third grade. Also, two teachers said they have a special lesson they do after receiving the dictionaries.
All in all, a very Jim Dandy experience for everyone involved!
Lion Karin
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Christmas Tree Coupons
The Christmas Tree Team mails 640 $3.00 off tree coupons to past customers each year and we receive a large percentage of them back. We have extra coupons at the tree lot and encourage you to distribute them to family and friends. In return, we do request their names and addresses so we can add them to our coupon mailing list. Note that Lions cannot use the coupons but you can purchase a tree at cost if you sign up for 12 or more hours of sales help. Sign up here: Tree Sales. I will be posting updated calendars -with sales results and open shifts – on our website here: http://3.139.97.244/
Lion Ken
We Serve
We presented a check for $26,593 to Wellington Management for their share of our State Fair parking proceeds. We also contributed $250 to the St. Anthony Bugle in Steve Wellington’s name.
We purchased $160 in tickets for the New Brighton Lions Club’s spaghetti dinner to support the MidWinter Convention.
We approved $300 to sponsor a family again this Christmas for the Ramsey County Holiday Sponsorship.
Remember:
Nov. 9, 9:00-12:00 – FHCP – Christmas tree lot setup
Nov. 11, 6:30 p.m. – FHCP – Board meeting (all Lions are welcome to attend)
Nov. 23, 9:00-12:00 – FHCP – Tree delivery
Nov. 25, 6:30 p.m. – FHCP – Lions Vision Foundation
Nov. 29, 10:00-4:00 – FHCP – Tree sales begin
Dec. 9, 6:30 p.m. – FHCP – Board meeting (all Lions are welcome to attend)
FHCP = Falcon Heights Community Park building
Check our website for more pictures and the latest news: http://3.139.97.244.