The 5M-5

Informer

The first All-Zones Meet-ing was held September 30 at Camp Edenwood. Six Zone Chairs, the Region Chair, the Presidents, Secretaries and Membership Chairs from all of the zones were there to hear about …….THE PLAN. We enjoyed a great meal, some fellowship and then it was down to work with P.I.D. Ross, Region Chair Bob and the Zone Chairs in full command of the evening. In another article in The Informer you can read all about it.

Lion Karen and I were honored to be guests at Robbinsdale’s 65^th Anniversary and share the head table with International Director Maynard Rucks and Lion Eunice. Several of Robbinsdale’s charter members were in attendance as well as new club members and members from some of clubs that Robbinsdale has sponsored through the years. This was a wonderful night of music, food, fellowship and reminiscing. Congratulations Robbinsdale Lions…thank you for the 65 years of dedicated service!

On Saturday, October 9th, we attended the Thanksgiving for Vision at the Earle Brown Center in Brooklyn Center sponsored by the Minnesota Eye Bank. This was like old home week. Several of our fellow District Governors from MD5M along with Vice District Governors of MD5M, our Council Chairman Keith Johnson and Marion and our MD5M Secretary Bob Harms and Lion Debbi were there to share in the fellowship of the day.

This was the 18^th annual Thanksgiving for Vision. This was a gathering of Minnesota Lions and Lioness members, Department of Ophthalmology surgeons and researchers, corneal transplant recipients and eye donor families. Each one connected with the exciting sight-saving work occurring here in Minnesota. The morning started with a welcome and thank you from Dr. Jay Krachmer who is the Chariman of the Department of

Ophthalmology at the University of MN. Seminar speakers were Timothy Olsen, MD; Stephen Christiansen, MD; Andrew Harrison, MD; and Deborah Ferrington, Ph.D. It was awesome listening to them describe what they do and how they do it … they were thanking US … the Lions, for our generosity.

After our luncheon, P.I.D. Ross was the Master of Ceremonies for the program. He introduced the daughters of Lucille (a donor) to give a Donor Family’s Perspective. There were four daughters from Lucille’s family there (12 children in all). When their mother passed on, the family decided to have Lucille’s eyes donated. They said that their mother had been such a giving person that they thought she would have wanted this gift to be given.

We then heard Jackie’s Story. Jackie was a corneal recipient. She is a teacher and one day was outside and something scratched her eye. To make a long story short, she ended up with an infection in a scratch across her cornea (5mm across). After several trips to the doctor and emergency room, she was told that she would have to have a corneal transplant. Dr. Krachmer was her physician. He did the transplant and she is doing very well.

In the next few days, we have three more club visits before we go up to Mahnomen for the Council of Governors meeting. This weekend is also the weekend the Vice District Governors and their partners in service start their training for the next year. Good luck VDG’s …hit the ground running….it’s a wild ride! I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

Things to look forward to? It’s Lutfisk season!!!!! Plenty to go around….of course, for those who have sensitive noses, there’s always the meatballs!

I look forward to seeing you on my visits and at the convention. Thank you all for making OUR Lions year a great one! Yours in Lionism,

An important announcement was made at the Multiple 5M Council meeting in Mahnomen this past weekend. Past Int’l Director Ross Thorfinnson declared his intent to seek the office of Second Vice President of Lions Clubs International. PID Ross will be seeking the endorsement for his candidacy at the upcoming 5M-5 Mid-Winter Convention and at a future Multiple 5M Convention.

More than 90 Lions and guests attended the Charter Night in support of the Brooklyn Park Lady Lions Club on October 9^th. Immediate PDG Jackie Morlock presented the charter to Lion Pat Fisher, president of the new club. Lion Karen Nelson presented Lion pins and Governor Ole installed the 21 new members and the officers of this fine group. The club is sponsored by the Brooklyn Park Lions Club.

In his remarks to the group, PID Ross Thorfinnson acknowledged the proud history of the group as a strong Lioness Club which had served their community for many years. They will now continue their commitment to their community and to Lions International as proud Lions with the full obligations and privileges afforded them.

The 5M-5 Past District Governors are once again seeking nominations to honor an outstanding Lion member for extraordinary service and dedication to Lionism. The Lutter Memorial Award is named for the late Past International Director John Lutter.

Those of you who knew John remember his enthusiasm, his love of God and country, his dedication to the ideals of Lionism and his willingness to respond to the needs of his Lions Club. Nominations for this award should be a Lion member who exemplifies those beliefs. Not surprisingly, candidates will be those who live the Lions motto – “We Serve.”

The 5M-5 PDG Fellowship has determined that 5M-5 Past District Governors will not be eligible for this award. A nomination form is included with this newsletter, or from your Zone Chairman.

If you nominated someone last year and your candidate was not chosen, please remember that nominations are not carried over, and you are strongly encouraged to re-submit your nomination.

Please submit nominations by December 1, 2004 to PDG Bob Lieb, 460 Fifth Ave. No., #302, Hopkins, MN 55343 or email it to www.informer@dfti.net.

$15.00 per person –

with snacks and beverages provided plus drawings for fabulous gifts during trip (bring a gift to raffle off). Bus pickup at Park Tavern in St. Louis Park at 9:00 am; leave casino to return home at 3:30 pm

Reply by October 24 to Bruce Strachota at 952-929-6614 or 952-928-5l85

As Steve Gillane detailed in his article in last month’s Informer, District 5M5 has adopted bell ringing for the Salvation Army as a key holiday project. Bell ringing is a great opportunity for our clubs to enjoy meeting people in the community and to participate in a unified, district-wide project, Each year, bell ringing in the metro area raises approximately $2 million in dollars, quarters, and dimes. This funding is especially critical in a year of budget cuts and limited resources.

To sign up for bell ringing individually or with your club, call The Salvation Army at 651-746-3425 and ask for Tom Mckee and be sure to tell him you are with 5M5 Lions. If you would like to have more information, call or visit www.thesalarmy.com.

Lion Bob Jechorek and Lion Wayne Harkness have announced their intention to run for Vice-District Governor 2005-2006 at the 5M-5 Mid-Winter Convention January 21-23. Lion Harkness is a member of the Hopkins Evening Lions Club and Lion Jechorek is a member of the Brooklyn Center Lions Club. There will be more information on both candidates in the next newsletter.

Shortly a notice and reply card will be sent to each club in MD5 regarding the Hearing Center and Eye Bank Tour. The date of this falls tour will be Saturday November 13^th.

The tour will include short presentations and demonstrations by physicians and researchers in the Eye Bank, the Children’s Eye Clinic the Macular Degeneration Center and some of the labs in the 5M Hearing Center.

The event starts at 9:00 a.m. and concludes at 1:30 p.m. and includes a box lunch. Your club will receive this mailing shortly so be prepared to return the reply card immediately as the slots will be filled on a first come basis.

Belgium Waffles & Sausages

All you can eat - 8:00 to 1:00 –

Eisenhower Community Center

1001 Highway 7

Adults $6.00 - Children under 4 – Free

This Halloween, on Sight Night, thousands of “creatures” in the form of boys and girls volunteer to collect used glasses while they trick-or-treat. This year, our goal is to collect 225,000 pairs of glasses.

To learn more about the Sight Night visit www.givethegiftofsight.org or any LensCrafters store. For even more information contact Lion Ellie Reitmeyer at 952-540-0425.

You can download free Sight Night collection kits on-line by going to www.sightnight.org or calling toll-free 1-8777-605-4242 (one kit per group, please).

Drop off the glasses you collect at any LensCrafters location. LensCrafters will recycle the glasses and give them to people in developing countries.

In this issue of the Informer, you will find convention forms for the 2005 Mid-Winter January 21-23.

Please read them carefully and either e-mail or send the completed forms to Vice District Governor Jack.

This is going to be an exciting convention! Our guest speaker for the weekend is International Director Ernest Young from Lansing, Kansas. I.D. Young will be speaking Saturday morning at the membership seminar and he will be the keynote speaker for the Governors Banquet Saturday evening.

From the opening ceremony Friday evening to the close of the convention with the Sunday Brunch, this will be a fun filled, entertaining and educational weekend. Look out! This is going to be a humdinger! We will inform you, educate you and get those ol’ Lions juices goin’. It’s time to rejuvenate, re-educate, and it’s a good time to reacquaint ourselves with old friends and meet some new ones.

BELGIAN WAFFLE BREAKFAST

8:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Maple Grove Community Center

(I-94 to Weaver Lake Rd, East 1/2 mile)

$5.00 a ticket – all you can eat!!

Carry-outs available

We Serve is our LIONS motto, and we have some projects coming up that will take the efforts of all the Lions in District 5M-5.

One is the “Plan” that was unveiled at the Zone Meeting in September. If each club has a net increase of two members we will hit our goal. The Zone Chairmen will be out to your club to do a survey and work with your club.

Second, we are doing something that I don’t think was ever done before in our District. We are going to join hands with 5M-6 in putting on a concert. The concert will benefit LCIF and also the people in Florida. The concert will be held at Augsburg College on Saturday, April 9, 2005, at 7:00 p.m. Final details are being worked out and you will be kept informed.

We hope we got your attention with several teasers about “The Plan” in last month’s Informer. If you were unable to attend the All-Zones Meeting in September you’re probably asking yourself, “What’s going on in 5M-5?” What follows should answer some of your questions.

A Task Force was formed by District Governor Ole, and consists of Renae Bradley, Bonnie Deters, Wayne Harkness, Jack Hines, Bucky Hartkopf, Bob Jechorek, Bob Lenzmeier, Karen Nelson, Governor Ole Nelson and Lynda Thorfinnson.

The first task of the group was to formulate the District 5M-5 Mission Statement:

Lions Clubs are providing important, valuable hu-manitarian and community service via a variety of pro-jects and activities. The need for our Lions’ services is growing significantly due to increasing population with new and diverse needs, and cut backs in government-sponsored support. Although need for service is growing, the number of clubs and active Lions has “stagnated” over the past several years. In addition, 5M-5’s Lions are

“maturing” (hard to admit but a reality). Passing on the gift of Lionism is essential to continuing our 5M-5 legacy of service.

What does this mean for us as a District? It means increasing our district membership is critical to our continuing ability to serve our communities and people in need through Lionism. It means Lions with a variety of backgrounds and perspectives are needed to meet new and diverse needs. The goals are to –

· Increase the number of new Lions members in existing clubs by providing specific tools and membership teams to assist clubs in recruiting new members, and promote Lions Clubs at “key” community events in District 5M-5.

· Extend Lionism through the formation of new clubs by identifying and prioritizing areas within our district that are not currently served by a community Lions Club, and by creating extension teams to form new Lions Clubs in identified areas.

· Improve existing Lions membership retention by providing periodic orientation sessions to new as well as existing Lions members; creating opportunities for club members to interact with the people we serve & promote fun & interaction between clubs within our District.

· Provide Cabinet members and District Officers with training and goals by holding informational “2004-05 goal setting/planning” session for Cabinet members, and incorporating “workshops” into Zone Meetings.

What’s needed to insure these goals are a success? It will require the commitment and involvement of club officers and cabinet members, particularly Zone Chairs to recognize that these are our DISTRICT goals and are NOT “just” the district governor’s goals. It will require specific District and Zone goals and concrete action plans with periodic progress review; and acceptance of these “rolling” plans and goals providing continuity from year to year, governor to governor, zone chairs to zone chairs.

In the December Informer we’ll report on what’s been done so far to meet the District’s goals.

Pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs and beverage $5.00

Children under age 4 - free

8:00 a.m. – 12:00 Noon

Crystal Community Center

4800 Douglas Drive

Proceeds support Lions Community Projects

Administration costs for items such as mailing and printing continue to increase each year. It is important for our key District representatives to be able to attend training sessions at the District, Multiple District and International levels to better support the growth of our District.

Our District is embarking on an exciting program “The Plan – Growing Healthy Clubs for 5M-5”. We need to train the members of this group so that they can go out to the clubs of the District and provide them the tools to grow, orient their members and stay healthty. Some of these costs are constant, irregardless of the membership level. If our membership drops, the cost per member goes up.

$2.00 per member per year, which will change the total District dues from $11.60 to $13.60 per year.

It has been several years since the last dues increase. We will need to support this proposed increase if we want to continue to have a healthy, growing district.

· Please note: If you have not yet scheduled your club’s visit from District Governor Ole, please do so as soon as possible in order to schedule a time convenient to your club. Call Ole or Karen at 763-566-4925 or email them at oknelson@usfamily.net.

· Deadline for the December issue of The Informer is November 15th! Contact me at informer@dfti.net with any upcoming events or fundraisers. Please put LIONS in the subject line of email so I’ll know it’s not junk mail.

· If your Lion or Lioness Club has lost a member through death, please notify your Zone Chairman immediately. The information is needed for the new Mid-Winter Memorial format and will also be reported in The Informer.

· The All Zone Meeting on November 30 will be held at the Brooklyn Center Community Center, 6301 Shingle Creek Parkway. Social 6pm, Dinner 7pm.

The Lions of Multiple 5M have an opportunity to enter into an agreement with the Minnesota Timberwolves that could result in a nice profit for the Lions.

If the clubs in our Multiple agree to sell a pre-determined number of tickets to the December 17^th game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Los Angeles Clippers, the Timber-wolves organization will donate back to the Multiple $10.00 for every ticket Lions sell. That could result in a nice amount to be shared by the Districts in Multiple 5M (a district can choose not to participate if they wish).

If your club wishes to participate in this venture you may call Vice Dictrict Governor Jack Hines at 763-428-2434 or 763-428-4321. He may also be reached via e-mail at decimet@dsimn.com.

The Timberwolves will be advertising this game as a bring-your-old-eyeglasses-to-the-game event and Lions will be asked to tend collection sites at each entrance to Target Center.

The Lions and Lioness of Multiple District 5M have raised $5.5 million and have provided a diagnostic and treatment clinic without equal at the University of Minnesota. Because of your generosity you have touched many lives.

In 1997 we introduced the Lions Newborn Hearing Screening Program. When the program was started only 8% of the 110 birthing hospitals in Minnesota did routine hearing screening on newborns. Today there are only two birthing hospitals that don’t screen newborns. There are approximately 200 babies born each year in Minnesota with a hearing problem.

At the May 2004 Multiple District 5M Convention the Hearing Foundation announced the Children’s Hearing Center project. This project will create a Children’s Hearing Center at the University of Minnesota that will provide complete diagnosis, treatment and ongoing evaluation of these hearing impaired children as they grow to adulthood. The center will also provide a resource for general practitioners that have young patients who are hearing impaired. The center will also create a database of information about children’s hearing problems that can be used for ongoing research. Currently there is no such facility in the upper Midwest.

Adults $6.00 - Children under 4 – Free

$5.00 a ticket – all you can eat!!

FEEDBACK?

Send mail to 5M5 with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: July 24, 2008

Adults $6.00 - Children under 4 – Free

$5.00 a ticket – all you can eat!!

FEEDBACK?

Send mail to 5M5 with questions or comments about this web site. Last modified: July 24, 2008

Send mail to 5M5 with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: July 24, 2008