Be Open To Reinventing The Way We Serve Our Communities

     It is election time again.  We walk into our meetings and say we need volunteers to fill our club offices.  Someone raises their hand and says our current officers are doing a good job, let’s just reelect them, problem solved.  Problem not solved; problem created.  Now, we have stagnated at the club level.  We have presidents and secretaries in their offices for over 5 years with some who have served for life.  No one else in the club has developed leadership skills.  We have taken the easy route and our clubs die from lack of interest.  We need the constant flow of new energy.

     Problem #2.  We need Zone Chairs to help clubs continue to operate and coordinate their efforts.  To be a Zone Chair you must have served as a club officer.  These people don’t want to move up because they are busy at the club level and don’t think they have time in their lives to take on extra responsibilities.  We now have zone chairs that are not interested in moving up in leadership or have already served in leadership positions. We are now stagnant at this level of leadership.

     Problem #3.  To be a 1st VDG or a 2nd VDG requires that you must have served as a Zone Chair.  We are now short of Qualified Lions to Fill these positions.  We are now stagnant at the top.  We have no one moving into these positions.  Currently, the position of District Governor is Stagnate.

     None of these positions by themselves are hard or time-consuming when that is the only position you hold.  It’s when you try to be responsible and take on a lot of positions that you get overwhelmed and don’t do as good of a job as you are capable of.

     To solve these problems, we need to start at the bottom and fix the problem there.  We need to become proactive, move our members into leadership positions, move new members into director positions and give them a voice in club operation.  Old members and new members need to listen to each other and be open to reinventing the way we serve our communities.  One thing the past 2 years has taught us is that there are other ways to serve and to operate as clubs.  Let’s not take the easy route and waste away to nonexistence.  Let’s be more inclusive and move people into leadership positions.  Let’s not be the one who blocks the way for the future.  We as leaders are the ones who need to reinvigorate our clubs and move our members ahead to greater service.

     Stephen Brewster, District Governor MD36E