Governor’s Newsletter District A-12 District Governor Randy Hargrave Governor’s Message
Lions Service Areas
Welcome Fellow Lions, Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be your District Governor for District A-12 for 2017-2018. I believe I am well prepared for this role. Twenty-four years of service with the Penetanguishene Lions, two years preparing as Vice District Governor, and the final training received in Chicago at the 100th International Convention. But I am not taking this journey alone, I have an amazing team with me: Past District Governors, Cabinet Officers, ChairLions, Lions and family ready to assist me. During my DG training, there was a great emphasis on International President Dr. Naresh Aggarwal's message. A simple message we all know: WE SERVE. He wants to give every Lion the same goal for the next twelve months. His dream is that every Lion will serve 10 people each month. If this happens we will serve 170 million people this year— a big increase from our current level of 100 million and a big step toward our goal of serving 200 million annually by 2020. Putting a different spin on International President Aggarwal's request, as we are in our 101st year of service, I challenge every Lion this year to do 101 acts of service. Ranging from those small acts such as opening a door for a stranger or giving a few bucks to a homeless person, to our club service projects, every Lion in our district can easily do 101 acts of service this year. By accomplishing this challenge, we can easily meet and even surpass President Aggarwal's challenge of serving 10 people a month. As Lions, we must continue to assess our service and the programs we offer. As Lions, we make an enormous impact on our communities through our work in protecting the environment, as we tackle hunger relief, and our continued work with the vision impaired. Major changes are happening in the areas of service on which we concentrate. Pediatric cancer and diabetes are causes which we are being asked to make a tremendous impact going forward. For our 101st year diabetes will receive the most attention from Lions International. Youth are still an area of importance to Lions, and they are included within the focus of the other five areas of Lions' concentration. Every year we are asked to provide more service and I am confident Lions of A-12 will meet these new challenges. I look forward to working with all of you in this year of Lionism. I believe we can Be Part of the Impact in the Lions Club International vision to be the global leader in community and humanitarian service.
We Serve. The Global Service Framework focuses the efforts of Lions and Leos on five service areas with the goal of tripling our humanitarian impact by serving 200 million people per year by 2021. The Global Service Framework complements all of the great ways clubs serve locally, and gives Lions and Leos new opportunities to help meet the growing challenges facing humanity. No matter how you choose to serve, Lions matter now more than ever!
Be A Lion
Issue No. 1 About District Governor Randy Hargrave Lion Randy is a member of the Penetanguishene Lions Club and has held all major positions in the club. He has served four chairs including Diabetes and Camp Huronda and the environment. He received an International Certificate of Appreciation for his “Blue Glove Campaign” helping to raise awareness of diabetes. Randy is a Melvin Jones Fellow, Knight of Lake Joe and a Honourary Guardian of Camp Huronda. Randy firmly believes that giving back to community is one of life's higher goals and service to others will result in a happier life. He is a dedicated Lion, but has other volunteer interests besides Lionism including: soccer, Tiny township Heritage committee, local soup kitchen, children's choir treasurer and church committees. Randy is married to Nancy and they have three children and four grandsons. Nancy became a Lion at this year's A-12 convention and his daughter Keirstan has been a Lion now over a year. Randy and Nancy are extremely proud of Keirstan as she has been working with a Christian missionary group helping under privileged people in Peru this summer.
DG Randy’s Project
Diabetes
Hunger
Environment
Pediatric Cancer
Lion Randy
Vision
Choosing a District Governor's project is a difficult decision to make. I toyed with the idea of helping to raise funds to sponsor a Diabetic guide dog or drilling for a well in Africa. The inspiration for our district governor's project came to me at Camp Huronda's Appreciation Day. During a tour of the camp, we visited one of the campers sleeping cabins. It was in very poor shape with holes in the walls and other structural damage. The most galling thing was it had a plaque at its entrance saying it was the A-12 Cabin, sponsored by many Lions Clubs of our district. So this year I have selected Camp Huronda to be my District Governor's project. I realize IPDG Len's project was also with Camp Huronda, but my project will be different than his. I have a long history with Camp Huronda, so I believe it is only right to carry on this association between me and the camp. Also, diabetes is very prevalent in my family: parent, siblings and other extend family members cope with the disease every day. I try to live healthy every day to prevent it from affecting me. Camp Huronda is the only camp facility owned by the Canadian Diabetes Association and the only camp that runs a full summer program. Camp Huronda is located on the shores of Lake Waseosa in Ontario's beautiful Muskoka area. It occupies 100 acres of land and includes gorgeous waterfront areas, a cool forest, and rugged hiking and mountain bike trails. Camp Huronda is celebrating its 46th year on Lake Waseosa and 53rd year of operation. The Camp has a few items on their wish list: replacing the sleeping cabin with our district name is, I believe, a priority. I believe that the A12 Lions family can raise over $30,000.00 for this project from the past history of our donations. I am negotiating with the camp to make this a service project for our Lions. I would love to see Lions contribute hands on service to replace this cabin. I will be asking Lions from our district to commit to a day or two to build this cabin ourselves, when we get approval. This would make a great Lions Legacy Project and we would be impacting many youths for many future years. Diabetes, along with Pediatric Cancer, has been added to our Lions International service framework. Lions Clubs International is asking us to put the emphasis on diabetes this year. A project at Camp Huronda would nicely fit into this request. I am respectfully asking clubs to support this project this year and allocate some funds from their budgets.