Arima Lions Club

- Trinidad & Tobago

Welcome to The Lions Club of Arima

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Lion Sarah Lezama - Club President: 2022~2023

Her Acceptance Speech

Theme: "Creating Impactful Service through Member Satisfaction"

Members of the Head Table, Specially Invited Guests, Fellow Lions, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with great honour that I accept the Presidency of the Lions Club of Arima for the year 01 July 2022 to 30 June 2023. I would like to begin by thanking God for this opportunity to serve my fellowman.  I also wish to thank you the members for placing your faith in me to lead our Club for the next year and look forward to your support during the year. I will make every effort to live up to your expectations and to fulfil my duties to the best of my abilities especially since I’m following on the heals of JB4.0.

My journey in Lionism began 6 years ago when I learnt that our dearly departed Lion Courtney, who I had previously worked with at WASA, was at the time the President of the Club.  At that point I jumped at the opportunity to join this Club, because well I mean Lion Courtney had a high work ethic so there must have been something good about this Club, was my thought. I immediately contacted him to find out about joining.  Unfortunately, as life would have it, I was unable to work with Lion Courtney in the Club as he passed away before I became a member, however I was not disappointed with my first impression that this would be an excellent Club.  My business coach once asked me what was my passion and I told her ‘to serve people”, to which she asked “to serve people how”; my follow up response was that I wanted to serve people however I can, using my innate gifts, my education, my time, my network and any other resources at my disposal.  I must say that the Lions Club of Arima has definitely allowed me to follow my passion.

As we embark on the upcoming year, my vision is for us to be the top performing Club in Trinidad and Tobago, by conducting impactful service projects within the community, while creating lasting friendships amongst our members and of course having fun as only we can do it.

While trying to decide on the theme for this year, I knew that I needed to focus on 2 most important pillars, those being Service and Membership, because there is no service without members, however there is no Club without service.  My theme for this year is therefore Creating Impactful Service through Member Satisfaction.

In order for the Club to maintain this theme throughout the year, we will be focussed on the following goals:

1. Service

To conduct impactful service projects that will serve 6,000 persons by 30^th June 2023, with participation from 100% of the members.

In her acceptance speech, our incoming District Governor Lion Shabiki Cazabon challenged Clubs to carry out impactful service projects that promote visibility.  In our 2021 – 2022 year, the Club served approximately 5,000 persons so I am challenging each of you our members to think big and bombard our Service Chairperson with your project ideas so that we can surpass this number and reach our target of 6,000 persons.  I for one am looking forward to contributions from our new members.

1. Membership

To create a member experience that ensures 100% retention of existing members and attracts a minimum 10% increase in membership.

In any organization it is impossible to have all of your members show up all of the time.However, it is very important to ensure that each member is motivated to show up for as many meetings, projects or fundraisers during the year.How can we do this? By showing appreciation to our existing members.We will seek to acknowledge members who have gone above and beyond in their contributions to the Club, not only at our year end Installation Ceremony but throughout the year. For the ladies, how does Wonderful World gift cards sound?And not to leave out our men, a 1 mth FLOW Sport Channel add on?These are just some potential gift ideas so don’t kill me if you don’t get exactly this ok!For me it’s the little things that count and everyone likes to know that they are appreciated.Let’s show our appreciation to our members a little more often.We also hope that once members feel appreciated, they will happily encourage others to join our Club.

1. Leadership Development

To create a list of potential leaders in the Club and create a training programme to prepare them for leadership positions by the end of the 1^st quarter of the year.

One major challenge facing NGOs throughout the country has been the lack of enthusiasm of persons willing to take up leadership positions within the organization.The feedback received is that balancing their personal lives and work is already very stressful, so adding the responsibility of a leadership position when all they want to do is serve, is not something they desire to do. My goal is to continue offering training modules to members who show an interest in being on the Board and other Committees, especially members who have been in the Club for 3 years or less. We will also seek to ensure that Sponsors take on more of a mentorship role in the new members Lions journey.

1. LCIF

To conduct 1 fundraising activity aimed specifically at raising funds for LCIF.

Over the last few years our Club has attempted to have 100% membership contribution to LCIF, however we have not been able to achieve this goal.This is quite understandable as not everyone is in the same place financially and we need to acknowledge that.We will therefore aim to identify a fundraiser that all members can participate in and all proceeds will go towards LCIF.

The above are just the 4 main goals of the Club for the year, however the activities of the other areas will be geared towards ensuring these goals are met.

To our existing members, continue pouring your heart and soul into this organization so that our high standards will be maintained.  To our new members, we anticipate your full support and the added value that you will bring to our Club. To our community partners we look forward to strengthening our relationship in the future.

And as I close, I wish to challenge each and every one of you to encourage your families, friends, co-workers, etc. to provide yeoman service in their communities so that we could all contribute to making this world a better place.

Thank you, God bless and do enjoy the rest of the day!

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Are you interested in joining our Team?

Do you possess the qualities we are looking for in a member?

Take a look at our infographic below for further information and give us a call!

A DECADE TO REMEMBER 

Lion Ayana Prescott President 2019-2020	Lion Nisha Thomas President 2018-2019	Lion Latoya Alleyne-Compton  President 2017~2018
Designed by Lion Neisah Ramcharan	Lion Jeanne Blaize Our 50th President  2016-2017	Designed by Lion Ian Forde
Lion Courtney Tyson (Deceased) President Nov-Apr 2015 ~ 2016	Lion Lauren Subar (Center) President and Board of Directors 2014 ~  2015	Lion Cheryl Juanette President 2013 ~ 2014
Lion Bonifacia Pereira President 2012 ~ 2013	Lion Cherry Antoine  President 2011 ~ 2012	Lion Neal Weatherhead  President of 2010 ~ 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

              

 

 

Lions Clubs International is the world's largest service club organization with more than 1.4 million members in approximately 46,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas around the world.