News

THE 2013 BEAUSEJOUR LIONS COMMUNITY CALENDAR
IS NOW AVAILABLE!

The Calendar was circulated via the Clipper Weekly Dec 17th edition. If you haven’t received one, or would like an extra one or two of these valuable community information ‘staples’, they are available at the Beausejour Town office, the R M of Brokenhead office, or at the Rec District office in Sun Gro Centre. Get yours now before they run out!

DECEMBER 2012 ACTIVITIES

LIONS LODGE RESIDENTS CHRISTMAS DINNER
The residents of Lions Lodge gathered, as they have each December, to enjoy each others company in their lounge. Everyone enjoyed a delicious meal prepared by Green Gables and hosted, once again, by the Lions Club. Each year the residents and the Lions members take this opportunity to visit and make it a special occasion for everyone. The Lions members particularly enjoy meeting each resident while serving all the meals. This year we had a special visitor – Santa – who brought each and everyone his special gifts.

NOVEMBER 2012 ACTIVITIES

GOLD BUYING PARTY
The “Party” can only be described as a great success. The certified gemologists from Trendsetters Metals provided their safe, friendly, and professional services to our satisfied participants. A big thank you to them and to our participants. Refreshments were provided for all, and door prizes were sponsored by 3rd Street Sylists, Fresh Esthetics and the Howland Hotel. As well, other generous donations were made to the Lions from other participants. Another big thank you to them all! Our Lions members volunteered their time and expertise to the project so that 100% of the net funds raised can be returned to the community.

OCTOBER 2012 ACTIVITIES

COMMUNITY CALENDAR
The 2013 Lions Community Calendar project was started in early October with the collection of special dates and regularly scheduled activities of community groups in Beausejour, Tyndall, Garson and all the surrounding areas. Each year the list has grown. You can have your group’s special event listed simply by contacting the Brokenhead River Rec Commission at 204 268-9266 x3 or at recprog@mts.net. The 2013 Calendar is in production and will be circulated in early December 2012 but you can submit your group’s 2014 information to the rec office any time before 2013 October for the 2014 edition. Thanks to the generous advertisers, the costs of production and printing of ~5000 copies of the Beausejour Lions Community Calendar are covered and circulation is free to the recipients each year. The 2013 edition is the 6th produced by the Lions Club and the Calendar has become a ‘staple’ and a ‘resource’ in our extended community. Lions members volunteer their time and expertise to this community service project in keeping with the Lions motto “We Serve” and 100% of the net proceeds are always returned to the community through other Lions service projects.

SEPTEMBER 2012 ACTIVITIES

FOOD DRIVE
Another successful Beausejour Lions Food Drive was held on Wednesday, September 26th. The Lions co-ordinated the efforts of the Lions, Cubs, Scouts, Girl Guides and Air Cadets to canvass the community for donations to the Beausejour Food Bank. This project gives youth groups an outlet for volunteering in the community. A total of 111 volunteer’s hours garnered a total of 1246 pounds of non-perishables plus cash donations for the food bank. The Lions co-ordinated the effort through advertising, contacting the Food Bank and all the groups. On completion of the canvass and delivery of the donations to the Food Bank, the Lions provided and served all the volunteers a hot lunch.

RODEO PARADE
On the morning of Saturday, September 8th, another successful Double B Rodeo Parade was marshalled from the Sun Gro Centere. For years the Beausejour Lions have taken the responsibility of marshalling the parade, traffic control at affected intersections, and making sure everyone gets back, safely dismantles their float, and safely leaves the parking lot. The entire community shuts down as they await the parade to pass by.

The parade is part of the entire Double B Rodeo weekend. There is no formal registration, so each year is a surprise as to what floats will be there. The Lions were at the Sun Gro Centre / Brokenhead River Community Hall parking lot by 8:30 am. One area was alloted to the floats, another for live animals, another for dignitaries and another area was for drop off of parade participants not already on their float. Emergency vehicles were, as always, last in the parade so that they could quickly depart in case of an emergency.

As parade participants arrived, they were directed to the correct area where they got positioned. Riders of floats arriving by car were directed to a safe place from which they were able to walk to their float. It sometimes seemed caotic to the uninitiated but it was controlled and, as usual, by 10 am the parade began to roll. Using their proven skills, Key Lions formed the parade ‘on the fly’ by mixing and directing the animals, dignitaries and floats onto the parade route.

Just before the parade started, Lions were sent out to the key intersections to close off the streets as the parade approached. These Lions were there to help travellers passing through or trying to get to someplace important. The Lions directed these visitors down back lanes and around town so the visitor could get where they needed to go or to just relax for a few minutes and enjoy the parade. Once the parade past safely, the Lions took down the barriers and directed traffic to avoid traffic jams before leaving their posts.

Back at the start, several Lions guided floats off the street, directed the through traffic safely by, and made sure floats and vehicles leaving the marshalling area got away safely. By noon the parade was, once again, part of the town’s history.

CRIME STOPPERS GOLF TOURNAMENT BBQ
During their fundraising Golf Tournament on September 10, the Crime Stoppers group, once again requested the Beausejour Lions help to make their event a success. The Lions set up and operated the BBQ ‘stop’, giving golfers a chance to fuel up for the rest of the round. The BBQ supplies were once again generously donated by the Beausejour Consumers Co-op. The Lions also provided the tables for the Crime Stoppers group to use for their silent auction and for the banquet to follow.

CNIB ANNUAL CAR RAFFLE
For several years the Lions have sold tickets for the Canadian National Instuite for the Blind (CNIB) Annual Car Raffle. Sight, in its many forms, has been a major project for Lions since Helen Keller attended the 1925 International Lions Convention and asked the Lions to be her “Knights of the Blind”. Recently the Lions have been able to make the Shades of the Past Car Show their sales venue. This year, sales at this venue were restricted and many visitors had to come looking for tickets. The public expressed the thought that a car raffle for a good charity fit perfectly with the Shades of the Past Car Show. Because we hadn’t, on that day, reached our sales goal, the Beausejour Consumers Co-op allowed the Lions to set up a sales table for the next weekend which really helped sales for this worthwhile charity.

JUNE 2012 ACTIVITIES

PROJECT PRIDE
Lions around the world feel that citizenship is important. To encourage good citizenship, Lions in Canada established a special Canadian Project Pride. As well, it has become a fund raiser for the Lions Foundation of Canada. Through Lions Clubs, service dogs and their training is paid for by Lions Clubs through their support of the Lions Foundation of Canada. The Lions Foundation of Canada have a service dog school centre in Oakville, Ontario. People from across the nation are sponsored to receive the training and a service dog at no cost to them.

In the past year the Beausejour Lions had helped the Tyndall Eagles who were raising money for a service dog for a local autistic child, by arranging for a free dog. This made the Lions realize that they needed to get the message out “that if you need a service dog you don’t have to buy one”.

This need to ‘get the word out’ led to the Beausejour Lions approaching four local elementary schools with our Project Pride. It included presenting personalized certificates stating their pride to be a Canadian Citizen and a small Canadian flag to each grade 1 or kindergarten student. Then the class heard a short talk about the overall project. All four schools wanted to be included. The Anola school had the presentation made to their Kindergarten class. The Oakbank Elementary and Gillis schools had their presentations made to all of the grade one classes. Beausejour Early Years School requested that the kits (some in English and some in French) be left with the school for presentation.

The presenting Lions were surprised at how many students knew something about Lions – The club, not the animal. It was explained how this project made it possible to do two things at the same time: One, present a very special flag and certificate to each student; and Two, help people in need by providing them with service dogs. It is through the Lions buying the Project Pride kits from the Lions Foundation of Canada that funding is provided for their service dog program. The students had a good understanding of what service dogs were. The students were actually really excited about being able to help others. Teachers involved were absolutely all in favour of the program, and invited the Lions to make the presentation each year. An overwhelming success!

2006 ACTIVITIES

Our year started off as a busy one with plenty of activities planned. Early on, our club hosted a hot dog and drink stand at the 2006 Manitoba Winter Games. From April 21 to 23, 2006, our club hosted yet another very successful Home & Leisure Show at the Sun Gro Centre curling rink in Beausejour. CNIB raffle tickets were also offered during this event and sales were brisk.

After a lovely summer, it was back to work for our club members as they once again organized the annual Double B Rodeo parade – always a hit with children of all ages.

Each fall, our club also organizes a food drive to collect much needed non-perishable food items for the local food bank. After teaming up with the local Air Cadets and Scouts, this year’s food drive was one of the most successful ever, as we collected over 1,600lbs of food.

In addition to our regular fall activities, our club assisted the local Grade 5 students as they planted new trees on the grounds of the Nolan Thomas Playspace.

Throughout the year, our club once again supported many important initiatives and projects through monetary donations. Some of these included our local Christmas Hamper campaign, North Eastman Health Association East Gate Lodge, MidWinter Convention Door Prize, Journey for Sight, the Zaborniak Family, Saddling up for Dog Guide Event, Western Canada Blind Golf Assoc.,

2005 ACTIVITIES

Our club was honoured to be able to provide financial assistance to a young family whose daughter required a hearing aid. We contributed $400 towards the cost of the hearing aid.

Two members of the Beausejour Lions Club attended the Mid-Winter Convention and Lion Dick Critchley helped with registration.

We helped to support the Journey for Sight snowmobile run and the Mid-Winter 5M-11 Convention by purchasing books of tickets in our Club’s name and we also donated to the South Asia Tsunami Disaster Fund.

Several members of our club once again assumed the duties of manning the canteen at the annual Canadian Power Togobban Championships, helping to raise $800 for the Club.

We once again held a very successful Home and Leisure Show in early April. This event has become our Club’s major fundraiser, helping to support the philanthropic activities of the Club.

During the May long weekend, our Club sponsored and served breakfast for thousands of Air Cadets during their annual Golden Falcon event, which was held in Beausejour this year.

Follwing a break over the summer months, and as the Christmas season approached, our club began organizing our annual Senior’s Christmas Supper event where club members served Christmas dinner to all residents of the Lions Lodge.

Lion Rose and Lion Don also spearheaded an individual Christmas Hamper campaign that was once again very successful and pleasure to be involved with.

2004 ACTIVITIES

Lion Rose and Lion Don spearheaded a Christmas Hamper for a selected family. They donated items and used a budget of $226. An additional $200 was also donated to Christmas Hamper Fund. Our club helped boost the Christmas spirit by hosting a Seniors Christmas Supper at Lion Lodge in December. We also enjoyed a visit from the District Governor on November 24 when he installed new member Rose Marsh.

Two members attended the Mid Winter Convention and were delegates for our club. Report presented on their return. Were unimpressed by the voting and elections protocol.

Our club has sold 14 CNIB calendars.

Our club supported Lion Kim MacAulay’s nomination for Women Entrepreneur of the Year in the Contributing to Community category.

We worked the pit canteen for the spring Canadian Power Toboggan Championships and contributed 62 Lions hours earning $800.00 for our club.

The Home & Leisure Show is over for another year. Hundreds of hours of Lions hours earned appoximately $6,200.00 profit. This is obviously our club’s major fund-raising project.

Our club was able to sell $1,183 of CNIB truck raffle tickets before and during the Home and Leisure Show.

We have been working to organize several activities for the fall including Journey for Sight, CNIB canvass, Peace Poster contest and Project Pride through two local schools.

2003 LAST QUARTER ACTIVITIES

We welcomed two new members to our club: Randy Melnick and Scott Skipper. Lion Waldo Klassen will be transferring to Winnipeg Beach.

The Lions Vice District Governor, representing District Governor, attended our 55th Birthday celebration on November 9th.

We awarded 100% attendance pins to eleven of our members for the 2002-2003 season.
On behalf of the Beausejour Lions Club, a wreath was laid during the Remembrance Day Service.

Our club’s operation history for the past nine years has been officially compiled.
Thanks to a grant from the Brokenhead River Community Foundation, we purchased a new table for the common are at the Lions Lodge.