The booming village of Breslau could soon be the newest home of the world’s largest service club. The president of the St. Jacobs Lions Club and one of Breslau’s newest residents has put out a call for members of the community who might be interested in organizing their own Lions Club. “At this point the only service club that I’m aware of that is operating in Breslau is the South Woolwich Optimist Club,” said Dennis Lougheed, who moved from St. Jacobs to Breslau in September.
“A couple people have expressed surprise that there wasn’t already a Lions Club over here, considering the community is growing so rapidly.”
With nearly 1.4 million members in 46,000 clubs and 208 countries, Lions members have sought to better their communities and their world since their founding in 1917.
Lougheed recognizes the hard work and determination of other groups such as the Breslau Rec. Association, but noted that the scope of their work is limited to the community, unlike the Lions.
“What a service club like the Lions can do is certainly augment the Breslau Rec. Association, support their programs, even raise money for their programming, but it also has a much larger reach beyond the association and it can extend beyond the community, even internationally.”
The new club would join District A-15, which already oversees 54 clubs in six different zones ranging from Marsville to Exeter, but in order to start a club in Breslau, several things need to happen.
First, Lougheed said he needs to determine whether or not there is enough interest in the community to form a branch club.
They would need about five people to do that, and the branch would need to be sponsored by a full club – a role Lougheed hopes the St. Jacobs club could fulfill given his connection with them.
The role of the sponsor club would be to guide the branch club until the new members became accustomed to their duties as Lions and until it grows enough to be recognized as a full club.
“They would function pretty much autonomously as the Breslau club, but bureaucratically they would be under the St. Jacobs club,” he explained.
“They would carry their own books, hold their own meetings and run their own programming as they see fit, with guidance from the host club and with support from the district.”
The club would also need to fill the key positions of president, treasurer and secretary, and those individuals would be paired up with an experienced member of another club to provide more guidance on the duties associated with that position.
Lougheed said he has heard back from about four people who have expressed an interest in joining the club, and he hopes that after the holiday rush he will hear from a few more.
From that small beginning, he is confident the club will gain traction in the community.
“You start slowly and with each little thing that you take on and that you have some success with breeds more interest in going a little further and trying a little more,” he said.
“Each program they get up and running will draw attention to them, and people in the community will take notice and then you grow the interest.”
For more information contact Lougheed at cs@a15lions.org or call (519) 213-1397.
