The Anguilla Lions Club hosted District Governor Claudio Buncamper, and Zone 2B Chairperson Alphons Gumbs, both headquartered in St Maarten, for the service club’s official annual club assessment and audit meeting held on Saturday morning, February 19, at the Department of Youth and Culture’s conference room. President Jocelyn Johnson, and the full complement of members, gathered to present their successes of the past year and to chart their future directional course guided by input from the District Governor and Zone Chairperson.
Key discussion points included developing strategies for increasing membership within the service club, as well as improved service delivery guided by the use available resources. Buncamper is the District Governor of sub-district 60B which encompasses 58 English-speaking Lions clubs geographically ranging from the Cayman Islands to Grenada. He said, “It is my responsibility to visit all clubs annually and have an audit ‘discussion’ with the members. They prepare a special report on all of their activities to include membership and fundraising activities – as well as special projects which give me complete oversight of their work.” He said that they then discuss challenges and steps that can be taken to alleviate them.
Buncamper said that the issue of membership was one of the key focus areas discussed at the audit. He noted that the process is changing organisationally from an invitational and highly regulated and selective mode – to a more open mode. He said, “We are the largest service organisation worldwide, and we now have a lot of younger people who are joining – and members who are thirty year old think differently from those members in their fifties. We have to ensure that our focus on increasing diversity works for everyone while adhering to our international constitution and the structure.”
The Anguilla club’s activities have been stymied by the COVID epidemic, as have most other clubs, but Buncamper stressed that a more visible face-to-face community approach should be re-energised. “Every dime collected from the community must go back one hundred percent into the community,” he said. “When you are a Lion, you are paying to serve.”
The meeting ended on a high note with a vote of thanks by Immediate Past President, Melissa Meade, followed by refreshments.
