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Sep 15

Le 60ème Rugissant tire ses premiers bords

Jour de bon augure, c’est le vendredi 13 septembre – sur la Place du 12 Septembre – que s’est déroulée la cérémonie de baptême et de mise à l’eau du Catamaran pour Just for Smiles.

La matinée a été consacrée à une manifestation officielle, en présence des médias et de nombreuses personnalités politiques, sportives et lionistiques, des représentants des sponsors, des représentants d’institutions pour les enfants handicapés, des clubs lions et autres clubs-service amis. C’est plus d’une centaine de personne qui ont ainsi assistés au discours, au baptême et à la mise à l’eau.

Parmi les orateurs, nous avons entendu Terry Wilsher, président du Lions club de Neuchâtel, votre serviteur, président du comité d’organisation du 60ème, Pierre-Alain Ruffieux, Council Chairman du MD 102, Valérie Debelly et Didier Cuche, représentants du sponsor principal, Corum, Patricia Claivaz, représentante de la Fondation Just for Smiles, Olivier Arni, Président de la Ville de Neuchâtel et Philippe Bauer, Président du grand Conseil neuchâtelois. Sous la direction du maître de cérémonie, François Kistler, maître d’oeuvre de la Commission Catamaran. Discours nombreux mais courts et agréables, entrecoupés d’intermèdes musicaux brillamment interprètés par un quatuor classique.

Parmi les personnalités sportives, Didier Cuche, le célèbre champion du monde de ski durant de nombreuses années, et Raphaël Domjan, le célèbre navigateur et éco-aventurier qui a récemment bouclé le tour du monde avec le bateau solaire PlanetSolar, ont largement contribué à attirer les médias et le public.

L’après-midi, le public et les amis Lions étaient nombreux pour un second baptême et la remise à l’eau, cette fois définitive, du “60ème Rugissant”, toujours en présence de Didier Cuche et de Raphaël Domjan, parrain du bateau, qui se sont généreusement prêtés aux dédicaces.

Des grillades et des boissons étaient au menu de la soirée et une tente a permis d’accueillir les convives en fin de soirée lorsque le temps – radieux durant toute la journée – a commencé à fraichir un peu.

Le lendemain, la revue de presse était réjouissante: pas moins de 6 médias, neuchâtelois et romands, ont couvert l’évènement!

Belle manifestation et beau succès pour clore cette action remarquable du Lions Club de Neuchâtel.

(photos Jean-Marc Sandoz)

Sep 7

A first Dream comes true

Notre président international Barry Palmer nous a lancé une appel pour cette année : ayez un rêve, poursuivez-le, et réalisez-le.

En skiant dans les Alpes bernoises, il y a deux ans, j’ai eu l’occasion de voir des enfants handicapés skier. Un œil moins averti aurait pensé qu’ils ne skiaient pas. Qu’ils étaient juste installés dans des luges et que seuls les moniteurs, qui pilotaient ces luges, skiaient.

Mais le sourire et les yeux des enfants dans ces luges ne laissaient planer aucun doute : ils étaient bien en train de skier. Et avec un plaisir absolument extraordinaire. Leur sourire est la plus belle récompense qu’on puisse imaginer.

J’ai alors rêvé que nous pourrions offrir à ces enfants la possibilité de naviguer, sur un bateau à voile, sur le lac de Neuchâtel. D’autres membres de notre club ont pensé comme moi et nous nous sommes approchés de la Fondation Just for Smiles pour leur proposer de réaliser ensemble le rêve de notre club.

Rêve qui aujourd’hui devient réalité : le 13 septembre, ce bateau sera mis à l’eau et baptisé, en présence de Didier Cuche, champion du monde de ski, et de Raphaël Domjan, le célèbre navigateur à avoir bouclé le tour du monde avec le bateau solaire Planet Solar. Un nombreux public fera de ce baptême un beau succès et les médias seront, nous l’espérons, nombreux.

Une soirée de gala, une soirée populaire musique et choucroute, la vente de roses et d’autres actions tout au long de l’année du 60ème anniversaire du club ont permis de réunir les 100’000 Francs nécessaires à réaliser ce rêve. Et bien sûr un engagement exceptionnel des 10 membres du comité.

Cette action est représentative de ce que notre association, au travers de chacun de ses clubs, peut apporter aux communautés locales, mais aussi de notre volonté d’inscrire nos actions dans une perspective globale : en ce moment même, 46’000 clubs Lions, à travers le monde, sont en train de réaliser leur rêve.

Sep 7

Meeting with the Council of Governors of the MD102 in Luzern.

I owed to my Multiple District 102 Switzerland-Liechtenstein to have the first meeting of the Council of Governors 2013-2014, on August 16, on top of my list.

The trip to Luzern, and a lunch in the beautiful old town, with the LCIF coordinator of MD102, Pierre-Alain Häsler, was an opportunity to report on the information and latest figures received during the New Directors Orientation.

With Vice District Governor Jürg Vogt and PDG Pierre-Alain Häsler, MD102 LCIF Coordinator

It appears that clubs in Switzerland are not very good at donations to the LCIF: only 2.3% of the clubs in MD102 have donated a total amount of little over 6’000.00 USD during the last fiscal year. There is an important need of information on the activities of the LCIF and the use being done of the donations.

There is also a lack of knowledge about MJF, as a possibility for clubs to distinguish there dedicated members and as a possibility for any Lion – or non-Lion – to support the Foundation.  Pierre-Alain will be working on providing this information to the clubs to promote the LCIF.

During the Council of Governors, I was given the opportunity to report on the Presidents Theme, on Membership, IT, LEO, Leadership and other fresh information gathered in Oak Brook just a week before.

Several questions or concerns were raised among which I will mention three:

The LEOs are very interested in having full access to our leadership learning programs. As I am invited to the Swiss LEOs Presidents Conference next week, I will report on this question in a next article.
Among the over 400 Swiss delegates in Hamburg, a few questioned the election procedure. For all offices, there were only as many candidates as seats to award and some delegates might have come to Hamburg believing they could participate in a decision. This issue might be developed in a next article, but I am sure everybody understands that, with the democratic nomination procedure taking place before the convention in each concerned MD, the formal election during the Convention some times just turns out to be a confirmation.
A third concern was the discrepancies between the membership figures in the MD102 database and those in the Oak Brook database. This some times happens temporarily around the fiscal year shift and is never an issue. This time, however, it appeared to be relevant because MD102 is reaching 10’000 members and the Council wishes to know who the 10’000th member is. In the meantime, as I write, the question has been answered and I will come back with this information.

Awarding the International Presidents Certificate of Appreciation to PCC Pius Schmid

The Council meeting was finally an opportunity to award a Presidential Certificate of Appreciation to PCC Pius Schmid, who had chaired the Swiss Delegations International Convention Committee. The MD102 had a participation of 420 delegates, whereas usually there are around 50 delegates. This was undoubtedly to be credited to PCC Pius Schmid who fully deserved this Certificate of Appreciation.

(Photos courtesy Regine Pasche)

Sep 7

Languages

There are 11 languages officially used in our association. I use four of them and I have been wondering in which I should write in this blog. Anyone will do, as Google or other applications can translate into almost any other.

It turned out to be mostly in English, but there will be some articles in German and in French as well.

You might also find an article once in a while in Swedish. However, for the time being, I will leave Swedish to my good friend ID Kenneth Persson, who regularly publishes a very inspiring blog (http://kennethpersson.wordpress.com), now also in English. If not, use a translator – It would be a pity to miss his wise and pertaining thoughts.

If you want to respond to one of my articles in another language, don’t hesitate to do so.

By the way, did you know that over 50’000 words are translated in our Headquarters every day and that there are over 40,000 pages, pdfs and forms on LCI’s 11 official websites.

It was a pleasure to meet our translators at the Headquarters while attending the New Directors Orientation. They are doing a great work contributing to make our association global.

Sep 6

A brand new ACL

Some of you may know I had a knee surgery on Monday September 2nd. Well, I just returned home today – we’re Friday as I write.

I tore a cruciate ligament skiing in deep spring snow last Easter day. The meniscus was also in a pretty bad shape. I kept limping and all my favorite sports – skiing, snowboarding, diving, and golfing – were out of reach.

We decided with my surgeon to reconstruct a new ACL and clean up and repair the meniscus. This would have to be done between two schedule trips, i.e. after the New Directors Orientation in Oak Brook and at least a month before the next Board meeting. So we did.

The operation was a success and I am now already back home, on my crutches, but doing very well. The recovery time with my laptop on my other knee will be used, inter alia, to publish all the blog articles that have stacked up.

In my last article, I said I would write about the New Directors Orientation in Oak Brook in the plane on my way back to Europe. And so I did, but you might have wondered what happened to that article.

Well, for this time, the priority was given to the Swiss Lion magazine. So you’ll get that article a little later on my blog, as soon as the next edition of The Lion has been published.

In addition, a few other articles are ready. The summer has been quite busy and there has been a lot to write about. The articles will now all come at once. The next days will be quite prolific on this website, so welcome back!