Coming to Meetings!
At our District Cabinet meeting, it was exciting to hear about what other Clubs are doing!  Being a Lion is exciting—being a part of all these projects, and working to eliminate blindness in the world!  Wow!  What a great service club!

We tend to forget that we are part of a greater whole.  We are accountable to Lions International, and to OK Lions.  We are supporting Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, building buildings in communities and in city parks, putting up Christmas lights in towns, supporting the Boys Ranch Christmas gifts,....  We are raising money thru tail-gate parties, pancake breakfasts (even at suppertime!), chili dinners, selling crafts, having garage sales, auctioning baked goods, having golf tournaments,....  We are gaining new members thru helping and being helped with projects, by placing Lions magazines and brochures in public places like doctors’ offices and laundromats, sharing with people about being members of the largest service club in the world!  It’s exciting!  Can you feel it?  Our District Governor will be here with us this coming Friday to share more with us!  (We are the largest club in our Zone, but we haven’t looked like it lately at meetings.  Are you afraid of coming to the hospital?  We promise if you walk in healthy, you can walk out healthy!  And the patient rooms are way down the hallway, so you are safe!  No doctors or nurses are going to grab you—though they have probably heard about some of the crazy things this Lions Club has done in the past!)

Cowboy Cadillac Tickets!
Have you bought your tickets, yet?  Everyone can buy at least one book!  As for selling tickets, most people don’t have a problem with contributing at least $1 for a chance at a free pick-up truck!  It helps make people more aware of what Lions do in Oklahoma!  The drawing is in December—what a Christmas present!  A book of twelve tickets is ten dollars.  This is a fun way to raise money for our Oklahoma Lions Service Foundation, supporting the Eye Bank and Boys Ranch.  Plus, for the first time, this year, the winning ticket seller gets $500!   

All ticket stubs and money needs to be turned in to Marty by November 17th at the latest—the week before Thanksgiving—unless you want to send them to the Service Foundation yourself!

Do you know?
...how to protect your home inside the city or out of it?  We have had Sheriff Frank Cantey and deputies tell us about protecting our homes in rural areas, and next week, we will have our own city Police advising us how to keep our in-town homes safe.  We are learning the benefits of Neighborhood Watch programs, and how being and having nosey neighbors can be a good thing!  (I wish I had been more aware of such things before my home was burglarized!—ed.)

Thanks to Lucy Belle, we heard from Donna Grabo about what is required to help with dealing with domestic abuse in our area.  It is a horrible crime, and so rampant!  As Lions and as individuals, we should do all we can to help eliminate and prevent it!  

We saw highlights from the Lions International Convention that was in Boston, this year.  It is so exciting, so thrilling to see it all and know that we are part of this world-wide service club!    

Ivan Williams shared some old expressions with us one week, wondering how many of them we understood—sayings like, “a lick & a promise.”   We probably dated ourselves by how many we actually knew!  I read recently that we should “laugh everyday, it’s like inner jogging.”  Thanks, Ivan, for our exercise that day!   

Do you know?
...that our newest member won $114.50 in the drawing last week?  He was sitting next to Lucy Belle, naturally!  Her good luck must have rubbed off on Chris!  We advised him to buy some Cowboy Cadillac tickets, and try to extend his good fortune!

Do you know?
...that when you miss a meeting, you miss an important connection in your life.  We have a great group of members!  We have a spacious, clean meeting room--with a large white board for viewing videos, making a variety of programs easier--and lower dues and food costs,...what more could we want?  If there is more you need, tell us!  We cannot read your mind!  See you Friday!  What we do is more important than who we are.  Let’s keep serving, and seeking more ways to serve!

 

Sight First II
Remember SightFirst II, our Lions International world-wide program to help those with low or no vision--Meeting Helen Keller’s challenge!

The Pryor Creek Lions are committed to raising money for the International Lions SightFirst II program!  This program is working to eliminate preventable blindness in the world!  (Did you know that 80% of blindness is preventable?)  The plan is to eliminate infectious diseases that cause blindness (like river blindness, and trachoma), to eliminate avoidable childhood blindness, to develop comprehensive eye-care services throughout the world for dealing with problems like glaucoma, cataracts, and diabetic retinopathy, and for continuing eye-care service after this program is concluded.  The Pryor Creek Lions are supporting this program whole-heartedly!  The members voted for the motion that we as a Club, over the next five years, match donations to this SightFirst II program up to $12,500.  This includes matching donations by members, local groups, extra fund-raisers specifically for SightFirst II, and corporate donations (including 50% of the yearly corporate donations solicited by letters).  This means that Pryor and the Lions will contribute up to $25,000 over the next five years.  Awesome!!

Imagine losing your sight!  Imagine the millions of people in the world who do lose their sight needlessly—people who cannot then learn everything they want or need to, who have limited access to providing for their families, or contributing to their community--families and children who grow up filled with hatred/anxiety because of their blindness or limited vision.  Now imagine a world where almost everyone has sight and the opportunities sight affords—people who can feel more positive about life and who contribute to their communities, their country in a positive, beneficial way!  We have a way of making this good thing happen.  What a difference we can make in the whole world!

In 1925, Helen Keller challenged the Lions to be Knights of the Blind, to eliminate preventable blindness, and we are now able to fulfill that promise to her in a more complete way than ever before!  This is exciting!
I think the Sight First II program presents an opportunity for Pryor Lions Club to really make a difference in the lives of people around the world.  I have been a member for 23 years and I do not remember a time when a program struck all of us with such power.  Thanks to Dr. Fullerton and his video presentation, we now can step forward and be counted in this outstanding program.

I strongly support the proposal of the Pryor Lions Board of Directors to match funds raised up to $12, 500 over the next five years to Sight First II.  This could mean that our total donation could be as much as $25,000.  I would ask my fellow Lions to vote yes on this proposal and then be prepared to work together to reach this lofty goal.  

           Thanks,
           Rick Elliott