WELLINGTON NORTH – To be a Lion is to be a community member willing to lend a hand where it’s needed.
An active volunteer, friend and a leader are just a few of the roles filled by Lions Club members.
“To be a Lion you just got to have some type of sense of community where you care,” said Arthur Lions Club president Mike Marshall.
Lions Clubs International is an international service organization with over 1.4 million members serving, 49,000 lions clubs in 200 countries and regions.
It is a community of people who volunteer their time to improve their communities, from feeding the hungry to cleaning up local parks to helping rebuild after a disaster.
For 85 years the Arthur Lions Club has been making a noticeable difference in Arthur and the surrounding area now known as Wellington North.
Marshall, who became a Lion in 1992, has seen many changes over the years.
“Since I joined it’s been a lot of blue-collar family guys in town,” he said.
He explained when the club was first formed, the majority of its members were people “high-up” in status and business owners in town. Now a member can be almost anyone willing to donate their time.
Marshall said one problem the club has had to deal with in the last 30 years is a decrease in members.
He believes it has to do with an incorrect assumption people make regarding the amount of time required of members.
“People are under the assumption that when you join, you have to give 110 per cent; all we ask is that you give us the time you can,” he stated.
When Marshall joined the club he had two kids involved in sports, which he helped with from time to time – and he still had time for the Lions.
Marshall said his late best friend Brent Barnes, a former Arthur Lion, gave the community 110 per cent of himself – but that was the exception, not the rule.
As membership declined over the years, so too did the club’s ability to host an abundance of events.
“We went from roughly 46 members when I joined to roughly 20,” Marshall explained.
The decreasing numbers became such a concern that the Lions board changed the process for becoming a member.
“It used to be, years ago, you had to be asked by a current member if you wanted to become a member and then you would come and meet the club,” said treasurer Laird More.
“The club would then decide if you were a good candidate and then you would be accepted. Now that is not the case.”
Because it became “too difficult” to join, all prospective members have to do now is go to a meeting and experience what the club is all about or ask an existing member.
More also noted that many years ago, members would take part in every single Lions Club endeavour.
“Now, with time constraints and family … whenever you can assist you’re encouraged to, but there’s no actual commitment,” he said.
Those interested in joining the Arthur Lions Club can ask a member or email the club at arthurlionsclub@gmail.com.
