DG December Letter

NEW MEXICO LIONS DISTRICT 40

WE SERVE NEW MEXICO, WINDOW ROCK and FORT DEFIANCE                  

                                          Lions and Leo’s of District 40

Here’s hoping everybody made the best of their Thanksgiving and realize how blessed we are. I know a lot of Lions partook in various programs to help benefit the less fortunate in their various communities, this is the reason we are Lions and continue to exist. It is all about our Service.

Well we survived our winter Forum/convention and it was a very good first attempt.

Lets start on Friday afternoon where we had a very informative tour of our Eye Bank and everybody learned a lot about the great work being done there. We then had an opportunity to relax before heading to Noisy Winery for a most wonderful event hosted by the New Mexico Diabetes Awareness Foundation. They had many great items in their silent auction which was a big hit.

Saturday morning saw some good fellowship over breakfast before departure for our service project (do not ever again mention goatheads) which had very good participation. Returning to the hotel we partook in a very nice lunch with good fellowship. We then had a 1 hr business meeting (with zoom link) before we had some very interesting presentations on many subjects which was a great change from just having a meeting. Some of us were staying over and just hung out in the lobby area and continued good fellowship.

While I personally will always focus on the positive, we must always look at all sides of the picture. Our positive is that we have taken in 82 new Lions since July 1, 2025, however we sadly have dropped 50 Lions in this same period and this takes the oomph out of having put on that many new members. It begs the question, What are we doing wrong that so many leave us? How can we involve these Lions in a more meaningful way so they want to stay within our Clubs?

Speaking of Clubs, we will Charter another Club this year. On December 3^rd we will Charter the Las Cruces Hole In One Lions Club with 26 Charter members. A big shout out to Lions Greg Groves and Shane Umpress for making this a reality.

We continue to embrace technology and having done a lot of searching have decided that this is the last year for paper directories, the cost is no longer justifiable, everybody’s information is already available on the Portal, just waiting to be looked for. The current copies are available from 1^st Vice Joel or myself and we will pass them along as we do our visitations.

Please continue to check for daily updates on our webpage and on the Facebook forum.

Another note I feel I should mention is that some Clubs feel it is ok not to pay their District dues in a timely fashion, dues invoices are emailed out, to the Treasurer on record, In the 1^st week of July (close as possible) and again in the 1^st week of January. We give Clubs a 30 day grace period to pay before resending a reminder. 3^rd reminder is emailed to Club Treasurer, President and Secretary so there is no excuse for not having made payment in a timely fashion. As there are only 2 new Clubs in the District, all other Clubs have been through numerous billing situations and late payments should not be happening.

It is every members responsibility to ensure that your details are correctly listed in the Portal.

It is every Club Secretary’s responsibility to ensure that a Clubs details including officer contact details are correct on the Portal.

And it is every Club President’s responsibility to check all this information on the Portal.

The Portal is a wonderful tool as long as everybody posts their correct information there, it is not going to go away so it is better to get on board with it.

As usual, we continue to post all District happenings on the website and on the Facebook page, please go check these out.

Yours in Service

DG Frankie