July 2022 news
Diamond Valley Lions celebrated our first face to face changeover for 3 years. In that time we have had several new members join, and one member re-join and then sadly move on again. We have learned a new vocabulary of words and acronyms like COVID, Omicron, subvariants, and PCRs and new meanings for existing words like lockdown, Zoom, ring of steel, and RATs!
At a time when the need for community help was increasing, the ability of local groups to get out and assist was greatly restricted. And at a time when many Lions clubs in Victoria were unable to carry on, Diamond Valley Lions, under the caring leadership of Trever Kennett, continued to meet through Zoom. We continued to have that social link with the outside world, with people we knew and valued, and it helped ward off feelings of isolation and anxiety at an uncertain time.
In practical terms, just a few of the projects that were undertaken included assisting Greenhills Community Centre support those locals struggling to provide necessities for their families - calling for donations from the public and collecting and delivering them to Greenhills.
And in partnership with Priceline pharmacy, prescriptions were delivered to the homes of the most vulnerable, for whom leaving the house was not an option.
Letters of encouragement were written to Year 12 students, items for pandemic packs were donated. We saw the skin cancer truck, for which we had donated funds and dermoscopists, embark on its journey around Victoria and southern NSW, providing vital screening services to rural and regional areas.
The Club has reason to feel extremely proud of the way the club members managed their way through 2020 and 21. When under stress groups can often fragment and people can take their frustration out on each other. But instead we were there for the community and for one another, and we didn’t lose sight of our motto “We Serve”
As we headed to the new normal, the Twilight Market came back, with stall holders and the public alike saying how wonderful it was to be there again. Christmas cakes could be sold once again, and eventually the return of the Bunnings sausage sizzle told us that civilisation had not been destroyed by the deadly virus from Wuhan!
As well as our ongoing commitments to Recycle for Sight, our House at Licola received a new bathroom, the markets, cakes and barbecues etc, we are now fundraising and recruiting sewers and knitters for Back packs 4 Vic Kids, an organisation that provides babies and children with a backpack of essentials when they first find themselves in foster care or homeless.
2023 is our club’s 50th anniversary!! A time to party with other Lions and locals at a celebratory lunch, and to run a project that will benefit the community and showcase our club well into the future, hopefully for another 50 years!
We may be a long way from 1973, when the club held dances in Hurstbridge, ran a beauty pageant and catered for the national boxing championships. But we still have the same ethos of helping our local community; we are still a vibrant busy club, that punches well above its weight and has such great potential to continue to do good.
The Club is a well-balanced group with mixed ages and genders. We complement each other in areas of experience and enthusiasm. Amongst us we have super organisers and super DIYers, super fundraisers and super innovators and we even have a superhero, whose special power is to peel and slice pounds of onions without shedding a single tear!
Lion Richard Keeling