Martinborough Lions host their District Governor
Simon Williams Lion’s District Governor.
Martinborough Lions hosted their District Governor (DG) Simon Williams at their meeting of 27th October. Simon gave the club an overview of what’s going on with Lions
International, which the Martinborough Club is a part of, and gave an update of New Zealand Lions current priorities around the globe.
Simon passed on a message from Lions International President Douglas Alexander; – Douglas wished to reinforce what Lions are all about through “Connecting to communities through impassioned giving, serving in this moment and leading with the Heart”
Martinborough Lions donate to the Lions Clubs International Foundation (LCIF). Simon noted that in the past year the foundation put more back into New Zealand than we paid into the fund. Financial support was specifically provided to the West Coast flood victims, and also a big donation was made to support the new Wellington Regional Children’s Hospital playground. The LCIF fund supports important work particularly in humanitarian and disaster relief efforts around the world.
The Lions International major themes for the coming year are Childhood Cancer, Diabetes, Environment, Hunger and Sight. Martinborough Lions actively supports all these causes through our members’ participation or our donating to them. DG Simon told the Martinborough Club that we were doing well holding our membership up at over 40 members, and told the club not to relax our efforts to bring more new members into the club.
DG Simon’s personal message to Martinborough Lions was “Dream – Believe – Achieve”. Hecomplimented the club on its significant range of activity noting the strong comaradie that exists within the club.
Simon reinforced that Lions serve with love and compassion in communities around the world. The selfless giving of our time and effort is precisely what makes Lions so special.
When we give, we expect nothing in return. Yet we gain so much. Our service offers hope and connection in the face of great need and also extends an invitation to the world to join us. We embrace the joy that comes with “SERVICE FROM THE HEART”.
Our November 19th meeting speaker was Rosy Fenwicke, a Martinborough resident who is now a full-time writer following a career in medicine in NZ and overseas. The background to Rosy’s talk was cryptocurrency and its impacts on society. Rosy started with a story about Canadian cryptocurrency entrepreneur Gerald Cotten, whose death revealed the loss of millions of cryptocurrency dollars. Investors’ money vanished into the ‘crypto’ ether and could not be tracked down. This real-life mystery was the germ for her last novel ‘Cold Wallet’.
Rosy went on to talk about cryptocurrencies, and particularly the block-chain technology under-pinning them. She explained how the ‘invisibility’ and portability of cryptocurrency transcends national boundaries and is not under the control of any organisation or country. “Crypto” is already having a huge effect on the way money is used and the technologies are poised to challenge the power and position that banks have traditionally held, shifting of control into the hands of crypto users and having potentially huge effects on Governments’ ability to track earnings and extract taxes via traditional methods.
The subject of Rosy’s talk necessitated a large amount of technical content, but the number of questions from Lions and the lively debate showed that she had managed to grab and hold the audience’s interest. While there was some scepticism about the longer-term viability of Bitcoin, for example, it was clear that Rosy had given us all some food for thought.
On Thursday 18th November three members were invited to join the celebration of the 2021 Korowai Outward Bound Course made up of fourteen Students from the Wairarapa Region at the Copthorne Solway Park in which our club sponsored two students to attend.
It was amazing meeting the students, and listening to their experiences and highlights of the course. Making a very interesting evening.
New members are always welcome to join our Lions Club
For further Information Contact Margaret Bush 0276685896
Or Terry Blacktop 063068568
Recent Comments