Clark’s commentary

Nov. 2009

The visitation kickoff and awards dinner took place on August 23 with two Falls Church Lions attending, I thought this would be a good time to talk about visitation. I became the club visitation chair at our Aug. board meeting.

The visitation program is intended to promote fellowship and provide an opportunity to meet and socialize with fellow Lions, Visitation is intended to facilitate an exchange of ideas at the club level and to foster support and friendship. Depending on where you are in your Lion career, it is a chance to make friends with people of similar service goals or to visit with old friends.

Visitation is fun! There are two awards, they are 100% Member Visitation and the Club Visitation awards. The 100% member visitation award requires every active member to make one visit to another Lions club during the current Lions year. This does not preclude members with other membership status from participating. I believe that this award will be our challenge to earn. The club visitation requires that members of club make visits to 16 other clubs. Within these 16 must be the other clubs in our zone. A visit may count for both awards. This year our task is somewhat easier because our active members number less than 25. This means that a visitation team only requires one member. I ask the more experienced lions to invite our younger lions to make visits with them.

Individual Visitations

1.   Qualifying Individual Visits toward the 100% Member Visitation Award include visits to any official Club dinner meeting of another club or attendance at a state or district convention, the district visitation and awards dinner, Fall and Winter Conferences.

2.   A President’s or Secretary’s attendance at a Zone meeting at a club in the zone will count as a qualifying individual visit. Zone meetings not conducted at a club dinner meeting will also qualify as an individual visitation.

3.   Visitations where a Lion is an honored guest (Zone or Region Chairman official visit, a visit, a visit by a District 24A, or where a Lion gives a program) also qualify as an individual Visitation regardless of whether or not the Lion pays for his or her own dinner. Visits to informal gatherings of Lions do not count as a visitation.

4.   An Individual Visitation can also be counted toward the requirements for the club visitation award if a member is visiting a club dinner meeting of another club and the team size requirement for  his/her club has been met (see club visitation below).  If a single member visits another club on his/her own it will count only as an individual visitation, not a club visitation, unless his/her club’s team size requirement specifies otherwise.

Club Visitation

1, Team size for qualifying club visits is based on club size. Clubs with an active membership of 25 or more must have two or more Lions members in a visitation team for a qualifying visit. Clubs with an active membership of less than 25 may make qualifying visits with a single member. Regardless of club size, any member attending a dinner meeting at least 50 miles from his/her club or a dinner meeting in another district will qualify as a club visitation.

2. Visitation team attendance at joint or multiple-club meetings will count as a club visit to each of the sponsoring clubs that is not your home club. For example, attendance at Tri-state would count as a visit to Lovettsville, Brunswick and Harpers Ferry-Bolivar. A visitation to a joint meeting of Park West and Manassas Lioness Lions clubs would count as a visitation to both clubs.

3. An individual visitation can also be counted toward the requirements for the club visitation award if you are visiting a club dinner meeting of another club and the team size requirement for your club has been met.

100% Member Visitation Award

1. Each active member on the club roster as of July 1, 2009 and members joining prior to April 1, 2010 must make one visit during the period of the 2009 – 2010 visitation program.

2. Clubs that lose an active member during this period need not show a visitation for this Lion provided the dropped member has been properly reported on the Monthly Membership Report to LCI.

Club Visitation Award

1. Team size for qualifying club visitations is based upon club size. Clubs with an active membership of 25 or more must have two or more Lion Members in a visitation team for a qualifying visit.. Clubs with an active membership of less than 25 may make qualifying visits with a single member. Regardless of the club size, any member attending a dinner meeting at least 50 miles from his/her club or a dinner meeting in another district will have that visit qualify as a club visitation.

2. Each club must make at least 16 qualifying club visits ( to 16 different clubs) to qualify for the “Club Visitation Award.” A visitation to each Lions Club in its zone is required. Regardless of the number of members visiting as part of the visitation team, it will only count as one club visitation to that particular club in that Lion year.

3. An individual visitation may be counted toward qualifying for both awards as long as criteria for both are met.

Required club visits

Club

Nearby clubs

Remember: Each active member must make a visit and we must visit 16 clubs

*visited