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2018 Thanksgiving Food Drive – New Record Donations!

Over the pre-Thanksgiving weekend of Nov 17 – 19, the De Anza Lions once again came together with family and friends to participate in the annual food drive. Lions Jen and Claire were the main organizers, with many Lions, too many to mention individually, fulfilling major roles on all 3 days. As last year, food items were collected on Saturday and Sunday in front of 3 grocery stores in the communities, including Santa Clara, Los Gatos and San Jose, with Lion Jen monitoring the receipts at the Odd Fellows Hall so the donating people could be steered towards the items that were missing for a full list of both food baskets. Despite the unhealthy air due to massive wild fires helpers came out on both days! THANK YOU!

The distribution and delivery on Monday morning was done in record time, this year for 173 families who will now not only enjoy a scrumptious Thanksgiving meal, but will have food for the remainder of this week and beyond!

Many thanks to all participants and donors, Lions, Leos, Family and friends, as well as the Odd Fellows for letting us rent out their hall – and our gratitude to the stores, Lucky’s and Lunardi’s, for participating in our event!

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Fun and Awards at the Tail-Twister Party

This club event took place on September 15th and was hosted at Leslye Noone’s home. Lion Leslye Noone accepted the Melvin Jones award for our late Lion John Noone – the award had been ordered prior to his passing.
Lions Al  and Eli both received a Melvin Jones Progressive Award which was a huge surprise to them.
Lion Carl cooked Tri-Tip in the Lions’ 55 gal BBQ cooker while the club supplied beer and soft drinks and Lion Steve donated the wine.
Everyone brought side dishes and desserts to share. A good time was had by all.
Contributed by Lion Ray
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Installation of Officers for Lion Year 2018 – 2019

During the monthly “PM” meeting Lion Prez Jeff requested a moment of silence in respect of those club relatives recently passed, and in support of the Noone and Knox families.
A warm welcome was extended to Distinguished Guest: Lion John Smith from Lions Club Chapter 4-C2 in the North Bay and Ms. Minh Ngo, Executive Director of My Red Shoes
Installation of Officers, Guest Lion John Smith presiding
President:                  Lion Jeff
1st Vice Pres              Lion Charles, in absentia
2nd Vice Pres            Lion Ray
Secretary                   Lion Jill, in absentia
Treasurer                  Lion VJ, in absentia
Directors:                  Lions Claire and Carl
Membershp chair    vacant
LCIF Rep.                  vacant
The absent officers were represented by their photos, with stand-ins for the oaths.
All accepted the responsibilities of their roles as read by Lion John. It should be noted that Lion John Smith went to great trouble to bring important and useful tools to help the officers; for example – two long horns for Lion Carl, our club tail twister and lion tamer, to use to generate enthusiasm at club events, and a heavy rubber mallet for Pres, Lion Jeff to keep order, and to put square pegs in round holes as needed.

Lion Claire presented Ms Ngo with a check in the amount of $ 1,500.

Contributed by Lion Andrea

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The Lions Love “Project LINUS”

It was the De Anza Lions’ Blanketeering Night #9 and it was a happy success. The sense of community service, fun and even a little competitive spirit was in the air. We started the evening as Leslye read a little bit about Project Linus to the group, including its Mission Statement, simply stated: to provide comfort to children in need and to provide the volunteers a rewarding opportunity for the benefit of children. With that in mind, the group launched in and fulfilled the mission of the evening, completing 53 blankets in about 2 hours.

We were lucky enough to have Lions and their better halves in attendance along with other relatives, community members, Leos and Girl Scouts with some of their family members. In total there were 18 adults, 2 teens and 10 children participating. Some blanketeers chose to trim, cut and tie their blankets all on their own while others took advantage of the little ones on hand and called for their nimble-fingered assistance when it was time to tie knots. The competition seemed to pick up as each cowbell sounded signaling that another completed “blankie” had just been added to the stacks. The young-uns seemed to ramp up their tying speed in order to be the next one to ring the bell. The oldies-but-goodies did get into the spirit of the evening, however, as they too took pride in scooting up front to ring their own chimes.

Yes, it was spirited and light-hearted and important work we participated in that Blanketeering Night #9. The children learned a little bit more about sharing and caring while the adults (who are just big children at heart) did the same, satisfied that they did indeed experience a rewarding opportunity for the benefits of children in need and proud to have been a part of this bit of community service provided by the work done by our own De Anza Lions.

Contributed by Leslye Noone

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Great Fun at our 21st Golf Tournament – 6/16/2018; Golf Course at Moffett Field

On Saturday, 6/16/2018, we staged our 21st Annual Charity Golf Tournament at the Golf Course at Moffett Field. With a lower number of golfers but a great turnout of volunteers, check-in and registration were a dawdle, and soon the golfers were on their way through the parcours. A beer tent mid way and a photo-op station, plus regular runs to the Club House for reinforcement were all part of the event which Chair person Lion Amy started at 11:05AM. By around 4:00pm everybody was back at the ranch, digging into the colorful hamburger buffet presented by the Club House kitchen. We are very grateful for our sponsors, especially our Gold Sponsor Lion Vijay plus several Silver and Bronze sponsors as well as T-sponsors and event or food sponsors! THANK YOU!

More details will be supplied in a few days

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2018 MD4 Convention Las Vegas – 6/29 – 7/3/2018

Three of our intrepid Lions (Lions Eli, Mort and Ray) plus Lion Ray’s wife Barbara ventured to Las Vegas for the MD4 Convention which was mainly held at the MGM Grand Hotel with the motto THE POWER OF WE. About 2,500 rooms were reserved there for lions, while the other 15, 000+ participants were divvied up into other hotels in the neighborhood. We got a preview of the outfits of our delegation in the AM meeting on 6/28 — bright purple shirts and funky hats for MD4, while other clubs from around the world showed up in the traditional dresses of their countries, especially for the parade. Our ‘troops’ joined up with PID Jack Epperson and his wife Mary, who were often guests at our golf tournaments. Plenary sessions were held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena which would hold 17,000+ Lions. The outgoing president, Dr. Naresh Aggarwal gave a keynote on Sunday morning, while former president George W Bush gave the opening speech on Monday morning. Wayne Newton was hired to open the morning sessions of Tuesday at the end of which was the closing date of the convention. One of the big news was that 4 districts added over 2,000 new members each – Bravo!

Lion Ray, who gave a review of the events in Las Vegas (this time what happened there did NOT stay there), was still in awe about this major event, about the amount of people from 120 different countries and the spirit of togetherness that prevailed during the 4 day long meetings.

The peace poster contest motto for 2019 is “Kindness Matters” – no doubt the teenagers will come up with wonderful paintings or drawings!

Next year’s convention will be in Milan/Italy from July 5-9, 2019. Let’s make sure we have another delegation from our club there!

Contributed by Lion Ray Lancon

 

 

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Cupertino Volunteer Fair – May 5th, 2018

Cupertino Mayor Darcy Paul called on the many and diverse volunteer organizations in the community, and more than 30 followed his call, among them Lion John Noone, our Club Membership Director, who set up ‘shop’ with Lion Joan on a sunny Saturday. He and lion Joan were out there at the Civic Center Plaza from 11:00am – 3:00pm, and had a great number of interested visitors. He ended up with 85 contacts he will address in the near future. Well done, Lions John and Joan!

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Work Days at Camp Via West – May 18th and 19th, 2018

A big shout out to the De Anza Lions and friends of our club who came out to Camp Via West (formerly Camp Costanoan) in the Santa Cruz Mountains (http://www.viaservices.org/) Friday afternoon and Saturday (May 18th and 19th) to work on the expansion of the fenced-in garden we built several years ago. There were 9 folks on Friday and 14 on Saturday who put in quite a few hours each day.

The efforts of one, multiplied, can make a big difference and we did!

Many children with developmental disabilities will be able to plant veggies and flowers and watch them grow due to our efforts.

Thank you all for helping!

This is what being a Lion is all about. WE SERVE

Lion Ray (w/Lion Jeff)

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Charter Night – 49th Club Anniversary

A big shout out to our club!

Our 49th annual charter night was one on the best I have attended. Thanks to Lions Eli and Jill, the program was funny, poignant and makes us all proud to be Lions.
Lion Jeff’s 10 reasons to be a Lion were on the mark…

Read more
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Student Speaker Contest – Zone Level Event

Lion Ray, Zone Director and Host of the Zone level Student Speaker Contest is sending a big thank you to Lions Al & Barb, Don, John, Ron and Herb as well as friends of DeAnza Lions that made the Zone Contest possible.
Special thanks go to Lion Don Lang for letting us use the Odd Fellows Lodge for the contest.
All three speakers were impressive. This year’s winner, Amita Mahajan from Monta Vista High School, was a very creative, eloquent and forceful speaker and was awarded $150. She will go on to the Region Contest, which will take place on March 19th, 2018, at the Sunnyvale School Board Office, 819 W Iowa Ave. Sunnyvale. Time to be announced.
The winner of the MD 4 contest will win a total of $21,500.
This is another great community effort by the Lions that was started in the late 1930’s.
I urge you to attend the next contest and be proud of our youth and future.
Great to be a Lion.
Lion Ray