I hope you are all having a wonderful summer. As for Steve and me, our highlight so far was in June, babysitting our two granddaughters (3.5 y/o and 10 months old). I don’t know how we summoned the energy needed back in the day ….
News from the desk of your new Denver Lions President:
Our Club have been blessed with the birth of two healthy baby boys. Joe Young and Patrick Samuels are the new dads on the block. I am going to encourage them to bring their little boys to our picnic in August 25.
Our Denver Den partnered with Project CURE on an Eyesight Mission in Haiti. This campaign took place in the middle of June.
Our beloved First Baptist Church of Denver will host for a second consecutive year the mobile Consulate of Ecuador. In a sense, the Church will be considered an Ecuadorian territory on August 17th and 18th.
On July 12th a handful of us went to visit our dear friend, Lion Joe Beaghler. He is recovering amazingly well from his accident at the Lions Camp in April.
We’ll be participating at the Dragon Boat Festival again this year. We’ll be conducting Kidsight screenings and distributing readers with the help of our Denver Latino Branch Club.
Five members of our Club are heading out next month (August 8 to 20) to Mongolia. We will conduct another Eyesight Mission in this beautiful country. This time our goal is to train our Lions partners in Ulaanbaatar, so that they can continue delivering this great service to their communities.
We are having our annual picnic on Saturday, August 25th, at the Colorado Railroad Museum, 17155 W 44th Ave, Golden, CO 80403. I hope you can come with your family. At this event we would like to recognize all the volunteers who have helped us in different events our Club has put together. 1st Vice-President Bill Henderson has arranged for us once again to have the Museum’s pavilion for free. In exchange for this generosity, the Museum asks we volunteer our time in September at its Thomas the Train event.
As our Lions year begins, I would like to invite you to our Denver Den’s Annual Retreat on September 8th from 9 am to 12 noon. It will take place at Savio House, 325 King Street, Denver CO 80219 (enter through the Lowell Blvd entrance; it will be on the second floor).
Our first meeting of the year will take place on Tuesday, September 11, at Maggianos. Our speaker will be Dr. Valeria Canto-Soler, Director of the Ocular Stem Cell and Regeneration Program, University of Colorado School of Medicine.
LIONS ANNUAL PICNIC POTLUCK & Volunteer Appreciation Day
Entrance fee to the museum and tickets for the Galloping Goose Train are complimentary for you and your family. (Just mention that you are a Lions member/invitee.)
Bring a dish to share; the Club will provide hamburgers, hotdogs, and drinks (Beer and soft drinks).
The Denver Lions Dragon Boat Team had a great day. Congratulations on winning our division with a time of 1 minute 25 seconds, This is the first time Denver Lions has won. We were in the Hong Kong 250 races. For the record we beat the next team by 2 seconds. A good solid win.
Our Co-Captains Lions Stella Peterson and Michael James kept us organized. Our drummer Lion Myrna Adkins kept the beat. The team consisted of Lions and friends and family of Lions. The Team: MYRNA ADKINS, FLETCHER BROWN, JANICE DAVIS, WILLIAM FLETCHER, SEAN GROSS, MICHELL HUTNICK, Stephanie HUTNICK, MICHAEL JAMES, DAN KIEL, JOHN MARTINEZ, JOHN MOLBER, CARLA OSORIO, SUSY O,SORIO, STELLA PETERSON, Jessica Steen, DWIGHT STEEN, ERIC STEEN, Jeff Steen, Joe Steen, TISH TAYLOR, MARC VENISSE, FRANNIE WARREN, MONICA WELLER
To see more pictures go to photo album by clicking here
Part of being a Lion is We Serve. We all know we all have busy schedules but being a Lion is serving even in a small way. We have a couple small project where we could use help.
Lions Poster Contest
LCI provides the materials and theme for the year. It is short time frame. The process:
Contact the art teachers for their interest. We will have a list of contacts. We would like 6 schools participating next 3-4 weeks as schools are opening.
The awards to each of the top three poster are given gift cards and certificates. Teacher judges the posters.
Visit the schools to introduce yourself, deliver materials and review the program Provide gift card to teacher for materials.
Go back to school before Nov 13 to make awards to students and pickup one poster.
At the Lion Meeting on Nov 13 the Lions will judge the wining poster from the schools.
Send winning poster to District Governor by Nov 15
Either go back to the schools or send the winners the gift card awards
A short easy project that one or several Lions can do. Please get involved by contacting Lion Fletcher
Meeting Program Team
This is not as hard as it may sound. There are a lot of people out there who would like to speak to us. We need to search for the right ones. We already have several scheduled. We already have an extensive list. We need a committee of three with Fletcher being the leader for this year. So what would the team do:
Meet one time for probably two hours as early as possible to prioritize possible speakers and get organized. After one meeting most of what needs to be done is by email and telephone.
With the priority set we send email to the potential speaker. We have developed and basic email for the speaker invitation which can be altered for your style. Sometimes a phone call is needed.
We will have a google share spreadsheet to enter when we have scheduled a speaker.
Once you scheduled a speaker you will follow up a week or two before the meeting to confirm. We have a confirmation email you can alter is needed.
We try to schedule out as far as possible. We need 1 in September, October is full, just 12 more for the balance of the year.
This one is really easy. Three schools with debate teams have a speech contest based on the topic we provide. The winner of each school comes to one of our meetings to give their speech. The Lions at the meeting judge the speech and gift cards are awarded. The winner at our club will go to the district and possibly onto the state contest. There are gift card awards at each level. Here is what team would do:
Need one to three people to meet with each school’s teacher / debate coach and provide details of the program. We have the details and judging materials.
The teacher fits our program into there other programs and finds a date to have the school contest.
The Lion would attend the contest and make the gift card awards. The teacher judges the speakers.
The speech contest at our meeting is on April 9 so the school contest can be any time before then. Depending on the teacher there may need to be some follow up
If necessary help arrange for the student to come to the meeting. The teachers and parents are also invited.
Please get involved being on the Speech Contest team and contact Lion Fletcher
A “Day out with Thomas” at the Colorado Railroad Museum.
The Railroad museum is hosting the “Thomas the Tank Engine” for the 17thconsecutive year and the Denver Lions have an opportunity to be Thomas Volunteers and help with this year’s program. Last year there were 14 Denver Lions volunteered 32 shifts and the all said they had a blast. With the number of volunteers, the Museum did not charge us for the use of the pavilion. We again need volunteers this year.
Thomas will be running on three weekends. September 8/9, 15/16, 22/23
If you would like to help, you can sign up for a shift in the morning, afternoon or all day on any one or more of the six days.
It is a fun time and you will be a part of making a lot of little kids very happy. Thomas the Train is a big deal for the little kids.
If you are interested, please contact:
Lion Bill Henderson henderson_277@msn.com (303) 638-8690.
He will provide information about the activities, shift starting times, directions, lunch card, Thomas T-Shirt, parking pass and some quick training.
Again, this year we are having “Lions End of Summer Picnic” at the Colorado Railroad Museum on Saturday August 25.
THIS IS IMPORTANT: IF WE GET ENOUGH VOLUNTEERS THEY WILL ALSO TRADE OFF THE USUAL CHARGE FOR THE USE OF THE PAVILION FOR THE VOLUNTEER HOURS
We were running out of space at the Club offices to store all the recycled glasses. We put the word out to the local Lions clubs announcing we will be making a trip to Sterling RFS center and to bring their glasses to our office. A number of clubs had also brought glasses to the Golden Club storage. We had so many glasses we almost completely filled a 6x12 trailer. We estimate we took more than 40,000 glasses to be processed. Sterling RFS processes 50 - 60,000 glasses a year. Thanks to Lions Dwight Steen and Fletcher Brown for making the trip.
Also, Lion Emerson Bails sorts through all the glasses brought to the office. In the picture above, Emerson sorted and package about half the boxes in the picture. Thank you Emerson for your dedicated work.
Many thanks to all the Denver Lions serving the Club and Programs by serving in Leadership roles. List below are 50 Lions serving as officers, trustees and board members.
AURORA, Colo. (June 26, 2018): The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and UCHealth announced the naming of the UCHealth Eye Center program for philanthropist Sue Anschutz-Rodgers, who has made leadership gifts to accelerate innovative research, speed the development of new therapies and devices, and enhance clinical care.
These tremendous gifts will enable the Eye Center, headquartered in the 135,000-square-foot Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Institute building at the heart of the Anschutz Medical Campus, to further expand its work in ocular stem cell research for sight restoration, to retain and recruit top faculty, and to grow its clinical care network throughout Colorado and the region, serving the rapidly increasing demand for top-quality eye care.
“Sight has always been incredibly important to me,” said Sue Anschutz-Rodgers, “and when I learned that I could eventually lose my eyesight due to macular degeneration, I felt I had to do something to bring the life-changing care I was receiving to future generations. I have 100 percent trust in the care offered there and hope that the research underway today will ultimately lead to a cure.” Anschutz-Rodgers also credits service organization Lions Clubs International for having the vision many years ago to establish eye centers worldwide.
CU Anschutz Medical Campus Chancellor Donald M. Elliman, Jr., said the gift further underscores the impact that Anschutz-Rodgers has had on the campus. “With a long history of gifts supporting cancer research, women’s health, faculty, scholarships and more, Sue has made an immeasurable difference across our campus,” Elliman said. “I can think of no more fitting recognition of her commitment to transforming ophthalmology than to see her name associated with the Eye Center for decades to come.”
“Sue Anschutz-Rodgers has been making a difference in our community and at our university for a number of years and her generous contribution will have a tremendous impact on the lives of thousands of people,” said CU President Bruce D. Benson. “It will significantly advance the stellar work at the Eye Center and continue its momentum toward becoming one of the top eye care, research and training facilities in the world.”
Renowned retinal diseases expert Naresh Mandava, MD, has led the UCHealth Eye Center for nearly 14 years, overseeing its rapid growth and development as one of largest in the country. Mandava is chair of the CU Department of Ophthalmology and holds the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Endowed Chair in Retinal Diseases, established by Sue Anschutz-Rodgers in 2013 in gratitude for the care she received from Mandava and his team. Under his leadership, the center’s physicians and researchers have grown from 55 in 2012 to 82 in 2017. Since then, total patient visits have more than doubled to over 100,000 annually.
“We are living in an incredible time for vision research and care, and our location on one of the country’s top academic medical campuses means we have the talent, the resources and the networks to do even more,” said Mandava. “This generous investment from Sue Anschutz-Rodgers will ensure our ability to leverage the momentum we’ve built to take new devices and therapies from the lab to the clinic more quickly than ever before, and to preserve and restore sight for people battling a wide range of conditions and diseases.”
UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital President and CEO Will Cook said the gift will make a measurable difference for patients and the future of ophthalmology. “The Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center is a vital campus program and one that reflects the Anschutz Medical Campus’s reputation for excellence among top academic health centers nationwide,” Cook said. “We are tremendously grateful for this gift and all that it will make possible for our skilled staff and the patients they serve.”
Leadership contributions from the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Institute Foundation enabled University of Colorado Hospital to construct its original Eye Center building in 2001. “Having been the original donor to the building, the Lions are excited about the impact this tremendous gift will have on the future of eye care,” said John Harper, president of the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Institute Foundation. “We look forward to the continued growth of the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center program.” Private gifts and a large institutional investment were instrumental in executing a recent $32 million expansion of the facilities on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus.
The new and modern Eye Center space opened in 2015 and features specialized clinical centers for expert treatment of macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts and other conditions, as well as a comprehensive surgical center outfitted with the latest technologies. In 2016, a successful $10 million challenge initiative made possible the establishment of the CellSight program, which is a partnership with the Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine focused on developing stem cell technologies to restore sight.
The only academic eye center within a 500-mile radius, the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center is the highest-volume provider of academic vision care between St. Louis, Missouri, and Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition to patient care, the center is committed to graduate medical education, training more than 20 ophthalmology residents and fellows every year. The CU Department of Ophthalmology is widely recognized for innovation, with many faculty firsts – from the development of the first modular intraocular lens for cataract surgery and the Kahook Dual Blade for glaucoma treatment, to conducting the first bionic eye implant in the Rocky Mountain region.
“Our ophthalmology faculty are among the world’s best and this gift is a vote of confidence in the work they do every day,” said University of Colorado School of Medicine Dean John J. Reilly, Jr., MD. “Future generations will have Sue Anschutz-Rodgers to thank for ensuring our continued ability to bring the best and brightest physician-researchers to the Anschutz Medical Campus to bring the latest research to bear to deliver the highest-quality eye care.”
About the Anschutz Medical Campus
The Anschutz Medical Campus is the only comprehensive academic health sciences center in Colorado, the largest academic health center in the Rocky Mountain region and one of the newest education, research and patient care facilities in the world. Home to 24,000 employees, more than 4,300 degree-seeking students and two nationally ranked hospitals, the Anschutz Medical Campus trains the health sciences workforce of the future and fuels the economy, with more than $3.9 billion in annual economic impact. Skilled physicians and providers at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Hospital Colorado see 2 million patient visits each year, caring for people and families of all ages from across the state of Colorado and around the region. University of Colorado Hospital is ranked #15 in the country, and both University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Hospital Colorado consistently rank #1 in the state.
Help support the Club buy King Soopers Cards,
A Call to Action
This weeks edition of A Call to Action is:
Complete the online Dragon Boat survey sent to you by email.
.jpg?_=636694348279741091)
Help support the Club buy King Soopers Cards,
.png)