David Larrabee, Teacher of the Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing at Plano Senior High, brought several of his students to the March 1st meeting. They gave a presentation about their fund-raising efforts to pay for an educational trip to Washington, D.C., and they ’spoke’ (they signed, and Mr. Larrabee interpreted) about their experiences as hearing-impaired students, and their plans for the future.
Our club voted to give a $2000 grant to their trip fund, which enabled them to commit to the trip. They have agreed to come back and report on what they learned at a (near) future meeting.
It’s kinda hard to put into words the feelings that we experienced interacting with these young students. It was a “you had to be there” kind of moment. Here’s a snapshot I took of the group after the presentation (the ‘glare’ over the head of our illustrious 2nd VP is actually a halo…)
A group of us went to Texarkana last year for the Bulldog 100 — and had a great time. We’re going again this year, and with what we’ve learned from out experience last year, we should be in a good position to recruit some racers for the Plano 5.0 (tentatively scheduled for November, but we’re still negotiating with the manager of the prospective site). So far the Lions that we know are planning to be there include me, Tom, and Gordon. We really need at least 10 members there. It’s the Thursday through Saturday after Memorial Day.
We got a really good presentation on HOBY today from Rich Honiball, who was himself a HOBY alumnus. I’m going to encourage the club to sponsor at least one student to this event this year.
Well, we did it. Another successful parade. This one was a bit more work than the Independence Day Parade, but we also had more folks working, and we were a little better organized. Not perfect, but we did a good job, and we have a list of lessons learned to make future parades even better.
The only thing I really regret is that the members of the club never get to actually SEE the parade. We get there at 5:30 in the morning, get things set up, provide help with parking & the route, and we are there until well after the last float gets all the way to the end, but we never see more than a tiny fraction of the parade. Oh, well, we are here to serve, and it is sufficient that our efforts allow others to see it.
As I have time later this month, I will be posting some pictures that were taken by members and friends. If I can figure out how to do the YouTube thing, I may get to post some videos.
Thanks to Dr. Burket for an entertaining and educational presentation on heart disease this morning. I apologize for letting it go over time, but the presentation definitely struck a chord with the group, and there were lots of questions. Also present was a representative from the Fire Department, who gave a demo of the AED. I would like to see a group of us sign up for the new CPR training (which now includes take-home study materials on DVD, and a CPR dummy for practice that is yours to keep).
July 4th, 2007: The Plano Independence Day Parade went off fantastically well!! Mother Nature held off with the rain until the parade was over. AND THE WINNERS ARE…
Representatives from the winners were on hand at the July 7th meeting to receive their awards.
The parade was estimated to be over 2 miles long! We had lots of good media coverage (some things money just can’t buy!), and a great time was had by all. Now, it’s not too early to think about next year’s parade. We have learned a lot in the first two that we have run, and we can look forward to applying those lessons to make 2008’s parade even better.
We raced in Texarkana the first weekend in June! We got some excellent TV coverage, courtesy of KTBS. Here is a link to the wrap-up video on the KTBS.com site. The webmaster is working on getting copies of the videos.
Mark Marvel presented a program about his outreach program for the blind. Mark went completely blind 6 years ago due to complications of diabetes, and rather than dwell on his handicap, he concentrated on what he could do. Mark is an active Lion (Park Cities Lions Club), among other things — you might have seen his display at the convention. Mark left us with a challenge. If you didn’t get a change to hear his presentation, you will want to ask someone who did about it.
We’ve been invited by Lion Mark Marvel to attend a meeting of a support group for the blind, at First Baptist Church of Plano (1300 E 15th) in the Fellowship Hall. Meeting starts at 6pm, runs to 8pm (you are encouraged to bring food items to snack on and share). The support group meets on the 3rd Thursday of every month.