A message from our new 2022 International President: Douglas X. Alexander

Magrath Lions Club ‘Bringing Our Community Together’

The Magrath Lions Club was founded in May 1938 with Gladstone Balderson as the first president and soon had 35 active members. One major accomplishment for the club back then was the construction of the original Magrath Swimming Pool (now long gone) and the Magrath Lions Playground. For the past 8 decades we have been working and serving here in Magrath with many taking several turns serving as club president over the years including: Charlie Matkin, Norm Hillmer, Johnny Bourne, Ken Balderson, Bob Clifton, Warren Wilde, Lawerence Papworth, Devar Dahl, Shauna Davies, Roger Davies, Alex White.

Today, we are a small but active club with about a dozen official club members with focus on Magrath and area. Our numbers may be small, but there are great local leadership opportunities here, and it is only thanks to so many willing local volunteers are we able to implement so many important projects here. Current Lions Club projects include the Annual Community Food Drive in early spring (2019 was our 14th annual drive with 100-150 church volunteers collecting food items from the entire town with 5000 lbs of food collected), our Annual Lions Garage Sale in late spring (we receive donations from all across town from people with too much stuff so they can come back and pay us to acquire different stuff), ongoing Lions Park Playground Upgrades as needed, an annual Community No Cost Clothing Event at summer end (with clothing donations from all across town and needing up to 100 volunteers to run it), and our Community Christmas Box Collections drive (for past 15 years we have served as collection point for boxes from community and from the club).

Current club membership includes Lions Alex (club president) and Laurie Ann White, Lions Glen and Christine (club secretary*) Bly, Lions Roger (club treasurer) and Shauna Davies, and Lions Mike and Kelly Duff, Lion Elizabeth Olsen, Lion Lawrence Papworth, Lion Deanna Friday, Lion Catherine Cai, Lion Larry Murray. *Sadly, in 2020 Lion Christine passed away after an extended illness. Lion Roger is currently the longest serving lion (since 1995). Lion Shauna has the distinction of having been our first female club president (4 terms starting in 2010). Lion Elizabeth is our oldest living club member (she being 5 years old when our club was founded).
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We serve! We serve better with your help. Please see our website for current information on club projects, club membership and local volunteering opportunities.

Our Oct 2016 meeting was delayed 2 weeks and actually held on 3 Nov 2016. We have selected 3rd Wed of each month as the preferred meeting times (watch this site for updates on actual meeting dates, times and places).

Lions Club Meeting Minutes – Wed 2 Nov 2016 (deferred 2 weeks from Oct 2016)

Due to our crazy schedules (Lion Shauna is working most days and many nights): we propose a meeting 7pm on Wed 28 Sep 2016 at Lion Roger and Shauna's home. Can you all make it for then? Bring a friend (if you have any). Lion Roger

Happy Thanksgiving week and greetings to all .. we have scheduled a club get together for Thu 16 Oct 2014 6:30pm at the Davies to celebrate Fall Birthdays for Lions Roger, Shauna, Devar and Deanna and .. (hope I don't miss anyone). This will be our first non-project event for the season. Hope to see you all there. We plan to have cake ..

Welcome to our new 2014/15 Lionistic Year 

Thank you to all who helped make our No Cost Clothing event (Aug 29/30) so successful this year! It was a great way to start us out in service to the community. The costs to run this event were minimal - a 100ft clothesline rope and 24 xl hd clear plastic bags for the cleanup afterwards. We happened to find $50 donation at back of collection van which was used as a deposit on the town sign and later to cover those expenses. Yay. Herb McKelvey also donated $5 toward the lions club for this project to me at my work. 

Thanks to those who were able to attend our final event for the year! We were able to piggyback with the town cleanup event and made fairly quick work of the cleanup along the trail. We put the club wheelbarrow to good use and moved half dozen loads of dead branches and picked thistles along the upper trail. We were also happy to support the BBQ afterward, with many hamburgers and hotdogs purchased for that $60 donation. Thankfully the threatening rain held off until after the work and eating was all done.

Afterward, we continued the festivities inside the camp kitchen while it rained for a short time, and sang happy birthday to Adrien 16 and Preston 1 and then had cake and icecream and visited for a while. All the younger children then helped Lion Roger test out the Terry Trainer Memorial (Pirate Ship) playground. 

We will hold our new Lionistic year meeting in Sep 2014. See you all then!

May 2014 - LIon Hazel (front center) has returned home to her beloved husband Grant after just a short time in the hospital. Her spouse Grant passed on several years back so meanwhile Hazel found many worthwhile projects to keep her busy in the meantime (in addition to knitting something at most every spare minute). She joined us as an official club member a few years back and has continued supporting us despite her advancing years. Her funeral service was held Sat 31 May 2014 (just after our Lions Garage Sale event). She will be missed.

Magrath Lions: March 2014 We wish Lion Elizabeth Olsen all the best as she will be moving to Nauvoo, IL for the next 18 months on a service mission for her church. She has been a driving force in our club for many years, having initiated many ongoing club projects such as:

• having the club take over the coordination of the Community No Cost Clothing (Sep) event,
• the annual Christmas Box collection (Nov) program,
• heading the Lions Community (Christmas) Choir, as well as past Lions Speech Contests at the local school, Canada Day and Town Programs as well as many other events. 
  
• This will be just another mission for her, having previously served in Victoria, BC and several years at the LDS Family History library in Salt Lake City, UT
• She was selected as the Town of Magrath Citizen of the Year 2011 by the local Chamber of Commerce.

Although her email and even her phone number will remain the same, it will be a bit different not having her at our meetings for the next little while. Also, Happy 81st Birthday this month ..