| Jul 19, 2017


On July 1 of this year, Sharbot Lake Lions Bill and Linda Zwier travelled to Chicago, Ill. But this wasn’t any regular Lions convention.

You see, this year’s gathering of Lions featured a ceremony wherein Bill would be inducted as the Governor of District A3, a large geographic area stretching from Courtice to Storrington, Denbigh to Cherry Valley. It’s an area that contains 50 Lions clubs, seven Lioness clubs, three Leo Clubs and some 1,300 members.

Needless to say, it’s a time commitment but so far, so good for the new Governor.

“I get a lot more emails and phone calls,” he said. “There’s a lot of paperwork and a lot of visiting other clubs for activities and fundraisers.”

But he’s fine with that.

After all, it takes seven years to become Governor, starting out with being club president, then moving up to zone chair, region chair, 2nd vice-Governor, 1st vice-Governor and then Governor.

“Then, after a one-year term as Governor, you become immediate past Governor and then you’re on an honorary committee that finds solutions,” he said.

This is the second time the Sharbot Lake club has provided a District Governor. Dave Hansen filled the post in 1976-1977.

As Governor, Zwier will be able to set priorities aided by his advisory council as Lions International enters its second century.

“I’d like to see us doing more service, as opposed to fundraisers,” he said.

He cites several Lions programs in that, such as vision and hearing screening, environmental programs, youth programs and two new programs — diabetes and pediatric cancer.

“We managed to raise enough to send 11 athletes to the Special Olympics last weekend,” he said.

He’s also big on the vision and hearing screening programs in schools, citing examples of children who were doing poorly in school before screening programs identified a need for glasses or hearing aides.

“And we do a lot of disaster assistance,” he said. “For example, during the Ice Storm, we had $10,000 here in 10 days.”

And while all the Lions programs are important to him, there is one that seems to have a special place in his heart, judging by the way he talks about it — the Lions Foundation Guide Dog program that provides service dogs free of charge to those with vision or hearing impairments, epilepsy, seizures, diabetes or autism.

He tells a story about collecting bottles at the Beer Store one day when two people from B.C. came up and thanked him personally. Their son has autism and they got a dog and training for free.

“That’s what I get out of this,” he said. “It’s not money, it’s things like those two people from B.C.”

Zwier retired five years ago from Home Hardware in Perth. He didn’t have any aspirations of becoming a District Governor at the time (“I joined to serve”) but there is some pride there when he shows off his new blazer with the governor’s patch (as well as the Helen Keller pin and Founder Melvin Jones pin).

But, Linda puts it all into perspective.

“He’s not a put on fancy clothes kind of guy,” she said. “He’s a blue jeans, T-shirt, scramble the eggs kind of guy.”

Bill nods in agreement.

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