Local Lions Roar

In a landmark appointment Sandstone Point Lion, Andy FitzGerald has been appointed District Governor of Lions District 201Q3. This means she is effectively the Chairman of 65 Lions clubs with 1634 members spanning from the Qld coast north of Brisbane to the NT and SA borders.

Lions District Governor Andy FitzGerald Andy is a Life member of Lions and has held numerous senior roles in Lions including several club presidencies, district cabinet positions and state roles. Andy is a local resident and a recently retired medical professional.

“I am both proud and honoured to be appointed to this role,” she said. “Lions play a pivotal role in Australia and internationally in community service and we are faced with a number of critical issues at present which are placing enormous pressure on Lions resources. The loss of momentum in volunteerism, the war in Ukraine, Turkish earthquakes and the dynamic nature of refugee movements worldwide are coming on the back of possibly the worse series of natural disasters in Australia’s history and this is proving to be very challenging. Our current focus is retaining existing members, growing the organisation organically and, as always, reaching out to the broader community to provide support” she added.

In another exciting appointment in Lions locally, Heather Dawber, a Gem Life resident on Bribie, has been appointed President of Sandstone Point Lions for the 2023-24 year.

“It is a proud moment for our reasonably new Club to have Club member Andy as the senior District person and for me, it is the culmination of several years of preparation to be our new Club President. Women now make up more than 50% of our Clubs membership and that is a common occurrence across all clubs these days, so it is fitting to see women reaching senior roles” Heather said.

Lions International has some 1.3 million members in more than 47,000 clubs all over the world and recently celebrated 75 years since the formation of the first club in Australia at Lismore in Northern New South Wales.