On Tuesday 19th February 2019, The Lions Club of the City of Adelaide launched The Little Roarers Cubs Club at Annesley Junior School. A club run by 5-12 year olds with the support of Lions.
In the weeks leading up to chartering the club, the cubs began creating their identity as a new group and so designed a number of potential logos and brainstormed club names. A few of the clubs also declared their intention to be the first President and be part of running the meetings as well as having other responsibilities, and needed to present speeches in front of the group and discuss why they’d like to be President and why they’d make a good leader. The cubs then voted by secret ballot for all the above with the announcements made at the club launch. The announcements of each of these created a huge buzz for everyone involved.
We were honoured to have the C1 District Governor, Phil Bowman, 1st Vice-District Governor Elect, Tony Pederick OAM, and Annesley Junior School Principal, Luke Ritchie, attend the launch facilitated by our Club President, Andrew Stacey. The launch included a cubs-modified purpose and ethics, announcements mentioned-above, presentation of a cubs-modified charter and new gong generously donated by Phil and cubs modified invocation creatively changed into a very catchy song, and most importantly, 15 cubs were officially inducted as charter members.
So where did the idea for a self-sufficient club run by cubs come from? The daughter of two of our members loves being involved with our Lions Club and helping with projects and events whenever she can that she decided she wanted to start a club with her friends at school. So with her parents support, she approached her school principal, Luke Ritchie, at Annesley Junior School, and the rest is history.
Our Cubs Club is similar to a Leos or Lions Club, but for children aged 5-12 years (in years 1 to 7). The after school meetings are led by the elected President and supported by Lions. The cubs will learn about people living with disabilities and the challenges they face, and about other disadvantaged people in our community, public speaking skills, leadership skills, community service, helping the environment, project management and so much more. Lions from our Club have developed a program full of interactive, engaging and fun activities which will evolve as the clubs progresses and the cubs develop their ideas and interests.
CUB (as found on the Charter and handbook) stands for Community, Understanding and Bravery. The cubs have already begun learning about the challenge of living without sight through various activities and the Lions Recycle for Sight project. This will be their first project, providing them with an introduction to running projects leading them into starting their own.
These children are our future, and the future of Lions and helping those in our communities. But these children are not just capable in the future, they are capable now!
