It has been a few years that District A5 has been working to get more of our Lions to attend an MDA convention. Normally, there would only have been 4 members, the incoming and outgoing DG’s and spouses. In the last couple of years, we have been slowly increasing our numbers up to 7, 9 and this year there were 20 of us that attended.
In addition to attending meetings and seminars, this year was special in that MDA had 3 candidates running for International Director for Canada, PDG Lion Debbie Dawson, PDG Lion Dan Sibana and PDG Lion Len Day. The joint hospitality room was a great hit with everyone and the variety of food as well as drinks was thoroughly enjoyed. On Saturday night, we were also invaded by some strange beings that came into the hospitality room and gave everyone a great laugh.
It was great to meet the incoming International President Fabricio Oliveira and his lovely wife Amariles, and to get a chance to talk to them through their interpreter. Lion Brenda McLay was able to speak to the President briefly and gave him a gift of a stuffed guide dog puppy along with pamphlets from the Lions Foundation of Canada Guide Dogs. He was greatly impressed with all of the different types of dogs that are trained and said that “He had never seen anything like this before.”
One of the highlights of the weekend was when the DGE’s were introduced, including our own DGE Lion Sam Khoury.
Next year, we hope to have even more of our Lions attend the MDA convention as word of the fun time spread.
