Lions Clubs International is the world’s largest community service volunteer organisation with almost 47,000 clubs in 210 countries. We are men and women of all ages and cultural backgrounds that simply care about improving lives and bettering our communities. In particular, we do a lot of work in the area of vision, recycling eye glasses for instance. We want to give students the opportunity to join our vast, community service network, but in Canada we face one large but simple barrier: tabling.
In my nine years of experience dealing with campus clubs, I have found that schools in the US are far easier for outside organisations, like Lions Clubs, to obtain permission for a table from which to hand out information and recruit members for new campus-based Lions Clubs. In general, Canadian schools either charge high fees (something that is not in our budget) or simply prohibit outside NFPs to get a table on campus. Some Canadian schools have an annual volunteer fair at which we are able to have a table, which is a fantastic opportunity, but these are few and far between. I would love to see universities, colleges, and student unions develop more inclusive and accessible policies to allow NFPs to table at least for one day in order to gain interest from students. Indeed, any effort towards making rules more consistent would be welcome since right now rules from one school to the next are drastically different. This would greatly help national and international organisations that offer the kinds of volunteer positions students are looking for. Indeed, Lions Clubs provide many scholarships but often cannot reach student candidates. The most immediately available solution would be if universities and colleges, who don’t currently do so, could have a volunteer fair at the start of each semester and invite NFPs to have a table at it. I understand their thinking when they say if they open the door, there would be many requests, but standards could be set that ensure the highest quality opportunities for students. In the end, our communities will be stronger for it. There are currently fewer than 15 Campus Lions Clubs across Canada! Paul Baker New Club Development Consultant Lions Clubs International
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