Virtually everything that members of the Fort Bend County West Lions Club does counts as reportable service. There are some types of service that are aggregated while there's other service that is individually reported.

• Did you talk about Lions Clubs? That's a meeting. Meetings are reportable.

• Did you make a donation? That's a donation. Donations are reportable. Making charitable donations to individuals or organizations, including Lions Clubs International Foundation (LCIF) counts.

• Did you advocate or raise awareness for something that our club focuses on? That's a service activity. Raising awareness of the causes that are important to Lions, educating our communities on issues that impact them and working with others to bring about positive change.

• Did you fundraise for us or for an organization that we're affiliated with? That's fundraising. Raising funds to enable our service counts.

• Other examples of service activities (as seen in Measuring Service Impact) include...

  • • Meetings

    • Administrative tasks

    • Running errands

    • Maintaining club records

    • Reporting service

    • Attending any Lions event

    • Engaging in fellowship and fun

Every member of the Fort Bend County West Lions Club is empowered and encouraged to plan their own activities for the club. As such, every activity is a reportable activity, except for explicitly partisan or religious events. Learn more from the definitive source on Lions Clubs International service reporting: Lions Clubs International.

Reporting is the challenge. But not really. When reporting any activity we need the following

• Activity Name that is short and describes what happened.

• Date that it happened on

• Activity Type: Service Project, Fundraiser, Meeting, or Donation

• Cause: Hunger, Environment, Childhood Cancer, Diabetes, Vision, or Other

• Project Type depends on the cause, but it's fairly broadly categorized so pick what matches up best.

• Metrics > People Served: That's the total number of people who participated plus the total number of people who benefitted from whatever you did. An example given by Lions International is that a family of 4 benefits from a child receiving a pair of glasses.

• Metrics > Total Volunteers: This is the total number of people who helped make it happen. That can include people who showed up during the activity or just helped lay the ground work. An example for vision screening event that has 3 screeners, but those screeners had to work with 3 people at the venue to arrange the screening; that would mean 6 volunteers.

• Metrics > Total Volunteer Hours: This includes travel time, setup time, doing the activity, cleanup time, and travel time back home, and should be calculated for all involved. Following the example of the vision screening event that had 3 screeners: if they each had to drive half an hour (0.5x3), setup took an hour (1x3), the screening activity was 2 hours (2x3), cleanup took half an hour (0.5x3), travel home took half an hour (0.5x3), and it took around an hour to arrange everything with the 3 people at the venue ahead of time (3), the total volunteer hours for this activity would actually be 16.5 hours. We always round up to the next whole hour, never round down. This means that for this 2-hour screening event, we actually report 17 volunteer hours.

• Metrics > Additional Metrics

  • Funds Donated: If any money was donated, include that. Lions International sets the mileage rate at $0.55 per mile, so your mileage is a donation for the service activity. Include that. Other donations can include stuff, which the IRS classifies as an in-kind donation. An example of this is if we hold a clothing drive, we would estimate the cost of the clothing donated if it had been purchased, and that is the amount recorded as the donation.

  • Funds Raised: Did you collect money or stuff? Following the clothing drive example, we collected the clothing, which means we would use the estimated retail value of the clothing we collected, which we then donated to the organization we were collecting for.

Not sure if you can report or not?

In the Fort Bend County West Lions Club, the following people are able to press the report button in MyLion:

1. Rev. David Greene, President

2. Mattie Thigpen, Secretary

3. Sue Greene, Club Administrator

4. Glenda Williams, Service Chairperson

5. Jackie Arnold, Guiding Lion

6. Devin Lemon, Guiding Lion

At the District level, there are a few additional people we can count for help if we need it:

7. Jenny Massey, District Service Chair

8. Ronnie Martin, District Administrator

9. Jeannie Cobb, District Guest

10. Nancy Gray, District Guest

What to do if you aren't one of the 10 people who can report?

For most of our members, you won't be able to actually press the report button. That's OK. Instead, what we want for you to do is plan the event ahead of time (even if it's just an hour or half an hour before), and then shoot an email to Rev. David with the above information so he can log it in. If you forgot to "plan" the activity before you did it, no problem, just send an email. You can also fill out this form below if that's easier.

If I can't report should I still register for MyLion?

Absolutely 100% Yes! We use MyLion to send you event and activity invites, and this is also a great way for you to see what other clubs are doing and get some ideas of your own. Plus, there's also the Lions Learning Center, which you can only access once you've registered for MyLion. All you need is your LCI number and email address associated with your Lions International account. You can get that information from David, Sue, Mattie, Raevyn, or Glenda.