New York Mills Lions Club member begins two-year term as director

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

Bert Nelson, New York Mills, was recently elected as one of the newest International Directors for the Lions Clubs International at a convention held in Australia in June.

Nelson has been involved with the Lions organization since he joined the local NY Mills Lions Club in 1991 after a suggestion from his boss to join. Since then, he’s “jumped into it with both feet” and has held many positions between local, district and international levels of the organization.

“The reason I joined was because I wanted to help the community,” said Nelson. “That’s basically why people join is to serve. You hear people complaining that people aren’t joining service organizations and actually, we’ve found that young people do want to join, they want to serve their community, they want to help, they want to do projects.”

Nelson said that one specific part of community service organizations are what the younger generation tend to shy away from, which is the traditional business meeting. He said that they are happy to serve their community, but making time each month to sit down and work through the monthly budgets, reports and planning is not everyone’s cup of tea. The NY Mills Lions Club actually decreased the amount of business meetings years ago, which has been a draw for new members.

Nelson has held the positions of secretary, club president and director on the local level. His main office in the MD5M district was as a zone chair and district governor along with many other offices. After getting his feet wet in the international level on the USA/Canada Lions Leadership Forum Planning Committee, he would be asked by friends if he would run for International Director. While his answer was always “no,” he finally changed his tune this past year.

“I’ve been involved in Lions for over 30 years and once I became council chair person, I kind of saw what Lions was doing,” said Nelson. “At our district conventions, we have the international director and international guests come and are the keynote speakers at conventions. I got to see what they were doing and once I moved up the ladders, people started asking me if I was going to run for director.

“At that time, I was much younger,” he continued. “It wasn’t the right time for me yet. This opportunity finally came up and it’s the right time. I figured I’ll take advantage of it and go for it.”

Nelson appreciates the support of his community through his entire campaign, including his endorsement convention in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

“The town people support the town,” said Nelson. “That’s what is so nice and exciting about NY Mills, they support each other. The outpouring of support from our club for me running for this position was unbelievable. I can’t say enough good things about them. My endorsement convention was up in Winnipeg and they came up and helped me, I was quite impressed with what they did, how people helped out.”

Once Nelson received the endorsement, it was a matter of submitting his paperwork for the International Convention to qualify for the opportunity to be on the ballot at the convention. With 11 candidates, Nelson was one of the available five American seats that received a recommendation for international director. This past June, he received the official word that he had been elected as one of 34 international directors.

“I was fortunate enough to be one of the five,” said Nelson. “It’s a two year position. I’m on the board of directors that makes policy for Lions Clubs International worldwide. Lions is in over 200 countries, so something that seems logical here in the United States as something we should be doing, won’t work in another country. So we have to look at everything, not just from where we’re at, but worldwide.

“I’m also our advocate when I go out and speak on behalf of Lions,” he continued. “I’ll be going out to district conventions and speaking.”

Two main goals are at the forefront of Nelson’s mind when speaking of his duties in the international realm of the Lions Club. First, Mission 1.5 is the Lions’ hope to raise their worldwide membership to 1.5 million people.

“We’ve been hanging around 1.4 million forever and we’re trying to build it,” he said.

The second goal is to raise funds for the Lions Clubs International Foundation, which donates millions of dollars every year to help individuals and communities in different ways.

“We’re trying to increase donations to the foundation to help people worldwide,” said Nelson. “We’ve given away over one billion dollars in grants since the start. In Wadena, when the tornado came through they got an emergency grant of $10,000. So we’ve got disaster grants, matching grants, and all kinds of different ways of helping people through our foundation.”

Nelson is looking forward to interacting with new Lions members all across his travels in this new position. He emphasized the camaraderie shared between members of the organization.

“When I was district governor, just meeting all the Lions within our own district, it’s amazing,” he said. “You think you know what’s happening somewhere and you get over there and you find out all the projects that they’re involved in and you go ‘oh, my goodness!’ You’re like, ‘wow, I never even though of that,’ and that’s the neat thing now. I get a wider scope of things that are happening, not just in Minnesota, but in the U.S.

“I’ve already got visits for the state of New York, the one district I’ll be visiting has the town of NY Mills in it, so I’m excited about that,” he continued. “I’ve found even through my travels already, when you’re a Lions member, you have family members everywhere. It’s just amazing how a fellow Lions member will step up and help you. They’re giving, because they all want to help their communities and they understand what we’re all doing.”

Though Nelson said the change the Lions make isn’t always something seen right away, he holds those memories close of the gratitude from those whose lives the Lions organization has changed.

“Back in the day, we would buy eyeglasses for kids that were needed,” said Nelson. “We had the school counselor come to us and say there was an individual that needs eyeglasses, so we would spend up to x amount of dollars for the eye exam and glasses. At one event, a young lady came and put her hand on my shoulder at a basketball game and said, ‘you’re a Lions member,’ and I go ‘yeah.’ She said ‘thank you. I’m like, ‘for what?’ She said ‘you guys bought my daughter eyeglasses.’ For us buying her glasses, it improved her from a C/D student to a A/B student and changed her attitude. Before that she was being disruptive, but nobody knew she couldn’t see the blackboard. Us doing things like that, we changes peoples’ lives and it’s pretty neat.

“Not everybody gets to see that everyday,” he continued. “But that’s what we’re here for. I think as individuals we’re put on the earth to serve a greater good and this is a way that I feel I’m doing that.”

Nelson said that he would recommend the Lions Club to anyone and everyone. He said young or old, man or woman, everybody is a perfect candidate to join their local Lions Club and become part of something that helps people.

Nelson is also selling a book called “Bert-isms: Jokes to Make You Groan,” a book full of dad jokes and references to the Lions Club. The book costs $10 and proceeds benefit the Lions Clubs International Foundation.

“Have you heard the one about the bulletproof Irishman?” asked Nelson. “His name is Rick O’Shea.”

For anyone interested in learning more about the Lions Club or are thinking about joining, they can call Nelson at (218) 298-0599.