Why Lionism online?

Many Lions Clubs have already introduced themselves on the Internet. The number of subscriptions to the Internet Directory of LionNet, the network of Lions Clubs and Districts on the Net, is increasing. On this very day there are exactly 60 national and multiple district level service sites taking part in the LionNet cooperation. Looking at the 185 countries where Lions Clubs International is present today there are already Internet service sites in nearly a third of them. Lions Clubs have realized what Internet can do for them and their services rendered to the public. There are plenty of reasons. Let us look at some of them.

1. Use in organisation and among Lions

E-mail use combined with fax gateways means that a lot of money and time can be saved but there is no must to use the net: i.e. for the dissemination of papers to governors, within cabinets, to club presidents.

1.2

Electronic forms combined with databases means that data can go instantly from monthly activity report forms or other type of query forms to storage and analysis without human retyping work. This saves work and expenses.

1.3

The catalog of club supplies or any similar publication could be put online. The ordering by electronic forms and e-mail would be faster, more secure and again, the data goes directly to a database set behind to cover logistics, billing, shipping etc. And the catalog can be updated any time at low cost.

1.4

Personal communication between Lions members and clubs will increase and improve. The Internet offers very useful tools for personal communication, such as e-mail, www based chat boxes / bulletin boards, real time chat with IRC, video conferencing with CuSeeMe etc. These tools are easy to learn and handle, are free of charge or at low cost and the communication is cheaper than telephone or mail and very quick.

2. Use of Lions towards the public

2.1

Internet is the best and quickest tool to keep contacts between organisations that are our partners in activities.

Internet also is the best storage place for more information on our activities: We have our information for the public in one place. The only thing people have to get to know is our Internet address (www.lions.ch or www.lions.fi).

2.2

By the means of Internet and its multicast backbone we can broadcast special activities to large audiences throughout the world in real time, combined with real-time feedback from the recipients of the information. This is like an enhanced television with two-way communication.

2.3

If we make a video of an activity like about the drug awareness program we can make it available on the Internet where thousands of people can reach it and view it simultaneously. This is just like putting it to a public library but without limitation of place or the number of simultaneous users. The costs are very low compared with traditional means of copying and distributing a video.

2.4

The Lion magazine or any similar publication can be put on the Internet and read by many hundreds of thousands of people. There are no paper and no printing costs nor is there postage. The issues of our magazines can be kept available on the Lions Internet server as long as we want.

3. Public Relations

3.1

Lions and their activities get visible in the public. There are millions of readers on the net. As all information is easy to be found and looked up in the LionNet we have an increasing number of readers throughout the world. Today LionNet International is consulted more than 20'000 times per month to locate Lions Clubs Websites on the Internet.

3.2

By the medium of Internet we can get through to the public whenever we want. Nobody can become an obstacle for the publication of data we want to publish.

3.3

By being visible in the public we can get a lot of new members. The Internet is a good tool for this because it is interactive in two-way communication.

3.4

Lions get a modern image by using modern technology.

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