The Christ­mas Car­ol, writ­ten by British author, Charles Dick­ens, is a pop­u­lar play this time of year. In the play, the Ghost of Jacob Mar­ley vis­its Ebenez­er Scrooge. Mar­ley says, “I wear the chain I forged in life…I made it link by link and yard by yard.” Scrooge protests to Mar­ley, “But you were always a good man of business.”

“Busi­ness!” exclaims the ghost. “Mankind was my busi­ness. The com­mon wel­fare was my busi­ness; char­i­ty, mer­cy, for­bear­ance, and benev­o­lence, were, all, my busi­ness. The deal­ings of my trade were but a drop of water in the com­pre­hen­sive ocean of my business. “

 As Kiwa­ni­ans, you have cho­sen the com­mon wel­fare as your busi­ness. But what about your friends and asso­ciates? What have they cho­sen as their busi­ness? Help them to avoid the chains that Mar­ley wore after death. Invite them to join you in Kiwa­nis to deal in char­i­ty, mer­cy, for­bear­ance, and benev­o­lence for all the Tiny Tims in this world.

As Eye of the Tiger eKi­wa­ni­ans, you go a step fur­ther and open new clubs, often invit­ing peo­ple who are friends that you have just met to join you in a new oppor­tu­ni­ty to change the world one child and one com­mu­ni­ty at a time. The month of Decem­ber is often very busy, and it is also a per­fect time to invite oth­ers into Kiwa­nis as peo­ple tend to feel gen­er­ous. Use some Decem­ber time to get start­ed on a new club and to get a new mem­ber for the Eye of the Tiger eKi­wa­nis Club.

Speak­ing of new clubs, let’s give a shout-out to the 8 new clubs in the Amer­i­c­as since Octo­ber 1 in the fol­low­ing dis­tricts: Alaba­ma, EC&C, Flori­da, Ken­tucky-Ten­nessee (2), Pacif­ic North­west (2), and Penn­syl­va­nia. Kudos to the Eye of the Tiger eKi­wa­ni­ans who were part of one or more club open­ings: Mary Jo Brubak­er, Alan Guire, Jay Hub­bard, Gary Levine, Julia Levine, Armand St. Ray­mond, Roge­na Woods-Mitchell, and Allen Yer­govich. Way to show the Eye of the Tiger!

Look inside our mar­velous newslet­ter, cour­tesy of Julia Levine, for infor­ma­tion about our con­ven­tion club open­ings and fundrais­ers and oth­er ser­vice and fundrais­ing projects. Hope that your Decem­ber hol­i­days and new year are won­der­ful, filled with fam­i­ly, friends, hap­pi­ness, and new Kiwa­nis members.

Thank you for being a mem­ber of the Eye of the Tiger eKi­wa­nis Club—the com­mon wel­fare, char­i­ty, mer­cy, for­bear­ance, and benev­o­lence are ALL def­i­nite­ly your business!

In Kiwa­nis service,

Barb Thomp­son