 Every gathering has to have a purpose and every gathering has to have a result. When we after a long break decided to arrange the Europa Forum in Finland, we set as goal to make something new, but still preserve the old traditions that our European friends value.
Hopefully our guests received something to take back home from our forum and from Finland. The forum has fulfilled its purpose, if as a result we have got ideas of how to increase our power to serve, how make our service better and how to do it in even better cooperation. In the Europa Forum we always learn to understand each other better.
One result is guaranteed. The presence of European friends in Finland and Tampere has strengthened the image of Lions Clubs International in the eyes of the Finnish public and Finnish lions.
I want to express my gratitude to the city of Tampere for being an excellent host. Tampere has helped and supported us in the arrangements of the forum. That support has made our work much easier.
Well over 100 lions and other volunteers have given their input in the arrangements of this forum. Without their voluntary work we would not have succeeded. I want to express special thanks for the translators, who performed incredible amount of work and achieved an excellent result.
The Organizing Committee and its subgroups have carried the largest workload. When we started planning the forum in 2007, we could not see how big and complicated work we had ahead of us. To our luck the Organizing Committee consisted of a group of the most skilful and responsible lions in Finland. Each one of them has had stretch out to excellent performance and there has been no weak links. With this group we can take even bigger challenges.
The Board's Liaison to the forum, ID Ton Soeters has given us his help and guidance in making sure, that our forum meets the qualifications of our International Association.
Also Lions Clubs International noted our forum. It arranged the Senior Lions Leadership Institute and MERL-seminar in Tampere just prior to the forum. Tens of lions got training on the highest level of our association's training system. Also the association's highest leadership was our guest in Tampere.
Thank also to all Finnish lions, who with their participation have given this forum Finnish and Nordic characteristic. Hopefully we all got new ideas for developing our own club as well as understanding of how our lions friends in different parts of Europe serve.
THANK YOU!
Harri Ala-Kulju
PID, Forum President
Chairperson of the Organising Committee
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