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Think Lions clubs and for most of us it's crusty old blokes in cardies. Think Wellington Lions and it's generally the yellow and blacks, but last Thursday a new pride of Lions hit town - Oceania's first rainbow Lions service club.
The club received its charter on Thursday. Included in the celebrations was a powhiri by the city's only gay, lesbian, bisexual and transexual kapa haka group, Tewhanawhana, a dinner for 100 at Oriental Bay's Overseas Passenger Terminal, and kudos-plus from international vice-president Al Brandel, a retired detective from New York HQ.
Set up after prompting from local real estate agent and current clubber Murray Hardie-Rippon, Wellington Pride has 21 founding members.
Among them are Labour list MP Charles Chauvel and Education Minister Chris Carter.
"There are people from all walks of life," said president David Huxford. "It's a gay, lesbian, bi, transexual club, so it's pretty much gender split, with half males and half females."
Huxford admitted there were initial qualms about co-habiting, as it were, with a group whose image - old, conservative, church-going - was hardly gay-friendly.
How would they take to having the words "we'll serve with pride", plus the rainbow flag alongside the traditional logo on the new Wellington chapter's badge?
"We were thinking they wouldn't like it, but they thought it was great," Huxford laughed.
Service was one of the great strengths of the gay community and that fitted well with the Lions' ethos.
Huxford said Wellington Pride also saw themselves as role models for the younger generation.
Because the capital had such a diverse community, the group decided it would not fundraise exclusively for gay and lesbian causes.
"Wellington is too small to be exclusive like that and there's so many good causes that deserve help." Huxford didn't expect too many other groups to get in on the act.
Brandel - a 32-year Lions Club veteran who comes from an age when civic involvement was considered almost automatic - hardly missed a beat as he welcomed the locals into the fold.
"It's about accepting community-minded people to serve the world community.
"Realistically, when we're helping people get their sight back [the major focus of Lions clubs] or feeding the hungry, no one cares whether it's a woman's or man's or anybody else's hands that are doing that helping. They are just fulfilling the needs of the community."
He knew of a couple of "alternative lifestyle" Lions clubs in the United States, including one in San Francisco, but he was unsure how many there were worldwide.
"We don't keep track of members' persuasions. These people are just another group of community leaders serving their community in the way that they see that it's needed."
