Ambrose Depiazzi is a long-term friend of Frank Nathan and has spent many years as a prominent member of Lions Australia, and although he is an accountant by profession, he came along to our Club this week to talk about Preserving Sight in Western Australia. It all started in 1925 when Helen Keller - herself a blind and deaf person – urged Lions Clubs to join her in a “crusade against darkness”, and this led to a remarkable series of events in WA spanning one hundred years. Ambrose highlighted a number of outstanding developments such as the glaucoma detection screenings in a caravan which scanned 20,000 people each year in 1964. Another was the setting up of the Lions Chair in Ophthalmology by Prof. Ian Constable in 1974, which led to the founding of the Lions Eye Institute (LEI) in 1983. It is housed in its own building at SCGH and now has a staff of 284 people. Shortly thereafter the Lions Eye Bank was established to collect, process and distribute corneas for transplantation across WA. The Lions Outback Vision Hub was set up in Broome in 2021 and there are now 3 Specialists who live in Broome. Back in 1978 indigenous people were 12 times more susceptible to eye problems but this has now been reduced to 3 times in a major step forward. There are many prominent specialists at the LEI now, including Prof. Fred Chen and Prof. Bill Morgan.