It’s a good thing that Nigel Baynes saved a copy in his carefully laminated archive, of the 2007 annual newsletter documenting all the Lions activities from the year. Otherwise, some of the salient things might have been missed in this month’s blog entries.
Things like, especially, the Golden Oldies trips. These are the ones we often called ‘Grab-a-Granny’ but they also included less able people with mobility difficulties. I think I was involved, to much hilarity from those folks who were familiar with the announcer’s patter, in a BINGO game on the way to the MetroCentre. I seem to remember the trip to Ullswater too, unless the one I’m remembering was in a different context with another mobility-challenged charge. Never mind, these trips were a wonderful public service effort, for sure, and they could never have been feasible without the assistance of the Baynes Travel team.
And unless I’m mistaken, there wasn’t space or indeed any images to include in the Charity Auction for this year, which raised the typical amount of circa £3,000 for good causes. So it’s brilliant that an end-of-year wrap-up, carefully compiled by Peter Aldcroft, was able to recapitulate these events. Not forgetting, of course, the social events the Lions held for themselves, which this past year involved a trip to the Black Sheep Brewery at Masham (educational of course, well noticed Pete) as well as a more strenuous hike around Wasdale.
And oh yes, that’s a lovely shot of Allendale in the snow, the new Christmas lights festooned on trees all around the place. We certainly managed to put a brilliant year together, didn’t we?
And then, after the annual Tar Bar’l parade and fire in the square, after the clean-up on New Year’s Day, it was time for 2008 to enter the picture. The doughty new club would be turning five years old by the time that new year turned into an old one.