Category: In Memoriam

What a very humbling delight, to turn over the page in Nigel Baynes’ carefully laminated archive file, and to discover a pristine copy of the Q4 Newsletter I’d created somewhere toward the end of 2006.

The idea, I believe, was to create a newsy sort of feature, to be given away free at the Post Office in Allendale, so that folks would have a better idea of what the Lions actually were doing around the houses. And also to serve as a notice for the Carols in the Square event coming up.

Anyway, I’d forgotten all about that newsletter, though now that I see it I do recall how pleased I was with it at the time. A quiet labour of love, I imagine.

Time goes so fast, so quickly through our fingers, it seems. We’re here, and then we’re not. The Lions Club held a minute’s silence, at the 34th Business Meeting on the 6th of November, to mark the death of Alan Newman, a member of the Round Table as was. Condolences were sent to George and Joan Newman, and to Trevor and Prue, with flowers from the club, to let these Charter Members know we were thinking of them.

And although there were quite a few apologies from members who couldn’t make it to that meeting, lots of plans were developed to ensure that the Santa’s Sleigh rode again in the upcoming festive season, and that the tradition of Carol Singing in the Square was carried on. As well, of course, as careful consideration of funding requests, which involved the Middle School production of We Will Rock You, the Haydon Bridge High School’s Sunshine Panners, the Allendale Youth Project refurbishment, and the Pebbles Art Café’s section for young people. Each of these projects received £100 from the Lions Club. By this point, the Charity Account boasted only £1000 remaining for disbursement; it had been quite a year of supporting good causes!

We are looking at events that happened back in March, 2005. Not so long since Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee. Today, 9th of September, 2022, the nation and the Commonwealth are in mourning at the death yesterday of the only monarch most of us have ever known, only a few months since she celebrated the Platinum (70th) anniversary of her accession to the throne. It’s a time of reflection over the past decades, much as we are doing in this online blog, but we remember from the perspective of loss and grief.

This time-travel perspective has coloured the images and events recorded in these regular entries, as it does today.

So we were considering a raft of funding requests at our March meeting. The Lions Club has never distributed cash notes, of course, to good cause beneficiaries, just accountable cheques or deposits into organisations’ bank accounts. But the image of the Queen on the currency of the realm is salutary, today.

We looked at a variety of funding requests and public service activities that had come in to the Secretary over the past months, and we decided how to apportion from our limited Charity Account funds:

• Haydon Bridge High School’s Barbados Sports Tour: £200
• Allendale Village Hall Film Club’s bid to Northern Media and Arts for projection equipment: £250
• Our District Treasurer (Lions District 109E) has appealed to all clubs in the district, for two distinctly needy causes as outlined below:
• A. Sleeping Bag Project toward rough sleepers under the rubric of the People’s Soup Kitchen, Newcastle: £90
• B. Street Children project in Glasgow: supporting runaway children in need: £100
• Hexham Multiple Sclerosis Society request: on hold for further consideration
• Group decision to earmark all funds generated over expenses from this year’s Allendale (May) Fair towards the Allendale Recreation Park renovation fund; in that context, a sortie into the Dene to begin the great Clean-the-Dene exercise has been arranged for the 20th of March, and a skip is on its way

Monday’s entry will offer a selection of images from the Dene Clearance, after which we’ll consider the range of Karaoke Heats in the run-up to the May Fair.