The first set of minutes that I can find for 2012 are those of our Business meeting of February. It seems that the main topic of the evening concerned two of the Lions’ promotions: the annual Burns Night just gone, and the forthcoming gig at the village hall with The Proper Boys.
As I recall, I pushed the envelope, rather, to create a song book and programme for the evening celebrating Robbie Burns, and populated its pages with a variety of iconic Burns memorabilia. This image shows the witches cavorting as described in the immortal Tam O’ Shanter.
The report at the Business Meeting suggested that a great time was had by all, sure enough, with the piper, the food and the planned extra space for dancing much appreciated. The main discussion, however, dealt with the issue of payment for the caterer. Essentially, the problem seems to have been that the matter of costs and labour had not been specified, so that the free-flowing cash distributed on the night (eg from bar takings) for the waiting-on staff was not properly controlled. Since the caterer was not part of the Lions Club, but had been taken on to give the catering Lions a break, a few communications had broken down. It was hoped that these matters could be resolved in time for the next meeting. Prue, however, was pleased with the brown envelope raffle and reported that this new system had worked very well, eliciting more cash than usual.
The consensus in the Club was that the whole financial apparatus surrounding Burns Nights needed to be tightened up, so this would doubtless be a priority for next year. It’s also fair to note that the balance of the Charity Account, after the Burns Night do (but possibly before all outstanding invoices were paid) stood at £4,359.79, so that there appeared to be a reasonable amount of money in the coffer with which the club could go ahead with plans for the May Fair, and charitable donations.
Another potential money-spinner for the Charity Account coffers, however, was the upcoming Proper Boys gig, which marked a new venture for the Lions Club, also to be held in the village hall. Apparently the promotions were well in hand, but to break even some £600 would have to be raised (tickets were going at £10 each).
There was some consternation within the club over the advance publicity circulating on facebook. News had reached Allendale of event crashes when similar events had been publicised on the new and emerging social media. Our media-savvy members agreed that they would look into the facebook issue and report back at the next meeting.