Somehow, though it’s difficult to remember quite how, we staggered together into 2011. I do remember that winter as one of the hardest we’d experienced at Allen Mill, running the Allendale Bakery & Café, and we were nearly on the floor. Perhaps that explains why we didn’t make it to the 81st Business Meeting of the Allendale Lions Club.
Graham Girvan kindly stepped in for President Carrie, however, and the recording secretary (perhaps Irene Ness?) later distributed the minutes for the night. I’m intrigued to note that the club had indeed presented the annual Burns Night Supper, eliciting a return to our charitable coffers of £756. So work was still going on amongst the intrepid caterers.
Although there’s a gap in the available minutes before this March ’11 meeting, it seems that our activities were moving onward according to the events schedule we’d established. The Backworth Colliery Brass Band were yet to be paid for their contribution at the annual Carols in the Square, but plans were already afoot to develop the Allendale Fair as normal.
Business conducted at this meeting included a club donation to the New Zealand Earthquake Appeal of £250. We heard from Graham about his anticipated participation with Marc Adams in the Mongolian Rally in July. The Lions sponsored renewed wood chips in the play areas of the Recreation Ground to the tune of £250. Some further charitable contributions were held back until the Allendale Fair had been completed, though we reduced the entertainment budget for that event to £1000 in light of the funding requests which were on deck.
We were still considering the best possible venue for this year’s Charter Evening, and the Cowshill in Weardale was high on the list. But we decided to amalgamate the Charter Evening celebration with the Handover Party into the target date of 11th June.
It seems that this business meeting was not dissimilar from many of those previous, and indeed, many of those coming on in the future. It was, you might say, business as usual, and the monthly toast to Elsie Eye (Lions Club International) closed out the formal meeting, after the regular card draw brought £19 into the club’s organisational account.