President’s Blog

January 2010

Here we are, on the 1st January, facing a new year and all that it holds in store for us.  Lions started their year in July and, therefore, as President of Flint Lions, I am half way through my year of office. This is my seventh blog and, so far, I have kept my promise to create a blog at the beginning of each month.

It will not be that long before I leave office - time goes so quickly. Certainly, if the next few months are as manic as December, time will seem to fly.

We fitted in five bucket collections during the month: we are grateful to the public for their generosity and to the management and staff at Asda, Queensferry, Sainsburys, Flint, Home Bargains, Flint and the owners and management of the Flint Retail Park for their hospitality and permission to collect. Figures are up on last year: I believe that this is partly to do with a “feel-good-factor” over Christmas but also to a considerable extent it is down to the popularity of Leo Flint, the lion’s costume we bought earlier in the year. He’s a great character and the crowds loved him. Poor Santa wasn’t photographed anywhere near as much as Leo! My thanks go to Lions Ken Greig, Dave Evans, Bryn Jones, Alan Jones, George Silcock and the other members of the club who “suffered” for the cause either as Santa or Leo. It is worth noting that over the month 23 out of our 28 able-bodied members were able to take some part in the bucket collections.

We escorted Santa to the local Daffodil Club and the Autumn Club in Holywell. Santa also took us on his rounds of the wards at Flint and Holywell Hospitals, two local authority care homes and to the Abbeyfield Christmas party. We also had time to call on our Charter President, Walter Millward, who, unfortunately, no longer enjoys the best of health.

We are very proud to say that for over thirty years the Lions have done their “Santa Run” of the homes and hospitals. The Friends of Holywell Hospital invited us to the splendid new hospital and took us around  the wards, showed us the wonderful artwork by local school children and provided us with a welcome hot drink and mince pie. We were grateful to them for their hospitality and gratified to know that our visits are appreciated.

We provided a total of 24 hampers to various families and organisations in the week before Christmas, most of them were collected for distribution by members at the traditional “at home” evening the Gregorys hold on the Sunday before Chritmas.

The club held its Christmas dinner at The Boot in Northop: thirty seven members, wives and friends attended. That number included John Williams and his wife Pat. I was very proud to badge-up John as the second new member of my year of office at our December Business meeting. I am grateful to Lion Bryn Jones for introducing John and Pat to our club. From their earlier attendances it is clear that we have another enthusiastic member and supportive wife. I sincerely hope they enjoy their membership of our club.

I have asked our Webmaster, David, to put some of our Christmas photographs on the site’s Photo Gallery. I hope you enjoy them.

It only now remains to wish all of my readers a happy and successful new year

John Gregory