November 2009

October sees the Lions of our District attending a Service of Rededication. The venue is linked to the District Governor’s club. This year it was held at St Marys Without the Wall in Handbridge, Chester. Clubs invite their civic dignitaries to attend the service.

The Mayor of Flint, Councillor Paul Cunningham, kindly agreed to attend and was accompanied amongst others by Immediate Past President Dave Evans and Ken Greig (our Zone Chairman). Unfortunately, because of a family illness, I was unable to attend and was only able to give my colleagues an hours notice. I thank Paul for giving his time to attend the service and my colleagues for displaying typical Flint Lions spirit deputising for me at such short notice.

In Geoff Mitchell’s year as District Governor, Flint Lions arranged his Service of Rededication at Flint Parish Church. Presidents and Civic Guests paraded up Church Street from the Town Hall. I have written before about our ladies and how we cannot cope without their help. This was another example of their support. Marian Gregory was given the task of buying all the food required for a post-service buffet: various ladies volunteered to prepare the food and then met together to set it out and, later, to serve it. The whole event was masterminded by Charter Member Ron Ellis who subsequently prepared notes of how it was arranged at Flint. I understand other clubs have consulted those notes before arranging their own ceremony.

Flint Club was pleased to welcome District Governor Frank and Paula to our meeting on 21^st October when Frank made his official visit. By tradition, dating back to our first year, Flint club dine their DG and his/her wife/husband. We enjoy hosting our DGs and hope that they enjoy the occasion which is less formal an event than Charter Night. Christmas, Presidents Handover, Charter Night and DG’s dinner are the four occasions in the year when the club members and wives dine.

After the September business meeting, we were invited to attend a Diabetes Exhibition at Theatr Clwyd to demonstrate our Message in a Bottle/Wallet. We have done so successfully in the past. Unfortunately a change in format meant that visitors did not have much opportunity to wander around the various stalls. This was a pity as eight members had taken time to man the stall. We can only hope that the few people we did meet will benefit from the bottles and wallets we distributed.

Zone Chairman Ken has selected Buzz-Ah as his Zone Project for the year. Hopefully, all clubs in the district will support this most worthwhile project. The BBC NE Wales website describes the group as follows:

An amateur theatre group that performs once a year using song and dance from popular West End and Broadway Shows. Buzz-AH is for people with and without disabilities, its aim is to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in the performing arts. Buzz-AH achieves this through weekly workshops learning songs and movement/dance from popular musical theatre shows. 

The club has agreed to donate the proceeds of one of our six bucket collections at supermarkets over the Christmas period to this project