SERVICE REPORT - 2010/11

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This page is under development - e.g., pictures to be added

INTRODUCTION

We had a busy year during the the Lionistic year from July 2010 to June 2011. We list below the various projects that we were engaged in.

For many of our 'Service' projects we welcome the help and assistance of non-members, and if you are interested, please see the 'contact us' page on this website.

REGULAR PROJECTS

This category includes projects that we support every, or most, years.

Women's Refuge Zoo Trip

Once again we took a party of children, their Mother's, and a small number of helpers from a local Women's Refuge on an outing to Colchester Zoo in August 2010. We paid for the coach, the entrance tickets, and a 'goody bag' for each child.

Lions Clubs International Annual Peace Poster Contest

This contest is an international event that is cascaded down through local Lions Clubs, such as ours, and it is intended to encourage members of youth organisations, such as Schools, to express their thoughts about World Peace through art, in the form of a Poster dipicting the contestant's unique visions. In 2010, the Basildon & Wickford Lions Club sponsored an entry from Beauchamps School. We are currently (June 2011) in the process of organising the local heats of the 2011 contest, which has a closing date of October 2011. Please see details of our entry for 2010 here

Children in Need

With the kind permission of C2C management, we carried out collections at Laindon, Basildon, and Pitsea Stations in November 2010, and in total we raised £511.58 for this annual BBC Television Appeal. We would very much like to thank the generosity of travellers who made it all possible. At present, we are in the early stages of gaining permission to collect again in 2011, and this year we hope also to include Wickford Station.

Schools Christmas Cards Competitions

Each year, we invite primary and infant schools in Wickford to take part in this competition, which is a competition between children from within the same school, not between schools. The winning entry from each age group at each school is printed professionally, and 200 copies are donated to the school to be used for fund-raising. Each winning child receives a presentation pack and a Smiths Voucher. We are in the early stages of planning the 2011 contest, having just sent out invitations to participating schools.

Norfolk Broads Holiday for the Disabled / Disadvantaged

Each year, our colleagues in the Norfolk Broads Lions Club take over a local holiday camp for a week in April to enable Lions Clubs from up and down the country each to select one or more disabled or otherwise disadvantaged person and their immediate family or carers to benefit from a week away, paid for by the local Lions. As usual we were able to send one lucky local resident in 2011.

Coffee Mornings for the St Andrew's Centre

Coffee mornings are held at the St Andrew's Centre in Wickford every Friday morning to raise funds for maintenance and to to meet the running costs. Various organisations and individuals run these mornings, and we take our turns on a pre-agreed rota. Dates when the Lions Club will be 'on duty' are advertised on our 'Forthcoming events' page on this website. About twice a year we also run coffee mornings on Saturday mornings to raise our own charitable funds.

Marie Curie Collections

Each year, members of our Club manage a local Supermarket collection on behalf of Marie Curie - the Daffodil Appeal. This year, over two days in March, we raised over £1,400. We are very grateful for the generosity of local residents, especially in these difficult financial times, and to the other volunteers who helped with the collection.

Distributing Funds from our two main Fund-raising activities

Our two biggest fund-raising activities each year are the Christmas Sleigh Collections and the Easter Raffle - see the Fund-raising page for more details. Each year, 50% of our Sleigh Collection and all of the Easter Raffle Collection goes to pre-determined charities. Sadly, the 2010 Sleigh Collection was cancelled, but, after a small top-up from Club Funds, the 2011 Easter Raffle raised £1,000 for St Luke's Hospice.

Essex Royals Youth Football Tournament

This project is usually managed by the Club's Fundraising committee as the organisers often make a donation to our Charity Account in recognition of our support. Over a two day period we manage the car-parking - usually coping with around 500 cars on each of the two days - and we also sell the event programmes.

RBS Holidays for the blind & partially sighted

For the past two years, along with colleagues from the Lions Club of Billericay, we have part funded holidays organised by The Royal Blind Society for persons for blind or partially sighted persons from the Basildon area. In 2011, 13 such local residents went on the holiday.

Recycling Unwanted Spectacles

Courtesy of some collection points at local opticians, we contribute to the ongoing collection for recycling of unwanted spectacles that is managed by our colleagues in the Chichester Lions. Where appropriate, these spectacles are shipped out to 'Third World' countries for re-use, or if they are truly beyond use, then they are melted as scrap. During 2010/11 we sent off 533 pairs; we are very grateful for the support of the public and our collectors.

International Disasters

Sadly, this last year has seen a large number of earthquakes and other natural disasters around the world. Working through an associated international organisation - the Lions Clubs International Foundation (usually called the LCIF) - Lions are able to respond quickly. As a matter of routine, the Basildon & Wickford Club contributes £200 to each such disaster in order to replenish the LCIF funds. The disasters we supported in the year from July 2010 were the Pakistan Floods and the twin disasters in Japan - the tsunami and the earthquake.

AD HOC PROJECTS, 2011/12

Recycling School Books to Africa

This project was an exciting new venture for us, starting in July 2010, and you can read more about it in our press release and through our picture gallery.

Helping to establish a School Library in Africa

This project is a follow-on from the one above. Together with other Lions Clubs from our 'Zone' - including Billericay, Romford, and Rayleigh, we are trying to raise £1150 to enable our partners at READ INTERNATIONAL to set-up a library at a school in Tanzania. We held a very successful quiz in June 2011, and we are grateful for donations from the three other Lions Clubs mentioned.

Message in a Bottle and "Green to be Seen" ['Zone' Project at Barleylands, September 2011]

This project is being organised by our colleagues in the Billericay Lions, but most of the clubs in our local 'Zone' - including Basildon & Wickford - are assisting with it. The event centres around the annual Country Show at Barleylands, Billericay, over the weekend of September 10th - 11th 2011. At the time of writing this report the project was in its final stages of setting up.

Lions will be promoting the 'Message in a Bottle' initiative, which is geared to helping the emergency services to help elderly and vulnerable persons in critical home call-outs - please see our 'National Projects' page for fuller details. Lions will also be operating their 'Green to be Seen' scheme which is designed to help to reunite any lost children with their parents.

Chinese Garden Project, Pioneer and De La Salle Schools

An exchange arrangement has been established between the Essex County Council Education Department and the equivalent organisation within the province of Jiangsu in China. As part of the arrangement, the Pioneer and De La Salle Schools, which adjoin each other in Basildon, have a twinning arrangement with a school in the city of Suzhou. To commemorate this twinning, both ends have agreed to establish a garden that represents the other's culture, and so the Basildon Schools are close to securing Planning Permission to build a 'Chinese Garden' on land that forms the boundary between the schools. This project will provide a unique opportunity for the children to be involved in the design, build, and maintenance. The Lions Club of basildon & Wickford has agreed to donate £100 towards the costs of planting the garden.

Glass Magnifier

The club was approached by the mother of a local young woman for help. The mother had had to give up her job in order to care for her daughter, who was registered blind, paraplegic, and a cancer sufferer. The club was asked to fund a special piece of equipment called a ‘portable handheld magnifier’ to help the young woman to make best use of the limited vision that she still had, and we were pleased to be able to buy it and present it to her.

Wick Meadows Country Park

We provided a donation to help the Friends of Wick Meadows to buy pond-dipping equipment for use by organised groups of visiting school children. We also support the "Wick Weeders" who aim to keep the garden close to the study centre neat and tidy. Additionally we helped with 'kitchen duties' at the annual "Paws in the Park" event in June 2011.

St Luke's Hospice

Most years, we donate 50% of the proceeds from the Christmas Sleigh Collection to St Luke's Hospice. However, this year, the collection had to be cancelled due to the appalling weather conditions. Never-the-less, we made a donation from our general Charity Account, and also raised more funds through running a World Cup Sweepstake within the club.

International Guide Jamboree

The club has part-funded three local guides to enable them to attend the jamboree in Sweden in the Summer of 2011.

Essex Air Ambulance Dragon Boat Race

The Dragon Boat race was held on Hanningfield Reservoir in August 2009 and again in 2010, and the Basildon & Wickford Lions Club held a stall each year. In 2009, all the proceeds went to support the Essex Air Ambulance; in 2010 the proceeds were split 50/50 between the Air Ambulance and Water Aid.

Basildon and Pitsea Carnival

We provided some of the marshalls used to manage the procession through Basildon and Pitsea in June 2011.

St Andrew's Centre, Wickford

We provided a donation to help with the exterior decoration of this hall.

Special Needs Activity Club

The Special Needs Activity Club is a Basildon-based organisation that provides recreation and support for young persons with Special Needs and their carers. Basildon & Wickford Lions Club provided a donation of £100 towards the costs of a 'Pool Party', which enabled members and their families to enjoy a lot of fun in the water with inflatables and floats.

Concert in aid of the Polly Parrot Appeal, Basildon Hospital's Children's A&E Unit

The "Legends of the Sixties" concert was organised by the Rotary Club of Basildon Concord and it was held at the Towngate theatre on June 9th 2011. The Lions Club of Basildon & Wickford provided £250 sponsorship for the event.