With the Lions, business must be mixed with pleasure whenever possible.
Few Real Ale enthusiasts in England will be unaware of Farnham Beer Exhibition (Beerex) and the fame of this event has spread much further afield.
Thousands of imbibers
descend on the town for a few days in Spring to sample the year’s selection of
fine ales, ciders and perries.
Beerex is organised jointly by Farnham Lions Club
and CAMRA, and held in the historic Farnham Maltings.
We usually raise in excess of £25,000 from the event, all of which is returned to the Community’s Needy.
We hold an annual Charity Golf
Day, in
conjunction with Hindhead Golf Club and local sponsors.
This event is immensely
popular and attracts sponsorship from several generous local businesses. Now in
its twelfth year, the event has gone from strength to strength. Abbeyfield, home for the
elderly, Frensham Pond
Sailing Club "Sailability",
Bells Piece Cheshire Home, Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre have, amongst others,
been the beneficiaries of useful sums of money raised thus.
In 2008 we raised over £7,000 to help improve facilities for Woodlarks Campsite Trust.. Incidentally, the golf is always great!
The Frensham Pond Sailability Safety Boat "Lionheart"
In 2007 we initiated a new venture, inspired and driven by one of our newer members, Keith Harris, and named "Easter Eggstravaganza". This involves supplying large, high quality, Easter Eggs, each with a fluffy lion, a collecting box and a 100 choice name board into local pubs, hotels, hospitals, surgeries, etc.The idea is that punters will donate £1 to choose a name for the lion from the board. When the board is full, a draw is held and the lucky winner takes the egg and the lion, and we take around £100 a time. In the inaugural year we raised over £6000 for Surrey Air Ambulance by this means. Last year, 2008, keeping the same beneficiary we co-opted some of our neighbouring Lions Clubs into the scheme and raised over £18,000. This year, 2009, despite all the doom and gloom forecasts, the Clubs raised over £19,000 with Farnham alone contributing £7,900!
We invariably support a number of local fetes
(Bells Piece, Bourne, Rowledge) with our tombola, football, hoopla or "pick-a card" stands and
contribute our proceeds, plus a bit more, to their causes.
Watch out for Mark
Barry's Electric Thingamajig this year!
Farnham Lions organised the Farnham Carnival
for many years, not so much as a fund raising venture but simply to
give a bit of pleasure to the community.
Since 2000 we have combined forces with
another Farnham service club, The Hedgehogs, acquired some generous sponsors,
and greatly expanded the scope of the event. We believe the
community would agree that this has been a great success, considerably enhancing
the pleasure given by the event to participants and onlookers alike.
Tin rattling around Christmas time is also an essential part of our fund raising endeavours.
All in all we expect to raise over £50,000 in
an average year, and have great fun doing it!
Non - monetary resources include food, collected from
generous families in the community
around Christmas time. This is sorted, parceled up and re - distributed to those
less fortunate, often making the difference between misery and inner
warmth on Christmas Day.
