Category: News

ARE YOU AGED BETWEEN 21YRS AND 70YRS WITH A CLEAN GROUP B LICENCE.

HAVE YOU CONSIDERED TO HELP THE COMMUNITY BY VOLUNTEERING TO DRIVE THE LIONS COMMUNITY MINI BUS FOR A FEW HOURS EVERY OTHER WEEK. 

THE HOURS ARE EVERY WEDNESDAY OR EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY TO TAKE LOCAL PEOPLE FROM MERSEA TO COLCHESTER, LET THEM DO A COUPLE OF HOURS SHOPPING AND THEN RETURN. THE HOURS ARE 8.30AM TO 1PM.

OR EVEN EVERY  THURSDAY OR EVERY OTHER THURSDAY 8.30AM TO 12PM COLLECTING PEOPLE FROM THEIR ADDRESSES TO AND FROM THE SHOPS ON THE ISLAND.

IF YOU CAN HELP AT ALL CONTACT THE LIONS ON 01206 385822

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From Roy Chamberlain:

This is the evening when we make donations to local charities and deserving causes as a result of our fund-raising throughout the year. It is also the occasion when we are able to publicly thank our volunteers and those who sponsor our fund-raising events. Without their help we could not raise these funds, or carry out our work in the community. We call them S.M.I.L.Es – Supporting Mersea Island Lions Efforts.

Our President, Lion Christine Chamberlain, sent her apologies as she is awaiting major spinal surgery. Past President Lion Roy Chamberlain led the proceedings and introduced our distinguished guests Lions International 105EA District Governor Lion Nigel Folkard and his wife Marion, Zone Chairman Lion Sandie Briault and her husband Lion Tony, and the West Mersea Town Council Deputy Mayor Robert Jenkins and his wife Sue.

DONATIONS given to charities and deserving causes during the past year was over £13,000.

1. £10.000 was presented to the following charities during the evening:-
   Essex Air Ambulance
   Mersea Island Packing Shed
   Mersea Island Explorer Scouts
   Mersea Island First Responders
   1st Mersea Island Guides
   Mersea Island Blind Spot
   Mersea Island Junior Rugby Football Club
   Mersea Island Junior Squash Club
   Mersea Island Methodist Church Toddler Group
   Mersea Island Free Church Toddler Group
   Mersea Island RNLI
   Mersea Island Festival
   Action for Family Carers
   Colchester Hospital Cancer Campaign
   Colchester Hospital Time Garden
   Tools with a Mission
   BikeActive
   Revitalise Respite Holidays
   Lions 105EA District Governor Lady’s Charity – Cystic Fibrosis
   Lions 105 District Centennial Project – Hearing Dogs
2. Donations were also made to clubs and individuals during the past year when the Club had been asked for financial help. Some of the ways in which we have helped this year are:
   Taking a group of foster children to the Lions Children’s Fun Day at Gt Yarmouth Circus
   Children in Need
   RBL Poppy Appeal
   Supporting the Zone Wardens in their work with the School and Elderly on Mersea Island
   A Christmas Day lunch and tea for 31 people home-alone on Christmas Day
   A defibrillator sited at Cudmore Grove

The monies enabling us to support these worthy causes had been raised by:-

• Manning the gate at a Waldegraves Car Boot Sale
• Selling raffle tickets on behalf of the Mersea Food Drink and Leisures Festival
• Round the Island All Terrain Race (half marathon), and 5 & 10 Mile Races
• The Annual Lions Summer Show and Transport and Classic Car Show
• Car-parking for the Colchester and District Scooter Rally
• Selling mulled wine, mince pies and sausage rolls at Mersea Lights-up
• The Christmas Street Collection for the Home-alone Christmas Dinners
• Monies raised by letting out our beach-hut which is available for use in the community.

Waldegraves presented us with a cheque for £2,105. We are delighted to be working with them, we also appreciate their generosity and hospitality through out the year.

Once again we are most grateful to David Lord of Waldegraves Holiday and Leisure Park for enabling us to hold this annual event in the Wheatsheaf.  We are particularly indebted to Chris Parsons and all his staff who do so much to make the evening such a huge success.

Our Greatest achievement of the year?

Our new Lions Community Mini Bus which was parked outside during the evening

Our thanks to all who have made donations and helped make this possible.

The pictures above show Mersea Island Lions club President Mrs Christine Chamberlain receiving the keys to the bus from Chris Jeakins of H.W.Pickrell on Thursday 5th January 2017, Roy Chamberlain messing about as usual and members of the Mersea Islands Lions who collected the bus

Background
In 1982 Ralph Lukham saw the need for a community bus for the island. He approached Harry Kell ( Pam Baldwins father ), to see if he would organise the running of this project. He also approached our Lions club to see if we could purchase a bus with Harry overseeing the bus operation. So this is how our little white bus was born.

It was sponsored by local businesses advertising their companies to help cover the running costs. Tony Balwin advertised on the rear of the bus, but because it got so dirty nobody could see it, so he moved his advertising to the side of the bus where it was promptly hit by another vehicle making Tony feel perhaps the bus advertising was not a good idea!!!!!!

Harry Kell continued to operate the Lions bus service until in 1995 he became unwell and passed away at the end of that year. During this time the Lions changed the bus twice. Harry never joined the Lions but was made an honorary Lion because of his commitment to the Bus project.

A fourth replacement bus was purchased and ran until 2011. At this time a fifth bus was purchased and ran until we replaced it with our new bus January 2017

Present
As winter approached our present bus started to show more signs of its age – 12 years old and 110,000 miles.  Following a recent article about the need to replace the bus, our own funds were very generously topped up by donations totaling  £3,900 from Mersea Life readers, Mersea Town Council and East Mersea Village Hall. So the decision was taken to invest the money we had into a newer bus ( a brand new bus was still too expensive ).

The new bus is 5 years old with only 28,000 miles on the clock and has a one year guarantee. The bus can be driven on a car licence and has 17 seats, 3 more then our previous bus. Whilst we wanted to provide wheelchair access using a lift system we have as yet not provided this facility. We can provide access using ramps which are carried on the bus. Unfortunately advance notice of this requirement is needed as 4 seats have to be removed to allow one wheel chair and a second person on the bus to assist the driver in positioning the wheelchair on and off .

Our bus is not only used to transport Mersea residents to and from shopping and social club outings but can be loaned to any individual or organization for a donation to help with the running.

Drivers:- The Bus operates 5 days a week using volunteer drivers, each driver spending 3-4 hrs on their rostered day, usually mornings. Drivers are always needed, so if you have one or two days spare once a fortnight and would like to offer your services to
drive the bus, please contact The Mersea Island Lions on 01206 385822. This number can also be used to arrange a loan of the bus.

Mersea Island Lions club would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our past and present drivers for for their time and dedication whilst driving our “ Little White Bus”.

– Article and pictures by Lion Keith Bird (January 2017)

On Christmas Day the Mersea Island Lions delivered 31 Meals to the elderly on Christmas Day.

This could not be done with out the people who donated money to the Lions Home Alone collection and with out help from our wonderful S.M.I.L.E.’s.

Thank You every body

On behalf of Mersea Island Lions Club, I would very much like to thank everyone who has given and supported us over this last year. Every penny raised has been from people on our wonderful island, including very significant contributions from our many visitors here over the summer months.

We thank you, all.

We are here first ‘To Serve’. That is our Lions motto. All of us Lions have had tremendous fun in all our projects.

Visit our Presentation Evening report published in all the Life Magazines. What a superb evening this was!! To see all the recipients receiving their cheques of £500 was incredible. This was only made possible from all the hard work from Club members and of course YOU.  Every penny raised is given away to deserving causes. We are, of course, not forgetting that we are an international organisation, so we also give to other Lions in the countries that have, tragically, had major disaster. All this is so humbling.

We are always needing help and without our S.M.I.L.E. programme it would be hard to carry out any of our bigger projects. If you would like to help, give us a call.

M.I.L.C. is also very aware of our young people who need to be supported and encouraged to fulfil their dreams. If you feel you have ideas to help in this area, please call us.

The whole of the community is very much in our hearts. It was so rewarding to see Kim, our cook for Christmas Day, receiving the local Gazette Community Heroes Award for her hard work on cooking for our ‘home-alones’ on Christmas Day.

Well done, Kim, and thank you Mersea Island for donating money for this to happen.

Waldegraves gave us a huge cheque, which was quite a lovely surprise. We helped at their firework night back in November. This has enabled us to start our year of fundraising. So we are now thinking about those who are less fortunate, and other charities which we could help from this beautiful island. How we fund people is by listening! If you would like to know more – “Just ask!”

To everyone – a huge thankyou, too, for making it all possible.

Lion President Chrissie Chamberlain

You can now follow us on our new Facebook site. Search “Facebook Mersea Island Lions Club” or click here: 

Many thanks to Luke D’Wit for all his hard work in creating this site for us.

The Lions All Terrain Running Race will be held on Sunday 26th June 2016. This race is run from The Lions Beach Hut along the beach and along the sea wall. The distance is half a Marathon and last year raised just over £1,000.00 for our Charities. Our sponsors were Blackwater Estates and Mersea Life.

The next Summer Show and our popular Transport Classics Display is to be held at Waldegraves Holiday Park (our sponsor) on Saturday 13th August 2016. The show is very comprehensive including bands, food and beer tents, inflatables for the younger generation and much more. For more information visit  www.mersealionstransportshows.com.

On Sunday 28th August 2016 is the Lions 5 and 10 Mile road running races. This starts at Willoughby Car Park at 10.30am
Registration is from 9.30am.

For more information on our running race events visit www.merseaislandraces.co.uk.

This is the evening when we make donations to local charities and deserving causes as a result of our fund-raising throughout the year. More than 100 guests and representatives of charities attended. It is also the occasion when we are able to publicly thank our volunteers and those who sponsor our fund-raising events. Without their help we could not raise these funds, or carry out our work in the community.  We call them S.M.I.L.Es – Supporting Mersea Island Lions Efforts.

President Lion Christine Chamberlain welcomed guests and friends. Our distinguished guests included the Lions International 105EA 2nd Vice District Governor Lion Derek Prior, and the West Mersea Town Council Mayor and Mayoress, Councillor John May and Mrs Ann Rayner.

President Lion Christine was delighted to invite Kim Proctor onto the stage to congratulate her on receiving the Community Heroes Award given by the Colchester Gazette for her support for her work with the Lions.

DONATIONS given to charities and deserving causes during the past year was over £15,000.

£11,500 was presented to the following charities during the evening:-

The Catherine Bullen Foundation
Dabchicks Sailing Club
Essex Air Ambulance
Robert Green’s Sensory Garden
Kids Inspire
Mersea Island Carnival
Mersea Island Explorer Scouts
Mersea Island First Responders
1st Mersea Island Guides
Mersea Island Judo Club
Mersea Island Scout Group
Mersea Island Junior Rugby Football Club
Mersea Island Oyster Football Club
MICA
MICA Monday Lunch Club
Mersea Island Methodist Church
Mersea Island RLNI
Child Funeral Charity
Refresh Mersea
St Helena Hospice
Only Cowards Carry (Knives)
Lions 105EA District Governor Lady’s Charity – EACH
Lions 105EA District Governor Lady’s Charity – Romanian Pride

2) Donations were made to clubs and individuals during the past year when the Club had been asked for financial help. Some of the ways in which we have helped this year are:-

£1,000 donation to the Lions International Northern UK Flood Appeal
£1,000 donation to the Lions International Nepal Earthquake Appeal
Taking a party of children to the Lions Children’s Fun Day at Gt Yarmouth Circus
Children in Need
RBL Poppy Appeal
MICA Lunch Club
A Christmas Day lunch and tea for 36 people home-alone on Christmas Day

Due to rapidly failing equipment, £2,600 has been spent on new digital recording equipment to bring the recording of the Mersea Island Lions Talking Newspaper and Magazine into the modern world. Grants totalling £1,000 were obtained to help towards this cost.

The monies enabling us to support these worthy causes had been raised by:-

Manning the gate at a Waldegraves Car Boot Sale
Selling raffle tickets on behalf of the Mersea Food Drink and Leisures Festival
Round the Island All Terrain Race (half marathon), and 5 & 10 Mile Races
The Annual Lions Summer Show and Transport and Classic Car Show
Car-parking for the Colchester and District Scooter Rally
The Christmas Street Collection for the Home-alone Christmas Dinners
Monies raised by letting out our Lions beach-hut which is available for use in the community.

OUR WORK IN THE COMMUNITY

Our work in the community also involves putting the Courier onto cassette tapes, and recording a Talking Magazine of news and events here on Mersea for anyone with sight problems.

We have a Lions Community Bus which brings people into the village on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and goes into Colchester on a Wednesday morning.

Our Lions Beach-hut is available for use in return for a donation towards its upkeep.

Each Christmas Day we deliver a lunch and tea to anyone who is at home-alone on that day.

With the help of Boots the Chemist and Patrick Menzies Opticians, we collect nearly 1,000 pairs of used spectacles that are recyled and benefit people in developing countries.