Jubilee Centre Race Night

Jubilee Centre Race Night - 18th November 2012

A Friday Night in November saw the Lions running a race night with a difference, as we have wooden horses, as can be seen by the photograph.

The wooden horses use a track made out of felt, which is then split into 6 lanes and each of the lanes has numbered squares. We have two dices, the first is for the number of the horse that will move, the second gives the number of spaces that horse (and rider) can move. The winner of the race is the one who gets the exact number of spaces they are away from the finishing line, on their dice throw.

The hard part is usually getting that exact number to come up, when it is your turn to move. In many of the races on the night, there were four or even five of the horses, who had a chance of winning, which all added to the excitement.

In the six races that were run on the night, horse number 2 was on a hot streak, as it won 3 times, contrasting starkly with horse numbers 1, 4 and 5 who did not win a single race.

I can't say that vast amounts were won on the tote, which I ran along with Lions John Fairhurst and Ray Stafford, but for a 20 pence stake, winning payouts ranged from 60 pence to a massive £1.70!

Thanks to all Lions and family involved, and a special thanks to Lion David Seager for being the Master of Ceremonies (and almost losing his voice).

Lion John Crompton

2nd February 2012

Mayors Charity Christmas Fair

Mayors Charity Christmas Fair - 26th November 2011

Saturday morning was an early start at 7.30AM, to get to the Festival Hall in Bolton Town Hall by 9AM, to get set up for the Mayors Charity Christmas Fair.
 
As you can see from the photograph, we were packed with games, roll-ups and Lions!
 
If you had arrived on the morning, you could have tried your hand at the following :
 
Key Game
Dice game
Take Your Pick
2 Tombola's
Lions Christmas Quiz
 
We also had Bottles from our Message in a Bottle Campaign to give away, which given the space we had available was either a miracle we managed to get them all out, or brilliant use of space!

One of our Lions, Steve Parker had never attended the Christmas Fair before, and he was entrusted with the key game, which is very straightforward - people pay 20 pence, and get a choice of 50 keys to choose from, one of which opens the door, the winner getting the contents inside, which for today was a five pound note. Unfortunately for Steve he had a winner straight away, and then another very soon after, which meant that after raising £1.20, we had lost £10.00! The reason for this abundance of winners soon became apparent, as Lion Jim Wells owned up to the fact that he had put all the winning keys in the sack, not just one. Cue great merriment from the other lions attending (especially me) as a red faced Jim, replaced the money lost.

The other games went down well, with the exception of Take Your Pick, which was making it's debut, with very few people actually paying money to see if they could get to the end and win, by guessing if the next card was higher or lower. I could not blame them too much for not participating, as during testing the game during the event, with Lion John Fairhurst running the game, led me to very few successful attempts to even negotiate my way past the top line never mind to anywhere near the end, and more pairs than a fruit shop!

We managed to raise some money and have a lot of fun which is what it should be about.

Thanks go to the Lions who attended (shown in the photograph above), especially Tony Foster for all the work he did on the tombola's and making the Take Your Pick game.

Lion John Crompton
1st February 2012

Harwood Vegas Night

Harwood Vegas Night - 8th October 2011

Our latest Vegas Night was held at Harwood Golf Club on a rainy Saturday night. After spending a while deciding where each table should be positioned, we got cracking and were ready with a roulette wheel, 2 poker tables, 3 blackjack tables and some other smaller games of chance, comfortably ahead of the scheduled start time.

Unfortunately the expected crowd of over 50 people did not materialise, and only about 25 people were present in the end, due to the competing attractions (?) of Strictly Come Dancing and the X Factor.

We Lions didn't let the smaller number of people put us off, but reduced the number of tables in use, and concentrated on giving those people who attended a fantastic evening.

I shut down my poker table and sat with Lion Ray on the other poker table, playing in the first half of the evening, and running the table in the second half. The first half taught me that I must never go to a Casino and play Poker, as I would soon be bankrupt!

Everyone who attended seemed to enjoy themselves, as the photograph's at the side show. As is normal for our Vegas Nights, several millionaires were created on the evening, enabling them to bid for the auction prizes.

Thanks to all the Lions, their families and guests for being present.

Lion JohnCrompton

1st February 2012