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

Mint Casino Quiz Night

Mint Casino Quiz Night - 23rd September 2011

From Small things (Big Things One Day Come)

The above title of a song by Bruce Springsteen aptly reflects how I feel about the Quiz Night. The idea was brought to one of our meetings in August by Lion Stephen Pendlebury, who mentioned that the Mint Casino were looking to hold a Quiz Night with proceeds going to Bolton Lions Club.

After further discussions about how this would work, it was agreed we would provide a trophy for the winners, and would try to enter two teams.

Obviously as this is the first time for the Quiz, we did not know how many people would turn up, but we calculated we might make £100 to £200. In the Lions meeting before the quiz, Lion Stephen gave us a copy of the flyer they were sending out, which noted they were also having an auction.

On to the night, we did have two teams present to battle for the trophy! On arrival, we were the only people there (apart from Lion Stephen and his partner Dilys, who were the quiz masters), but soon people started coming and coming and coming! In the end the room was full and there were almost 60 people doing the Quiz.

Whilst Dilys was marking the Quiz, I then was asked to be the auctioneer, which was great fun, and a great deal of money was raised, culminating in having a bid of £170 for 2 people to attend the Manchester United versus Bolton game in January, with full corporate hospitality!

When Dilys returned with the results, the team I was in achieved a very creditable second place and we received a bottle of wine each (Courtesy of Mint Casino).

The pictures above show the presentation of the monies raised by the Casino to myself and Lion Jim Wells, with a staggering £750 raised which is going to our Christmas Appeal, to help underprivileged children.

As I said at the start ' From small things, one day big things come!'

Thanks to Dilys and Lions Stephen for providing the Quizzes and comparing the evening, as well as the Mint Casino, and also the two teams of Lions who attended the evening. (I won't give you the other Lions teams quiz position, so as no to embarrass them!).

I look forward to next year's Quiz.

Lion John Crompton

23rd November 2011

Fundraising Collection

We held a fundraising collection on Thursday 22nd September at the Asda supermarket in Astley Bridge. Evidence of the economic downturn was shown by the numbers passing through the doors.
One of the features of the day was the late appearance of John Poulsom which meant that Tony Foster had to go into extra time. Tony managed to contact John just as he was about to mow the lawn. On his arrival it was pointed out to John that this action, preferable though it may be to standing like a muppet outside a supermarket, would result only in collecting grass, not money, which was the aim of the exercise. His excuse was that he'd got his diary mixed up, but popular opinion has it that he just couldn't stand the thought of spending two hours in my company. There a lot of people who belong in that category, so we'll go with that as the likely explanation.

The amount raised was £216.89 which under the circumstances was a reasonable total. The circumstances  being, not the recession, but the prolonged bout of banter which took place when Babu Roye and Ron Eadie came to take over from John and I, which rather distracted us from the task in hand. Otherwise I'm sure we'd have passed £300.

Ray Stafford

Canopy Sale

On Thursday 8th September we held a sale of bric-a-brac and clothes at the canopy in Bolton town centre square. It was a dismal day, the kind that makes you want to stay in and that's what most of the sensible citizens of  Bolton did. There was a good turn-out of Lions which meant that quite often we outnumbered the customers, and we took to going on the other side of the stalls to give the illusion of feverish activity, in a bid to attract customers. Because rules would not allow us to park our vehicle on the town square, we had to unload all of our merchandise at the start, and with numerous Lions in attendance it was like the proverbial "sardines in a can", under the canopy.  Lion Jim Wells, ICOB(in charge of books) had to take evasive action to stop the books on his stall from becoming pulp with the driving rain determined  to seek them out. Despite the conditions the Lions stuck manfully, or should that be lionfully, to the task and an amount literally described as £366.17 by our treasurer, John Fairhurst,was raised. Not for the first time, the clothes section made a splendid contribution to the total. Amongst the bric-a-brac there were a few breakages but the customers were distinctly reluctant to pay for them, especially as we were responsible for them(the breakages not the customers).

Our next canopy will be in the new year but we are in desperate need of more bric-a-brac so please contribute what you can.

Bolton Street Collection

Bolton Street Collection - 11th June 2011

Saturday morning at 8AM in the morning was cloudy and overcast, but then it is June in England, so what do you expect? Anyway I was up bright and early to participate in our annual street collection in the centre of Bolton. I arrived in plenty of time for the 9AM start, and settled into my usual position outside WH Smith.

The number of donations you receive always seems to be higher the earlier in the day it is, which I think is due to how visible you are. Although there are less people around at first, the benefit is that you can be seen more easily. This year however, our Activities Chairman Tony Foster had a cunning plan - fluorescent bibs!

The effects of the increase in visibility were definitely seen, as although donations fell away after about 11.30AM (as normal), the amount raised from the collection was the highest since 2005, when I started keeping records of our takings.

In addition, my bucket had the highest collection figure of all Lions collecting on the day, which is a first!

Thanks to the people of Bolton for being so generous, and to the Lions who collected.

Lion John Crompton
29th September 2011