Henley Lions Club

HENLEY Lions Club would like to thank the Toad Hall garden centre and its wonderful staff for the magical Christmas walk-through and for allowing us to place donation buckets so prominently therein.

One again we were unable to invite Santa to visit for the normal four weekends before Christmas and we know that many of us in the town and further afield really missed his presence (and presents).

The event usually enables the club to donate about £4,000 to children’s charities but that was not possible this year. However, the bucket collection did raise £565, so thank you, everyone, for your kindness.

Good news, though, from the Santa sleigh which toured Henley and Shiplake playing Christmas music and obviously delighted so many children (of all ages!).

The elves collected about £5,500, which is a record sum and will go a long way to boosting our rather deleted charity funds.

Through the offices of the d:two Centre and Citizens Advice Henley, a number of local residents have been assisted in various ways when help was desperately needed.

Many thanks to those who have given up their winter fuel payments to help with fuel poverty in our area.

With the current pandemic and the very cold weather, this has been especially appreciated and we continue to accept any donations to this ring-fenced fund.

This year we again gave a little help and Christmas cheer to nearly 100 delighted individuals or families with the gift of food parcels, again from a ring-fenced fund.

Many thanks to the YMCA for allowing us to use its hall for parcel packing and to Tesco staff for help with the shopping and delivery to the hall.

May we gently remind readers that we still collect any unwanted spectacles for distribution to countries where they are, sadly, much- needed.

There are collection boxes at the GP surgeries and Tesco, from where they are regularly collected and sent off to be sorted and repaired before being sent to poorer countries.

Can you imagine the joy of the recipients when they may be able to see to work again or to see their families clearly?

And all with something that most of us just leave, discarded and unused in a drawer.

Towards the end of last year, the club said a sad farewell to our longest- serving, indeed our last, founder member Ian
Forster.

He was a much-admired and inventive friend who constantly suggested ways of helping people and organisations, often in novel and fun ways.

We wish him God speed on his last journey.

The club’s Swimarathon will be held this year for the first time since 2019. It will take place at Henley leisure centre on Saturday, March 26 from 1pm to 5pm when teams of swimmers will be doing lengths of the pool for charity.

We have welcomed several new members to our club and if you would like to join us or just find out more about us, please contact us through our website,
http://henleylions.org.uk

John Moore