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President Barry Smith
President Barry Smith
The beginning of July saw the start of a new Lions’ year with Lion Barry Smith taking over as President from Lion Lyn Roberts. Barry thanked Lyn for her year in the chair which due to the pandemic had been somewhat unusual with all of the meetings taking place over Zoom. However, over the Christmas period between lockdowns, the club was very active with the Trees of Light, the new Christmas post delivery service and a bucket collection with Father Christmas in Bedford Square which altogether raised around £15,000 for local charities.
Barry said that he hoped his year would see a return to near normality - face-to-face meetings have already started and planning for future activities is now well underway. The first major event will be the annual fireworks display at 7pm on Saturday 6th November which this year sees a change in venue from Tavistock Meadows to Tavistock Community Football Club at Langsford Park. Further details will be published nearer the time on the Lions’ website and Facebook page - the Lions are very grateful to the football club committee for allowing the event to return to Langsford Park after so many years.
The club intends to run their Christmas postal service, which started last year, with the assistance and guidance of Tavistock Guides; stamps and post-boxes will be ‘posted’ around the town at various outlets and the club is grateful for the support of local traders. This proved to be a very popular service with around 4,000 cards being delivered in the week leading up to Christmas and again, full details will be available on the club website and Facebook page in due course. The centrepiece of Tavistock’s Christmas lights is always the Lions Club’s Trees of Light on the front of the town hall, so on the last Friday of November, the lights on the three trees will be switched on. For more details and the sponsorship form, see the What’s On section.
Father Christmas will once again be out and about on his wonderful sleigh visiting local schools and distributing gifts from the Lions and he will also be in Bedford Square on a couple of Saturdays before Christmas helping club members with their bucket collections. So, all in all, a busy time for the Lions which could be even busier if the ‘powers that be’ decide that Goose Fair and Dickensian Evening go ahead - but at the time of writing this has yet to be decided.
More details about the club can be found at www.tavistocklions.org.uk, on Facebook or by calling 0345 8334807.