Reminiscence
by Rodney Owen
Many Lions Clubs are formed by being sponsored by a nearby successful existing Lions Club.
And so, it was that Kidderminster Lions seeking to expand found like minded new members in the Kingswinford area. 21 new members were required to form a new club in its own right and with the guidance of the Kidderminster Club Members they became the “mother” club of the Kingswinford Lions Club. The first meetings of Kingswinford Lions Club were held at the Himley House Hotel.
On attaining the required minimum of 21 members Kingswinford Lions Club was “Chartered” at is new meeting venue – The Summerhill Hotel on Thursday 13th March 1975.
The Summerhill Hotel was also to be the venue of the new Clubs successful fundraising event in the form of a Sportsman’s Night, an amateur boxing evening providing quality entertainment. This event prevailed for a number of years until it became to costly to run profitably.
1986 was to be a turning point for the Club. A change of name was allowed by Oakbrook (where the head office and administration of Lions Clubs International is based), Stourbridge being a Town proper and a reflection of the area covered by the Club activities and its Membership was incorporated into the name of the Club. On the 11th anniversary of the Club Kingswinford & Stourbridge Lions Club appeared for the first time together with a brand new “Charter” with the new name. At this point, although the Club still had 20+ Members there only remained 3 original Charter Members.
A new fundraising event was trialled, known as our “Male Ale and Tale Night” and held at Kinver Community Centre, as the name suggests it was an all-male evening where beer was served all night for free! The Tale being a very “blue” comedian, during the evening horse racing films were shown with a tote manned by the Lions Members. A £100 raffle was a very popular part of the night. Whilst the evening was hard work to organise and run it did raise over £2000 for our funds. We ran this event for many years until the times caught up with us!
One of the Clubs Service achievements in the early years was to provide a holiday break for families and older couples who would not otherwise be able to afford a holiday. We purchased a static caravan in the Wyre Forest Holiday Park which was fully equipped for those in need of a short break. A resident caretaker was always on hand to take care of any emergencies. Lions took it in turns to visit the site to carry out any upkeep and maintenance required of the site and caravan. This service came to an end when the site owners required the older caravans (of which ours was one) to be replaced.
The Kinfayre restaurant in Kinver – which also had a skittle ally at the rear became the venue for our “Service Day” – where the Lions Club Members would entertain a group of elderly gentlemen from the local area. The men were collected and then later returned to their homes after a good evening spent bowling, eating, and drinking!
The first item that the Club purchased as a fundraising piece of equipment was a candy floss machine from Kando in Brierley Hill for £800. It had such prolific use at local schools and other events that it had paid for itself within the year. (We still have a candy floss machine, but the social demise of all things “sugar” today has meant that this money “spinner” no longer has the same attraction – but it is still available!)
A one off event that took place at the old White Horse pub was a Yard of Ale contest. We had quite a few contestants and a great deal of spillage and I think just one survivor!
The Clubs first foray into catering came about when we acquired an old electric doughnut maker. An old sprite caravan was then purchased, stripped down and two serving hatches fitted with a serving counter. We then purchased a popcorn machine and with that at one end of the caravan and the ring doughnut machine at the other end we were away.
Lye Carnival was our first venue for the caravan and for several years to follow. That is now history as the High Street cannot any longer be closed and the Carnival has not been run there for some time now.
Our big problem was always locating a willing provider of electricity, as an interim solution we obtained a 5Kw generator.
Sales of ring doughnuts in any location proved to be one of our best ventures and eventually we had to acquire a larger trailer and convert our cooking to LPG. The old Sprite caravan was dismantled and the chassis became the base for our Santa Sleigh mark II.
Our last catering trailer proved a popular attraction but keeping it in line with ever more stringent Health and Safety regulations became a big ask of the Club members.
One the major outside events the Club undertook was the “Battle of Broome”. A 2 day battle re-enactment event on the fields of Eric Clement at Broome. The Clubs organising skills in promoting the many attractions could not have been better deployed, it was just a sad reality that we only broke even in terms of fundraising.
Another outside event we undertook was our “It’s a Knockout” at Kinver Community Centre, this was based on the popular tv series and involved teams competing against one another in mud and water! It was at this event that we held our first ever duck race – an event that we have been able to start again but this time based on the canal at Wordsley.