Fragrant begonias

Lions Clubs in the UK have teamed up with Thompson & Morgan to sell a new, fragrant begonia called "Sweet Charity". This is the first known fragrant begonia and, during 2010, will be available only through Lions Clubs. Full details are on our web site here.

Jungle Jottings

The January 2010 issue of Jungle Jottings, the club newsletter, has been posted to our website and can be viewed in pdf format by clicking here.

Help for the blind continues

For the past two years, members of Brighton Lions Club have provided transport for blind people from Brighton to attend the social meetings of the Tuesday Club, a club linked to the East Sussex Association for the Blind. In addition, this year we have donated £500 to the Tuesday Club to assist with transport costs and a further £500 towards the cost of the Club's Christmas festivities. The transport provision will continue during 2010, and we have decided to put aside £1,000 so that we can make the same donations during the next year.

Fireworks bonanza

We now have what we hope are the final figures from our fireworks display last month. These show record ticket sales of over £58,000 and a net profit to us of more than £23,000. The previous highest ticket sales were two years ago at £48,000, and 2007 also saw the previous record profit of £17,000.

Annual accounts

The trustees' report and annual accounts for the year ended 30 June 2009 have now been signed off by our accountants, acting as independent examiners. The report and accounts have been uploaded to our web site in pdf format and can be read here.

Travelling Lions

We were still in first place in the District competition at the end of November, but have now been joined by the Whitstable & Herne Bay club. The third-placed club is now 21 points behind.

Book fair

Our monthly book fair is coming up - next Saturday, 5th December, 10.00am till 12 noon at Lions Dene, The Deneway, Brighton. Click here for a map.

We have hundreds of second-hand books, many as new, both hard cover and paperback, priced at just 50p. Videos, CDs and DVDs are also 50p each. Free admission, naturally.

Cockermouth floods

We have made a donation of £500 to Cockermouth Lions Club to be used to assist people affected by last week's floods.

Zone Olympics

Our zone - 2A in district 105SE - is holding an inter-club Olympics this year as a form of social activity. Each club in the zone will host a different competiton in which they and the other clubs will participate. So far, Lewes have run a toad in the hole contest, in which Brighton came joint first, and Adur East organised a quiz, in which we came second. After those first two rounds, Brighton are in first place.

Jungle Jottings

The December 2009 issue of Jungle Jottings, the club's newsletter, has now been published and can be seen here.

Those toys

Some of our members attended at the Royal Sussex County Hospital Nuclear Medicine Centre to mark the handover of the toys and equipment for which the club raised funds at the Royal Pavilion Gardens Fun Day on 28 June 2009 and donated for use by children having treatment at the centre.

A number of staff members also came along including Dr Sabina Dizdarevic – Lead Consultant, Angela Staker - Sister, Professor Mike Peters – Consultant, Lynn Peters – Chief Technician, Helen Campbell – Senior Technician, Mark Applin – Physicist as well as a number of nurses, play supervisors and others.
Jade McShane the Rockinghorse Appeal co-ordinator who organised the event was also there. She is hoping to get some press coverage!

Brighton Lions Club were thanked by Dr Dizdarevic for the donation and expressed how valuable the equipment was in calming children, who are naturally distressed, by occupying and involving them. An added factor was that parents, seeing their children less apprehensive were much less stressed themselves. Sister Angela Staker and Prof. Peters also spoke in a similar way.

Lions were shown around the unit and told about the work that is carried out there. We were shown the playroom where the toys which we provided were already in use.

We also had demonstrated the projector which was provided. This equipment projects highly coloured moving images on to the ceiling above one of the treatment beds so that children can be distracted and absorbed when receiving treatment. We were told of one child who normally screamed during the 30 minutes treatment, who after an initial few minutes became so absorbed in the displays that their attention was completely taken up for the duration of the treatment. This enabled the operatives to work more effectively, undistracted by looking after the child and their parents.



The unit suffers from lack of resources to be used specifically for children as it is not often recognised by fund allocators that children use the unit. For instance they find that up to date DVDs suitable for children are very effective in distracting children but they do not have access to any funds which they could use for this purpose. The staff and nurses also like to have a small supply of ‘treats’ i.e. chocolates etc which can be given to the children when appropriate. Again no resources.

We will be looking through our stock of DVDs in our store, and there may be other ways in which we can assist.

You missed a great display

If you were not at the County Ground yesterday evening you missed a terrific firework display. The weather was kind to us, we had a good crowd, and the fireworks were possibly the best ever.

Tomorrow's weather

The latest forecast for tomorrow is that light showers will die away by mid-afternoon and the evening sky will be clear. With a fairly light wind from the south-west, there should be no problems with the fireworks display.

Fireworks practice

With Bonfire Night fast approaching, some of us have been getting a bit of practice. We provided a small display yesterday at Hassocks Golf Club for their Diwali celebrations and will be doing the same again this evening at East Brighton Golf Club.

Travelling Lions

As at 20 October, Brighton Lions Club was in the lead in the District 105SE competition on 208 points - but only by one point. In second place was Battle & Villages Lions Club on 207, and in third was Whitstable & Herne Bay on 202. It looks like being a close finish as the competition ends before the District Convention at the beginning of February.

Fun day buys toys

Back in the summer the club held a fun day in the gardens of the Royal Pavilion. The funds raised were promised to the Rockinghorse appeal, who told us they were looking to buy toys for the new nuclear medicine department at the children's hospital. We added a bit to the money we raised that day so that all the toys on the list could be bought. They are due to be delivered to the hospital today.

Jungle Jottings

The November 2009 issue of the club's news letter has now been uploaded to the web site or can be seen here.

Brighton Lions help PDSA

A donation of £250 is being made to the local PDSA to help with the costs of treating pets owned by elderly Brighton residents.

Just two weeks to go!

Five Nations Football

Brighton Lions Club is sponsoring the Under 14 team from Patcham United in the Lions' Multiple District youth football competition. In the first round, Patcham have been drawn at home to Horley Town. We don't yet have the date of the match, but it will be played at Patcham High School, Ladies Mile Road, on a Sunday morning.

Watch out for the date and come along to support our team.