2011 Real Ale Festival

12th/13th/14th August 2011 on the Beach Lawns

Thanks to the fantastic response from both sponsors and the people who visited the 2010 Real Ale Festival; we were pleased to be able to donate £10,000 to Help for Heroes. The 2011 Real Ale Festival will be supporting the Weston-super-Mare branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Weston Hospicecare. We hope to see all our regulars again and hopefully many more new faces. We are looking for sponsors for the excellent brews that will be quaffed. Details of the event and how to become a sponsor are on the Weston Lions Real Ale website please click on the link below:

http://www.westonlionsrealalefestival.org.uk/

What do we do?

Our main activities are collecting money to distribute to help the local community through Charities and also directly to worthy causes. We are a service organisation within Weston-super-Mare but we want to have have fun whilst helping wherever we can.

Over the last two years we have distributed £64,589. In the past year we have donated £31,692 to numerous organisations and individuals. Audited accounts are lodged every year with the Charities commision which detail Income and expenditure and can be seen here:- http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithoutPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1063936&SubsidiaryNumber=0

Who benefits?

First of all the members of the club benefit, although all the work is voluntary and unpaid we enjoy what we undertake. Our main aim is to support the local community, and that means all in the community. Young, old, disabled, anybody who needs our help and also the charities and local organisations supporting them. The list is long and varied. Help for disabled shoppers, blind people, Asthmatics, Diabetics, disability groups, local youth groups - including Scouting and Guiding and local schools. The list goes on and on. All requests for help are considered on their merits. However businesses are not supported.

How do we get the money?

The ways we raise money is almost as varied as the beneficiaries. However we have some main fundraising events each year. We are very lucky and grateful to be supported by a number of local businesses in our fund raising efforts. Also we owe a big thanks to all the people of Weston-super-Mare and also the visitors to the town who continue to help us every year. Some, but by no means all of our regular events are:

Sand Bay Holiday Village are kind enough to let us run a weekly Teddy bear raffle which raised £9508 in 2009/10.
Tesco kindly let us run our annual Christmas collection in the store and despite the snow and ice preventing us from having as many sessions as normal we collected £2311. ASDA also allowed us to collect at Christmas and with bag packing sessions we raised £1210 in 2010.
A large number of local pubs, clubs and businesses help us raffle Easter eggs and that raised £566 in 2010.
Promotion and support of the Tough Ten all terrain 10 mile run brought in £2790 in 2010.
Our seafront activities, the Teddy Bear stall and Roll a Penny, through the summer months raised £566 in 2010.
An all new event for 2008 was the Real Ale festival which in 2010 allowed us to donate £16124 to various good causes with Help for Heroes being the main benificiaries.
The figures mentioned for 2009/2010 are to the end of our financial year which ends June each year.

Additionally a whole host of other fund raising events and collections take place through out the year.

What else do we do?

We socialise a lot! Every month we have a dinner meeting in the Dauncey's Hotel. Various social events through the year are organised including trips away, parties and annual events.

Interested in knowing more?

If you would like more information or are perhaps interested in knowing how you can join, please e-mail one of the officers listed or use the 'Contact Us Page'. We will then get back to you. Although we only cover the Weston-super-Mare town area there are clubs throughout the UK and they also need your support and help even if you are not in Weston-super-Mare.

Lions are an international network of 1.3 million men and women in 205 countries and geographic areas who work together to answer the needs that challenge communities around the world.