STRETFORD AND DISTRICT LIONS CLUB
1981 - 2006
Short History of the Club
In 1980 City of Manchester Lions Club and Northenden Club proposed that a club was necessary in the Old Trafford / Stretford area. An initial public meeting was held at Trafford Public Hall and as a subsequence of that meeting Stretford and District Lions Club was chartered on 15th. June 1981.
In 1982, the first Miss Stretford Lions competition was held and Stretford Leos Club was formed.
1983 was the year we moved our meeting place to The Trafford Park Hotel, and held our 2nd Miss Stretford Lions competition.
The following year1984 we held our last Miss Stretford Lions and in 1985 we moved yet again to the Old Cock Hotel Stretford.
In 1986, we unfortunately had to disband our Leos Club, as most of the members were going to University or moving away.
1987/8/9 we helped with various local welfare projects like Friends of Stretford Memorial Hospital and International projects Sightfirst and Wateraid.
In 1989 Colin Murphy was Zone Chairman.
In 1990 we moved to our present meeting place the Melville, on Barton Lane, Stretford
In 1991, Lions Clubs International decided that Ladies could be invited to join Lions. Clare Toft was our first Lady member. In 1994 Lions Clare and Alec Toft received the International Presidents Certificate of Appreciation
and the following year Alec was Zone Chairman and one of the Leo Club members and their Last President Lucy Toft became a Lion Member.
In 1996 Lion Roy Blackman OBE passed to Higher Service.
In 1996, In appreciation of his devotion to all his work for the club, Charter Member Alec Toft was awarded A Melvin Jones Fellowship by his fellow members of the Club.
In February 1997 Lion Alec Toft passed to Higher Service
The following year Mike Hendrickson became Zone Chairman and Clare Toft became District Youth Award Officer and remained so for the following two years.
In 2001 Lion Tom Daintree passed to Higher Service
In 2002 we became of age and we celebrated, this year also saw the return to the den of Ray McNair one of our Charter members, and also saw the passing to Higher Service of a former Member Les Jarrett in Jamaica.
2004/5/6 Clare Toft has served Life Skills Officer(Tacade)
Alas, in 2006 our Honorary Member Linda Dhaminka Passed to Higher Service in Zambia where she had worked for several years Establishing a Health Clinic.
Also in this year the club nominated Mike Hendrickson for the post of Vice-District Governor of District 105BN for the year 2006-2007 at District Convention and he was elected to that post.
2006 also brings us to the reason for this special Charter celebration . We are 25 years old and many thought we would never make it, but we have, and we are very proud to be part of the biggest Service Organization in the world.
