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Lions Clubs International
STOUR VALLEY LIONS
At the heart of your community
What We Do
Read about the activities of the Stour Valley Lions, or click here to read more about the Global initiatives.
Our Social Calendar
Its not all work! We have a very active Social Calendar with a good mix of activities. In 2024, we have had regular meals together, visited Gloucester Cathedral and Docks, Westonbirt Arboretum, Warwick Castle and many more! There's always something to look forward to!
Social Events
Bumper Book Fairs
The Lions are well known for their book sales and we have held 3 Book Sales during 2024 raising money for Lions causes.
Fund Raising Event
Shipston Food Festival
The Lions have organised and run the Shipston Food Festival in 2023 and 2024 raising significant funding for Lions causes. The 2025 Food Festival planning is already underway!
Community Event
Supporting local groups
We support local groups and events including marshalling at Remembrance Day, managing the car parking at Ilmington Fete and Mashalling at the Victorian evening.
Commmunity Support
Race Nights
The SVLions have run 2 Race Nights in 2024; one for Ettington School PTA and the other for the Ekica School
Fund Raising
Working at local fetes
We have worked with Shipston Lodge Nursing Home for many years, in the organisation and implementation of their Winter and Summer Fetes
Community Event
Street Collections
Occasionally we do street collections. Recently we have collected money for the Shipston First Responders in the town centre and for Global Humanitarian Appeals
Fund Raising
Parties for the Community
The SVLions funded a free film and tea party for the Senior residents of Shipston to beat the January blues!.
Community Event
The Gyratory Memorial Garden
Completed the major update work on the Gyratory Memorial Garden. This has been a 2 year project funded by the SVLions.
Commmunity Support
Helping to look after Shipston's environment
The Lions have taken on the care of some areas of our environment including 5 Benches around Shipston. The ones at Stour Court and by the Ellen Badger hospital have been replaced in 2024.
Community Support
Raffles
Stour Valley Lions are well known for the Food Festival raffle, the Christmas Hamper Raffle and the Giant Easter Egg raffle. You'll see us in the Coop and around local fetes selling tickets.
Fund raising
Shipston Beer Festival
We worked with Shipston Rugby Club in the organisation and implementation of the Shipston Beer festival with 50% of profits going to the Shipston First Responders
Fund Raising
Film Evenings
We run monthly Film Evenings at the Townsend Hall for the Stour Valley Community.
Community Event
The Annual Shipston Duck Race
For many years we have worked with the Shipston Angling Club on the Annual Duck Race. In 2024, 50% of profits was given to the Shipston First Responders
Community Event
Donating money to local worthy causes
We held a “Lions Den” and gave £5000 in grants to local charities and causes that were judged to be worthy causes. In addition, we donate money to the Shipston Food Bank, the Shipston First Responders and other local organisations.
Commmunity Support
This only provides a snapshot of our activities. Why not have a look at our Facebook page or even better, come along and meet us!
Childhood Cancer
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Cancer is a leading cause of death for children and adolescents around the world.
Approximately 300,000 children aged 0 to 19 years old are diagnosed with cancer each year.
Childhood cancer generally cannot be prevented or screened.
In 2019, only 20% of countries had early detection guidelines.
That same year, only 33% had a defined referral system for medical resources.
Lions help children and families:
Increase acts of support to families
&
children affected by childhood cancer
Lions help communities:
Improve diagnostics, treatment
&
continued care to those affected by childhood cancer
Lions help the world:
Increase awareness for childhood cancer
as a global priority
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Environment
The earth sustains human life.
We’ve seen how our stewardship of natural resources can improve quality of life and increase engagement in our local communities.
Our environment is more than a background: it’s our home.
And we’re committed to caring for it.
Lions support the environment through tree planting, local litter picks and and recycling initiatives.
Hunger
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Over 11% of the world’s population live with hunger and yet 1/3 of the world’s food production is wasted.
Hunger is a problem without borders.
We offer grants, programmes and initiatives to help make huge strides in providing meals and nutrition for those in need - in the hope that one day no child will ever have to live without knowing when their next meal will come.
Locally, we help by supporting our local food banks,
by feeding the homeless and supporting the elderly, ensuring they have enough food, especially at Christmas and in times where fuel poverty is causing the dilemma –
‘to heat or to eat?’.
Vision
Lions are known throughout the world for their work to improve the lives of the visually impaired and prevent avoidable blindness.
Way back in 1925, Helen Keller challenged Lions to become “Knights of the Blind, in the crusade against darkness”.
Since then, Lions across the globe have worked tirelessly to eradicate the causes of preventable blindness, such as diabetic retinopathy, as well as supporting surgery to remove cataracts and save sight across the Third World.
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Stour Valley Lions support this work with spectacle collections across our area, which are recycled, sorted and dispensed to people in the Third World who could not otherwise afford eyecare.
Imagine what life would be like if you could not see?
Community
We are a proud part of the greater community of Shipston on Stour and its surrounding villages in the Stour Valley and are proud to demonstrate our civic pride.
Gardens
We proudly maintain the Lions Gyratory Garden in the town, which is part of the annual Shipston in Bloom activities and is also dedicated to those men from Shipston who gave their lives in the First World War.
We are about to undertake a project to revamp this site, incorporating new planting, as well as the elements of a Sensory Garden.
Cinema
In addition, we run a very popular monthly Community Cinema, with recent releases shown on our big screen. It is a great evening out to meet friends and you can also take part in our raffle. Please see the Forthcoming Events page for our next screening.
Welfare
We receive many referrals from the local surgeries to support families in need and we are pleased to be able to help wherever we can, especially where the required support is not available elsewhere.
Fundraising
To support our Welfare Projects, we need to raise funds.
We do this in many ways, from Book Sales to Raffles.
We also have our very popular Christmas Hamper and Easter Egg raffles, in conjunction with some of the popular pubs in the town.
We recently embarked on two new major fundraising projects
– we ran a Beer Festival in conjunction with the local rugby club in June,
which was a tremendous success and we hope to repeat this in the near future
– possibly 2023!
We are also planning to reintroduce the Shipston Food Festival in September 2023.
As a market town, food has been such an important part of our town heritage in the past and our aim is to support existing local traders, as well as specialist food vendors in our immediate area though a spectacular reintroduction of a festival.
Please watch our Forthcoming Events page for more details.
Social Events
Life would be pretty dull if it were all just work wouldn’t it?
– and the same is true in Stour Valley Lions.
We like to bring out the ‘fun’ in fundraising and in addition, we have an active social programme, with a broad range of monthly events held across the year.
These have included skittles games, sampling different international cuisine styles, wine and gin tasting, theatre trips, crown green bowls tasters and many more.
It all makes for a balanced life as part of Stour Valley Lions Club.
Welfare Projects
It is surprising the number of needy causes that are hidden away in relatively wealthy communities – often those who need help the most, shout the least.
We receive direct approaches and recommendations for assistance from neighbours and we also work with other organisations such as the local Health Centre teams,
the Citizens Advice Bureau, Samaritans etc to find those most in need.
There are many ways in which we can help, sometimes it is manpower,
other times it may be financial.
Whatever, we take pride in responding quickly to all requests.
We also promote awareness and testing for Diabetes through a joint initiative with the local Health Centre and are exploring if we can also set up Prostate Cancer screening as well.
Youth
We are proud to support the youth of our community, through education programmes for drug prevention, or to help avoid youth-offending and crime.
In addition, we actively promote sport for the young in and around Shipston on Stour,
through our schools and local youth and sports clubs.
We have forged close working links with local schools supporting career events,
as well as helping other youth organisations such as Scouts and the Girl Guide network.
We would love to start a Leo Club (young Lions) in the town
and are actively pursuing this option.
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