All that Jazz 

Wow – what a great weekend!

Worcester Lions were lucky enough to get a stand at Upton Jazz Festival this year.

Martin, John and Janet put the gazebo up on Thursday with the 'Lions' sign that had been adapted by Martin to fit onto the top of his gazebo - very impressive!

We set up the stand for business on Friday morning and Janet’s tent fitted nicely into the area behind the stand for her to camp out over the weekend. She was joined by various Worcester Lions members (John, Albert & his wife Jean, June, Trevor, Catherine and Gordon) during the day selling tombola tickets at 50p a time with a chance to win one of our lovely ‘lions’. We had several winners but they all seemed to come from another Lions club or connected to Lions in some way! Then the rain came down!!!! We closed up shop at 7pm as the rain was torrential and Joy and Ian came along and kept Janet company for a few hours and we listened to some fantastic music before she crept into her tent trying not to 'drip' everywhere – it was starting to look a little like Glastonbury!!

On Saturday 5 more Lions (Colin, Margrit, Gisele, Catherine & Gordon) and 3 friends of Lions turned up (plus Barny the dog - we were resorting to extra ways to attract business!). The face-painters tried their best to attract the children in – Gisele started blowing bubbles to get noticed and the tombola went quite well. The stand was manned from 10am until 8pm.

Sunday morning, as the site was pretty deserted, Janet went down into town and listened to the church service followed by joining in the parade through the High St led by a Dutch band. We opened up our stand for a short time with John and Robert, but business was very slow - not only with our stand but with most of the stands in the vicinity. The sunshine was very welcome but it also meant people spent more time in the shade on the marquees listening to the jazz. So, we decided to close up shop at 3pm.

So, overall although we didn't take a great deal of money our 'Lions' club certainly was noticed and lots of people came to speak to us both from Lions clubs locally and from other parts of the country and some that had not heard of us before. It was an opportunity for us to be seen, have fellowship and also make a little bit of money. (Janet also had a really enjoyable weekend!!!) Janet Long, Projects Team