Southam & District Lions Club – Poetry Competitions 

Back in 2008, we welcomed a Lion from Fornby to our ‘pride’ and what a good decision that was for Lion Dave Brough to move to Southam! Dave persuaded his new ‘friends’ that a Poetry Competition would be a good idea and so a new Southam Lions initiative was born based on the success of competitions in Fornby. Dave taking the lead of course coercing others of us cowering in terror to be his best mates!

This is now our third competition and with expert advice from Dave at the ‘open mic’ sessions we arrange, the standard just gets better and better. Entrants from as young as 5 years old to 90 years regularly submit their poems and it is great when they come up the microphone and read out their submissions with so much flair and enthusiasm. Indeed the local schools are very supportive and enthusiastic in getting their students send in entries.

There was standing room only at a packed Graham Adams Centre in Southam on Friday March 25th as the budding ‘poet laureates’ gathered to see the presentations and hear the poets read out their entries at the ‘open mic’ session. The winner of the adult category was Roland Raffell whose poem ‘Who’ll send me flowers when I come home’ was very moving and referred to our brave service personnel returning home from the ‘theatre of war’ through places like Royal Wootton Bassett as we have all seen on TV news etc.

All entries are compiled in a book of Poems each year and the Lions sell these at very reasonable prices to the public at large. If anyone would like to purchase a book of poems contact Lions Dave on 01928 810513.

We learnt a lot from those first two competitions, and with funding from the Arts Council in 2009 and then this year from County and Town councils, our Poetry Competitions are now set to be successful annual events.