Monday 24 July 2017

New Website for Howick Lions Club

We're very pleased to announce the birth of our beautiful new website to help us engage with and serve our local community better - http://www.howicklions.org.nz/. Please take a look and we'd love to have your feedback!

Now that we have a new website, we won't be posting articles to Blogger any longer. Instead, we'll be publishing our articles from our new website - http://www.howicklions.org.nz/articles.

We'll keep this Blogger site up for a while longer as a historical record of our older blog posts.

Monday 2 January 2017

Howick Lions Win Legacy Award for Work at Howick Historical Village



Thanks for all those that were able to help with painting at Howick Historical Village over the year and I'm very proud to announce that we've received a Lions Clubs International Centennial Legacy Project Award in recognition of our achievements.

I personally feel the Howick Historical Village Project helped bring our Lions member's community spirit to the fore with everyone enjoying the on-going working bees. Also it was much fun. We contributed to a very worthwhile community project for which we can be very proud. We have repaired one building, finished painting two (undercoat and topcoats) and started the undercoat on another. We started in the middle of winter with frost on the ground and finished in the summer when the working conditions were far more pleasant!

I trust I can call on our Club to continue our work at the Village in 2017. The Chairman of Howick Historical Village said he is looking at putting up a sign at the Village recognising the work and support the Howick Lions are doing for them.


Lion Colin Salt
Vice President
Howick Lions Club

To find out more about Howick Lions Club, visit our website

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Dear Colin and the Lions team. A big hearty roar of thanks for all the Lions this morning taking pride lending a hand restoring and repainting Fencible Sergeant Michael Ford's cottage in our Howick Historical Village. I hope you are able to accept a spatter of white paint over your clothes, hands, arms, faces. But it is fun covering up the wrinkles of old age on a 168 year old building. There are a few rotten areas for our carpenter friends to repair. 

Sometime in 2017 we can continue with easy to apply, dripless acrylic paint. May you all have a restful, peaceful, happy Christmas and time to charge your batteries for more good works. With heartfelt thanks and very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. 

Alan La Roche
Howick Historical Village


Howick Lions Hard at Work on Brindle Cottage

Lions Clubs International Centennial Community Legacy Project Award


Sunday 9 October 2016

Brindle Cottage Nearing Completion!

Just wish to thank everyone very much for their turnout today for the painting of Brindle Cottage at Howick Historical Village. It is looking magnificent in the bright spring sun.  We had a 100% turnout of the Lions who said they would be available.

Special thanks to our new Lions members from "Neighbourly". Your work was much appreciated and the standard of your paint application was first class.

The photo taken below was just before June's fresh lemon muffin break. During morning tea Alan La Roche gave us a talk on the history of Brindle Cottage. Amazing that even in the olden days the Council needed permits and regularly inspected construction of the building.

What a difference today was. Some Lions remember painting the old Methodist Church in the middle of winter when it was freezing. Today was a cruise as we basked in the warm sun.

A highlight was when Taskmaster Colin (who wore gloves to stop getting paint on his hands) after morning tea put his gloves back on inside out thereby totally coating his hands with cream latex paint. This was discovered when the gloves were taken off at the end of the morning. An embarrassing moment in front of Tail Twister Tom.

From the comments afterwards the Team seemed to have had a good time learning many new humorous jokes and the inevitable tall stories about golfing and fishing exploits.

Once again thanks to everyone. Also to Alan (from the Village) for having everything ready before we started and also staying behind to clean all the brushes etc.

Lion Colin Salt
Vice President
Howick Lions Club

To find out more about Howick Lions, visit our website

Howick Lions Hysterical Village Painting Crew!

Saturday 1 October 2016

President's Blog - October 2016

With daylight saving underway it must be nearly Christmas. Just made a check and as at Oct 1st, there are 85 sleeps ‘till Santa squeezes his way down your chimney or some such other point of entry!

That means we are getting very near to the busy time of year for Lions. Hope all the prep is going well for the Santa Parade.

Good to see the prospective new members are coming along to working bees, dinner nights and some to the business night. Let’s make sure we make them welcome and after due process look forward to them joining our club.

Very nice to welcome Lion Ted Curtis from Kenilworth Lions Club in the UK (Paul's Dad) to our last business night. Hope he enjoyed the experience as much as we enjoyed having him visit.

Despite the rain for the Cockle Bay School Carnival, our chip cooking for the festival was a great success. More especially as we were under cover and stayed dry. I am sure they will be pleased to get the cheque for $990.00 which we raised. This will add to the prepay vouchers; a good result. I understand we had a reasonable result from our fund raising sausage sizzle at The Warehouse in Botany too. Well done.

As noted before, a busy time ahead - chips (twice), seniors lunch, Christmas Parade,Christmas Lights, - a busy but rewarding time to be a Lion.

You will be aware the next dinner night (Oct 5th ) is to be a pub quiz and fish & chips. Let’s hope we get a good turnout and please bring friends, family, uncle Tom Cobbly and all to make a great night. I hear tell there will be a special raffle too so extra cash please to contribute!!

Bye for now,
Yours in Lions
Grant Taylor

President, Howick Lions

To find out more about Howick Lions, visit our website

Thursday 1 September 2016

President's Blog - September 2016

So another month coming to an end and maybe spring just around the corner?  Although as I write this I am not too sure.

Another busy month for Howick Lions and I am sure more to come.  We had our fund raising sausage sizzle at The Warehouse in Botany, although I have not heard the total; the ‘A’ Team on the morning shift got us off to a great start. About 153 to be exact.

As noted previously a very good business meeting with productive discussion and a feeling that the Club is on the right track - well done to all.  Myself and V.P Colin attended the Zone meeting at the Manurewa RSA last week.  We were well looked after with local hospitality.  Usual reports from the Clubs present and all seem to be working hard to raise money, support youth and try to build membership.  Even had a report from Remuera who have formed an association with Parnell Rotary to assist the homeless with breakfast in conjunction with the Salvation  Army.

Your sub-committee had another meeting planning the Howick Lions Summer Festival for February 2017.  Things are coming along well although much work still to do.  

An excellent turnout at the Howick Historical Village on Saturday, with much painting and a few laughs too.  Very nice to meet some prospective new members who rolled their sleeves up and helped with the work.  I look forward to them coming to the dinner night and I am sure we can encourage them to join.

So that’s about it.  Looking forward to next week and another dinner night and our guest speaker ’Dr Toot’. Look forward to seeing you there.

Yours in Lions Grant
President
Howick Lions Club


To find out more about Howick Lions, visit our website

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Notes From Our Dinner Meeting - 7th September 2016

Thank you so much for inviting us for the meeting last night. We appreciate your hospitality and had a really good time. Also, Sean would like to thank you for the lovely framed certificate. Please pass our regards to everyone. Many thanks.

Kind regards
Mia and Sean
Dr Toot
Brass and Woodwind Specialists


The irrepressible Dr Toot (aka Sean Murphy) living up to his moniker 

Saturday 27 August 2016

Howick Lions Give Brindle Cottage a Makeover

A big thanks to the full turnout at the Howick Historical Village Project yesterday.

As well as a large number of Howick Lions reporting for duty we also had three people from Neighbourly who contacted Lion Paul to see if they could come along and help. So Alan from the Village had to run around finding more paintbrushes and extra pails for paint.

We managed to paint all the walls of Brindle Cottage with its first top coat. No mean feat. Then as a bonus and a little light relief we switched to red paint for the window frames and doors. The 'old girl' (Brindle Cottage) looked brand new by the time we finished.

Our three volunteers also sanded down two large mangles and then applied rust proof paint. A fantastic job by the time they finished. We also enjoyed morning tea with fresh hot muffins from June. Our thanks to her.

Below is a letter of appreciation from the Historical Village. All Health and Safety was observed and first aid equipment was on site. Safety Officer Dean made sure we all signed the hazards sheets. I feel the main hazards were other Lions' painters who were totally unselfish in sharing their paint brush flicks on other unsuspecting Lions. How else would I have got the perfect paint hand print on the back of my shirt I ask!

Lion Colin Salt
Vice President

Hi Colin. A very big thank you for the team of ten that gave Fencible Henry Brindle's Cottage its first finishing coat of paint. What a change in its appearance. It is looking very good now. Please thank your wife June for her wonderful muffin baking. It was a very welcome muffin break. An excellent working bee for all concerned. Kind regards, Alan La Roche


The Howick Lions Painting Crew

To find our more about Howick Lions, visit our website

Sunday 7 August 2016

Howick Historical Village Painting - Methodist Church Complete

Thanks everyone for the magnificent turnout.

11x Lions - Fantastic.

The Methodist Church is now finished and looks resplendent. The Club can be proud of their work. Some Lions worked on the Brindle Cottage where there is still more work to do.

Because of the large turnout everyone was off the site by 11.30am. Dean made sure that Health and Safety was observed. He also carried a large green medical kid which Neil insists he had emptied and put his lunch inside. Dean just smiled - only he knew its contents.

The weather was fine and sunny. It was also initially rather cold with a southerly wind but the Lions will and pedigree prevailed. Morning tea was fresh lemon warm muffins from June plus the Village supplied plenty of biscuits and some chocolate fingers.

Next Sunday is washing down parts of Brindle Cottage ready for undercoat. The weatherboards received a top coat today.

Scaffolding was at last in place and Lion Paul did some of the aerial work with Alan on trapeze high above. Generously flicking paint spots down onto Lions below.

Once again thanks guys and Agnes who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the painting.

Cheers,
Lion Colin Salt
Vice President

To find out more about Howick Lions, visit our website