Uckfield Lions is part of Lions Clubs International which was founded in 1917 & now has 45,000 clubs in 206 countries and 1.4 million members throughout the world. This makes Lions Clubs International the world’s largest service club organization. The first club in the UK was formed in London in 1950. In the beginning, Lions were best known for fighting blindness & still carry on the good work today. Lions also volunteer for many different kinds of community projects – including caring for the environment, feeding the hungry and aiding senior citizens and the disabled.
Uckfield & District Lions Club was formed in 1969, so has celebrated over 50 years of serving Uckfield and the surrounding villages. We are a mixed club of around 32 members from a variety of backgrounds. We all have one thing in common; we want to help others in the local community by fund raising & giving some of our spare time to help organisations & those in need. We have an associate membership called Friends of Lions who, with members’ partners, husbands and wives, help at many club activities. We meet as a club once a month for a business meeting, as well as for regular committee meetings and social events.
In 2011 Uckfield & District Lions Club opened their bookshop & in July 2014 moved to what was a derilict block of garages in Olives Yard, just off the High Street opposite Greggs. Club members stripped out the building & contructed new walls, replaced the ceiling, installed a new toilet & with the help of a qualified electrician, re wired the property. The shop is now well established, open 10am-4pm Tuesday to Fridays & 10am-1pm on Saturdays. The shop raises annually in excess of £18,000 for good causes.
Uckfield & District Lions Club has been running a Community Minibus since 2002 & in 2008 purchased a new 14 seater minibus with a disabled lift access to enable this valuable service within the local community to continue. This bus was then replaced in 2016 with a new Mercedes minibus. The minibus is available for hire to community groups.
Uckfield & District Lions Club have other established annual activities which are detailed on this website. These include Santa’s Sleigh at Christmas, Big Fun Day on Luxford Field, Easter Egg raffle, as well as a variety of other fundraising activities.
Much of what Uckfield & District Lions Club is aimed at serving the community. This is through donations to good causes and community activities, such as yearly prostate cancer screening event.
If you would like to be involved, why not come along to one of our meetings & find out more of what we do in the community. For more information please see our contact page, we would love to hear from you!
The video below, produced by Lions Clubs International, gives a flavour of what we are all about.