2024 Coach Trip To Bath
The seniors coach trip to Bath was on 17th September. This year, there were four coaches and nearly 180 passengers. The weather was sunny and it was a great day out!
2024 Knowle Fun Run
- a great day for an ice cream!
The 38th Knowle Fun Run took place on the 19th May 2024. The number of registrations continued to rise this year and we had just short of 1250 runners. Adrian Harris, Fun Run lead, said “it was a great occasion and everyone, both runners and spectators, appeared to have a wonderful time.” He went on to say “we were blessed with good weather so the spectators at Arden were able to enjoy the day and enjoy a hot dog, burger and especially an ice cream.”
A number of runners said how nice it was that so many turned out to cheer them around the route. With over 1,200 participants we expect to have raised around £20,000 our best year since before the Covid pandemic which put a break on such events and discouraged some from taking part in the last two years.
2024 Easter Egg Raffle and Winner
Thanks to the generosity of the Black Boy Pub and their many customers our
Easter Egg Raffle, which we run in conjunction with Age UK Solihull, raised over £1,200.00.
The winning ticket belonging to Roy Cash was drawn by Lioness Hulda, a visiting Lion from Iceland, who just happened to be enjoying a meal with her future husband.
You never know when you will bump into a fellow Lion.
2023 Fun Run
The 38th Knowle Fun Run took place on the 21st May 2023. The number of registrations rose significantly on last year at around 1000 and that old Knowle Fun Run “buzz” was back in the village. There was a great atmosphere on the Arden Academy playing fields with the resident Ukulele band providing the background music and Eric Lyons keeping us fed with fantastic burgers and hot dogs.
We were delighted to be joined for a second year by our local MP, Saqib Bhatti, who mingled with the crowd, started each race and awarded the prizes. The Kids runs were competitive in all age groups. Many charities joined the fun, including Meningitis NOW, AGE UK Solihull. We also had stalls from Bannatynes, who ran the warm up before the start of the main run and Virgin Active. The Ladies Circle provided the tea and coffee.
There was enthusiastic support from many residents on the route around the village providing encouragement and water sprays. Our one wheelchair competitor said he greatly enjoyed it but that Barcheston Road was “a killer”. We also had a young blind runner escorted around the course.
We raised approximately £16000 for charity although the figures are to be confirmed at this stage. Some groups were also raising money for their own causes. We had a resurrected squiggle, once known as Prince raising money for Prostate Cancer, we had Solihull School raising money for the Birmingham Children’s Hospital and we had several groups raising money for Maggies.
The event lead Richard Buckley said “I was pleased that everything on the day and I want to give a big thanks to all the volunteers that manned registration, t-shirt distribution and most importantly marshal points around the route. "
2023 Easter Egg Hunt
Many families took the Lions challenge for our annual Easter Egg Hunt. Thankfully the weather was sunny before Easter. Many found it challenging this year and we had few entries where all 20 eggs had been found. This was made more difficult when one of the eggs on the Knowle route went missing (presumably eaten by a Lion)! So we relaxed the prize entry requirements to 15 eggs and this saw far more hunters qualify for a prize.
Big thanks to the Dark Horse Coffee shop in Dorridge for donating two prizes, Freda's Deli and Swan Yard Coffee for a prize each. Not forgetting four fabulous cones of sweets donated by the Knowle Traditional Sweet Shop.
The winners in 2023 were:
Dorridge 1st Prize, Ben, Mabel, Rachel and Martin Baker
Dorridge 2nd Prize, Sophia Roddy
Knowle 1st Prize, Tom and Phoebe Livesey
Knowle 2nd Prize, Ethen Pykett.
And we are grateful for some great comments received this year:
Thank you again for all the hard work with the egg hunts. Myself and daughters aged 11 and 8 really enjoyed doing both trails. Unfortunately we only found 19 in each trail (!) but thought we’d pop you a quick email anyway…
My 8 year old son and I really enjoyed doing both of your hunts over the Easter weekend while staying with his grandparents in Knowle so thank you very much, even if we could only find 19 on the Knowle trail, despite doing it three times!
Hello just wanted to say thank you so much for organising the Easter egg hunt.
We took our two children last Monday and it was great to spend a few hours outside. Unfortunately we only managed to find 16 of them, but here are our valiant efforts.
Me and my family really enjoyed doing your Easter egg hunt this year, especially my daughter Molly (who is 6). We only managed to find 17 eggs but understand you are still accepting entries into the prize draw if you find 15 or more.
Thanks for all of your efforts with the Easter trail, such a lovely thing to do.
2023 Easter Egg Raffle
The Black Boy Pub yet again were wonderful hosts to the K&D Lions Easter Egg Raffle.
The prize was an enormous hamper of easter eggs, consisting of 15 large eggs and a selection of small eggs. The tickets were sold over 3 weeks on evenings and weekend lunchtimes. Between us and our partners, we raised over £1000 for charity including for Age UK (Solihull).
2022 Festive Walk
A whopping 800 of you joined us for The Festive Walk 2022 and a great time was had by all including many fur babies! The weather held and apart from a little light rain, the conditions were perfect for a countryside walk. It was a lovely day out for many local families and we managed to capture some fabulous pictures.
The Lions would like to thank all the volunteers and Challenge Adventure Group, who helped marshal the 3ml and 6ml routes.
We would like to thank Dorridge Village Hall for providing their facilities and we would also like to thank Garrison Coffee Company and Dorridge Cricket Club for providing refreshments.
Congratulations to Lily and Sophia for winning the Lions Festive Safari!
We look forward to seeing you all again next year on 27th December.
2022 Supporting Ukraine
2022 Knowle Society Award
2022 Seniors Tea Party
We were so pleased to see100 happy faces leaving the Knowle Royal British Legion on Saturday 15th October.
The seniors tea party is a favourite on our annual calendar and is a great opportunity for all these wonderful people to get together, catch up, sing and dance.
The entertainment provided by Keith Slater was really enjoyed by everybody. Is there an instrument he can't play! And many thanks to Keith for being Quiz Master and compere also for the afternoon.
We had the quiz winner taking home the "Tower of Treats" and many raffle winners.
Thanks to Sue and the team at the Legion for all their hard work and of course for all those who joined us for a lovely afternoon.
2022 B93 Ball
What an amazing evening we had on 8th October 2022!
A good meal, photo booth, table magic and disco kept us busy. One of the highlights of the evening was the raffle with 15 truly fabulous prizes on offer. Thank you for the many businesses who contributed to the raffle.
Thank you to everybody who came and helped make the night so memorable. Thank you to our sponsors, Arden Bookkeeping Ltd and DM & Co. Homes for supporting the event and of course, the Forest Hotel for hosting us again this year.
Our feet were aching the next day but our hearts were full. Such a fantastic evening had by all.
The night raised £700 for local charities.
Seniors Coach Trip 2022
The trip to Weston Super Mare this year on 13th September was a bit of a wash out this year. Two coach loads of party makers boarded two coaches full of optimism. When they got to Weston-Super-Mare it rained and rained. At least the coffee shops and cafes in the town benefited on the day.
2022 Easter Egg Hunt
We are pleased to note that the Annual Easter Egg Hunt is as popular as ever with the big and small kids!
Our Lions have been out and about in B93 again hiding Easter Eggs around our villages. We had two different trails for you to explore whilst hunting down our elusive Easter Egg Posters.
Many congratulations to the winners!
And many thanks to Cafe Viola, Knowle Traditional Sweet Shop, Freda's Deli and Elderberry Black's for the fabulous prizes!
Dorridge Easter Egg Hunt Winners
SAM and PENNY GOODE
Dorridge Easter Egg Hunt Runner Up
LAYLA RODDY
Knowle Easter Egg Hunt Winner
CHRIS LAW
Knowle Easter Egg Hunt Runner Up
ADA CHU
2022 Easter Egg Raffle
We were thrilled to hand over the amazing hamper of donated Easter eggs to the raffle winner Julie and her children Samuel, David, Oliver and Phoebe.
That's a lot of chocolate, ENJOY!
Many thanks to Tesco in Knowle for the generous hamper!
"What a fantastic total - well done to all involved! And thanks once again for supporting Age UK Solihull with the raffle." Rebecca Jacob
Easter Egg raffle Winners 2022
2021 Festive Walk
The 28th Annual Knowle and Dorridge Lions Club Festive Walk took place on 28th December 2021 from Dorridge Village Hall after an enforced Covid break last year. The starting point and routes had to be changed as the National Trust at Baddesley Clinton were unable to support the local community event this year.
Nearly one thousand adults, children and four legged friends from all around Solihull and beyond braved damp conditions and completed the 3 or 6 mile routes. The refreshment stop at the Dorridge Cricket Club was well frequented and at the end of the day there were many tired but happy faces.
Thanks to all the walkers, all the volunteers, Dorridge Village Hall, Ye Olde Knowle Bowling Club, Solihull Jamboree Scouts and Dorridge Cricket Club.
Thanks to everyone who made a donation as the money raised (about £3,000), for this year only, will be going into our Charity Account which will help us to support many smaller, local initiatives.
Congratulations to Evie and Samuel for being drawn as one of our Festive Safari prize winners this year. The children were delighted to have won as they especially like the delicious milkshakes that the Dark Horse makes. Evie and Samuel have taken part in all of our previous Safari's and Hunts and said that they are looking forward to tackling our Easter Egg Hunt over the Easter Holidays.
A special thank you from Knowle and Dorridge Lions to Megan, who presented the voucher, and all at the Dark Horse Espresso in Bentley Heath for their generous support in providing the prize.
"It was fabulous. Thank you so much. See you next year " Dawn Woolven
"We had a lovely walk but the mud was a little too much for our smallest walker in the end" Wendy Jackson
"We had a great time, thank you to all involved" Victoria Calbreath
Festive Safari Winners Evie and Samuel, with Megan and Tony
2021 Seniors Tea Party
On Saturday 30th October, the K&D Lions held their first Seniors Tea Party for 3 years at the Knowle British Legion.
There were 70 attendees who all had a really nice time. It was the first social engagement for some in many months.
A big thank you for the entertainers, Sisters of Song, for a great show and for Sue at the Royal British Legion (Knowle) for the great food and support for the event.
'The residents from Arden Grange have asked me to thank you
for the wonderful Tea Party last Saturday. We all enjoyed every moment.
One of our ladies was a lucky raffle winner too. We loved the Facebook pictures.'
2021 B93 Charity Ball
The inaugural B93 Ball was attended by 85 local residents on the 9th of October 2021. All attendees had a great time and we also raised nearly £1700 for local causes.
'The food was excellent. The DJ captured the party spirit all night. I have no idea how the table magician did those tricks. And the photo booth was hilarious'!
The K&D Lions would like to thank all the attendees, the Forest Hotel in Dorridge plus the 20 local business that contributed raffle prizes.
2021 Virtual Wine Tasting Evening
All who took part thoroughly enjoyed being guided through the tasting notes by a sommelier from Loki Wines for the 3 quality wines that featured in our Virtual Wine Tasting Event in early April. In addition to proving to be a great virtual social event, with the funds raised, we were able to make a donation of £200 for the Knowle Mind Garden Project.
2021 Easter Egg Hunt
The Easter break saw 45 cunningly concealed Easter Egg posters, each with the name of a different chocolate, appearing on properties in Knowle, Dorridge and Bentley Heath. The Easter Egg Hunt was again a great hit, with many local families enjoying an excuse to get out and about in the fresh air. Thanks to the generosity of Hunt participants and our local shops, who donated the prizes, the Hunt raised £500 for Age UK.
2021 Scavenger Hunt
Over the February half term parents and children were once again out and about embarking on two Scavenger Hunts around our villages. Searching for interesting features of buildings and landmarks hiding in plain sight proved to be a fun activity for families to do together and provided a welcome new reason to go for a walk in the local neighbourhood.
Over the Christmas Holidays we ran a Festive Safari which involved finding ‘escaped’ Lions hiding out in trees, gardens and shop windows around B93. We joined forces with the Parent Teacher Associations of our four local primary schools, St. George and St. Teresa, Bentley Heath, Dorridge and Knowle. The schools and their PTA’s provided great support in publicising the Festive Safari to their families. As a result we received many, many correct entries. All correct answers were entered into our prize draw and a winner was chosen from each of the four schools. As a result of the generosity of participants we were able to donate £500 to each of the four schools.