Kingswinford & Stourbridge Lions Club has for many years been taking Santa and his sleigh around the local areas making sure that as many people as possible get to meet him. In fact a lot of people don't recognise that Christmas has started until he has been down their street.

The logistics of taking the sleigh onto the streets, in order to spread Christmas cheer, starts in January when we apply for our street collection permits and collectors licences, which means we need to sort out which routes we are going to take some 11 months in advance.

We carry out full risk assessments of the tours to make sure that the public, collectors and of course Santa are kept safe, we also make sure that the sleigh complies with the regulations appertaining to road use.

The whole operation is controlled by the Sleigh Master, who is responsible to the fundraising committee, for ensuring that all the above is carried out, as well as making sure that we have enough sweets on board for the children and that we have enough collectors for each trip.

This is one of the events that we carry out where other organisations can join in to help us carry out the collections and raise funds for their own causes.

One thing for sure is that we always receive a warm welcome, whenever we take the sleigh out and again provides us with much needed funding for future distribution to good causes.

Kingswinford & Stourbridge Lions Club has a catering trailer, which can be seen out and about throughout most of the year. We specialise in producing very fresh American style doughnuts, candy floss and providing hot & cold drinks.

The trailer is available to attend all sorts of events such as school fetes, large scale bonfire displays, assorted sports tournaments, festivals and community events. The only constraint is that we have enough people to man it throughout the duration of the event and to ensure that it is cleaned thouroughly after the event.

The trailer is controlled by the caravan officer, who is responsible for taking bookings, making sure that it is in perfect working order, it has been stocked according to the event in question, that the trailer has enough manpower to operate it and that it is cleaned after use. The operation of the trailer comes under the control of the Fundraising Committee.

We have had a catering trailer for many years, in fact this is our second one, and we are regular visitors to many events, in fact it would seem strange for us not to be at some of these events, we always get compliments as to the quality of our produce and of course it enables us to raise funds for future distribution.