It was a full house for the Lions Club of Benalla’s changeover dinner.
The evening saw President Denise Brown pass the gavel to new president — Denise Brown.
Ms Brown, who is now in her third year in the role said she was determined to lead the club in a traditional, lockdown-free, year.
The evening, which was attended by State Member for Euroa — and Lions member — Steph Ryan and Benalla Rural City Mayor Bernie Hearn, saw Lions give a donation of $2500 to Benalla couple Kaare Glass and Courtney Herd.
Their daughter Frankie is very sick and the family has been forced to travel up and down to Melbourne for regular hospital appointments.
The night also saw the induction of the club’s newest, and youngest, member Hamoudi Al Saghir.
Regular Ensign readers will recall his family’s incredible journey from war-torn Syria to Benalla.
He is currently in his final year of study at FCJ College and has plans to study law in Canberra.
“It’s good to see so many people here tonight. It’s nice to see people back out enjoying themselves,” Ms Brown said.
“We are giving a donation today to Kaare Glass and Courtney Herd, who were on the front page of The Ensign recently.
“That’s for $2500 from our governing body who do emergency donations.
“It’s just a drop in the bucket for them, and they have a hard road to go.
“This is my first official changeover, but it will be my third year as president.
“I’ll just say for the last two years I don’t feel like I’ve been put through my paces yet.
“COVID restrictions made running the club very difficult.
“We were lucky to have a couple of big functions before the lockdowns, and then we went into lockdown.
“After which you could meet with about 10 people and I put on a couple of barbecues at the Lions’ shed. We were able to have 10 inside and a few more outside for those.
“We had a couple of meetings like that and I was mostly concerned with getting people socialising through COVID and getting some meals into people.
“But this year it has been full swing ahead.”
Ms Brown said she was looking forward to the upcoming year.
“We’re getting back to normal, and doing a lot of barbecues,” she said.
“We are doing work on the Lions shed with the toilets and we’ve got a new food truck that we are getting up and running for Driver Reviver.
“That was compliments of the TAC.
“So we’ll probably do a few weekends during the winter through the snow season, see how it goes and learn the ropes of the truck.”
In the meantime the new truck will get its first outing for the Queen’s Birthday long weekend at Mokoan North services.
“We’re back to normal now,” Ms Brown said.
“We’re back donating money again, because we can, and we are giving back to the community again.
“Which is what we are all about.”