Selwood Academy
Pictured: Headteacher Dan Jeffries, head of key stage 2 Luci Hooper and students
Selwood Academy is once again celebrating a fun filled successful year, as an oversubscribed school that welcomed a record breaking of nearly 200 pupils into Year 5 this September.
Throughout the last calendar year, pupils have experienced a huge variety of trips and opportunities including; Paris and Disneyland, Lyme Regis, Portsmouth Docks, a careers day with over 35 providers, caving, camping, battlefields, Harry Potter studios and much more. Our blossoming partnership with Kingswood independent school is also reaping huge benefits for our pupils, providing the chance for collaboration and new experiences.
Our school community has undertaken many successful charity fundraising events, including our Wesley day in which pupils ran a mile for WHY, undertook litter picking in the community, and sang to local groups. During the summer the school also performed in a sell-out set of back-to-back performances of Matilda at the Merlin theatre. The festive season has also been full of joy with a hugely successful Christmas fair, sell out Year 5 Nativity and an excellent carol concert, rounded off by the fantastic reindeer in the lantern parade. Furthermore, the school has been recognised for its wellbeing offer as well as achieving the school games Gold Award for sport. It has also once again achieved the Gatsby benchmark for careers and been ranked as the number one school for careers education in the entire county.
Following a review from a local MAT it was also highlighted “the school’s curriculum is well constructed and supports learning well,” furthermore” pupils attitudes towards learning are positive and there is a culture of high expectations in behaviour, learning and conduct. The school’s personal development offer is cohesive and extensive … supporting pupils well in their character development.” Finally, it was highlighted that “pupils are rightly proud of their school.”
Department of Education League tables have also reiterated the school’s position as the highest performing middle school in the school in the town as well as now the entire the county!
Additionally, the school has been ranked as the second highest performing middle school in the south west and in the top 10 in the country! This is as a result of exceptional results well above the national average for those achieving maths, reading and writing as well as for those working at greater depth standard and in science.
The school is incredibly excited about its plans for the future, as well as its continued growth and development. Alongside the exciting events coming up in the rest of the academic year including the Ski trip to Austria, the battlefields trip and Disneyland, as well as the next school production, The Wizard of Oz.
Selwood remains a school where staff continually go above and beyond for the school community to ensure that every child’s light can shine.
Frome Museum
Last year, Frome Museum hosted a variety of events and exhibitions, including The History of Cinema in Frome, a Christmas Open Weekend, the Memorial Theatre Centenary exhibition, the Frome Hoard exhibition, support for the Frome Festival, and collaborative work with Black Swan Arts.
The popular Behind the Scenes guided tours continued, along with a 2024 Finds Day, a D-Day anniversary exhibition, a Museum Fun Day for families and children, and Artists in Residence.
Modernisation and community involvement have progressed significantly at the museum during 2024.
To the casual passerby, the museum now boasts a colourful and inviting new visual identity. Visitors can explore a comprehensive view of over 2,000 years of local history.
The upper and lower galleries feature innovative new displays that reflect the industrial, commercial, cultural, and ecclesiastical developments of Frome and its surrounding areas.
These improvements are the result of the enthusiasm and dedication of the museum’s volunteers. Displays, talks, and exhibitions are now held throughout the year.
Newly commissioned signage at street level and within the museum building has made it easier to invite and assist visitors. This year, the museum also featured on BBC Radio Somerset and in articles in the Frome Times. A partnership with Bath Spa University enabled a funded programme of research and development to further enhance the museum’s facilities and community engagement. The online catalogue now provides the museum with international exposure.
New acquisitions in 2024 included an 1825 Frome banknote, a large local tithe map, a Saxon axe head, and additions to the Frome Fire Engine exhibit.
All exhibits and displays have benefited from the freshly redecorated and re-carpeted galleries. Beneath these galleries lie several arched cellars, housing artefacts such as the Cockey Street lights, which have been specially opened to the public.
The museum’s continued success is thanks to its dedicated volunteers and trustees. Visitors and new helpers are always welcome. For more information, please visit https://frome-museum.org/
Robert Cuzner, board of trustees
The Good Heart
The highlight of last year for The Good Heart was, as always, the annual Kindness Festival in March, which simultaneously advanced our three goals of celebrating, practising and exploring the transformative power of being kind, and now welcomes over 6,000 people each year.
We transformed one of the empty banks next to The Boyle Cross into a temporary ‘Kind Bank,’ connected with over 3,000 children and young people through school assemblies, left messages of kindness in bus shelters, hosted events such as Toddler Tantrums, Restorative Justice, a Kindness Tour of Frome and a free Tea Dance for under-6s and over-60s, and welcomed the wonderful Ken Loach to introduce his latest film.
Throughout the year, The Good Heart café provided free hot drinks to all and free meals to anyone in need via our pay-it-forward scheme. A range of local caterers participated in our ‘Summer of Pop-Ups’ before Jo Harrington settled in from September with the Kindness Kitchen, offering delicious home-cooked vegetarian and vegan dishes with an emphasis on sustainability and coeliac-friendly options.
We also continued to offer a range of free weekly and monthly groups, including Tiny Hearts, Tiny Rainbow Hearts, Dying Matters, the Young Person’s Wellbeing Café, Heartspace and the Men’s Circle, and in the autumn added Tea and Toasties (an after-school meet-up for ages 12+) and the Art of Meditation.
Behind the scenes, we were delighted to receive funding from Frome Town Council to develop the Frome Grief Network and ended the year with a pop-up concert from poet and comedian John Hegley. The Good Heart board is enormously grateful to all the hard-working team members, volunteers, funders, partners and supporters who made this possible, and we look forward to continuing our work in 2025.
As the saying goes: “The world is full of kind people. If you can’t find one, be one.”
Alison Murdoch, The Good Heart
Frome Birth Talk
Pictured: Achim Arnold, volunteer, and Suzy Cristinacce, director
Frome Birth Talk has had a wonderful year in 2024 with even more exciting things to come this year.
We saw our referrals increase again, with 150 people reaching out to our counselling service. Over 200 families visited our baby and toddler groups, and we established the only local Baby Loss Support Group supported by Frome Town Council.
This group is facilitated by qualified counsellors and is open to anyone who has experienced loss, in whatever circumstances and at any time in their lives.
We welcomed new trustees to the board and thanked those who stepped down after years of invaluable service. We reinvented our referral process, making it easier, quicker, and more secure than ever. We worked alongside many other incredible services in the area, such as Baby Connections, Tiny Hearts, Purple Elephant and Frome Baby Link, to name but a few.
We held our annual community day, which sparked exciting threads of possibility for our future and finished 2024 with a bang by taking part in the Big Give Week. Thanks to match funding, we raised £5,000 in just seven days in December!
We’re also just weeks away from launching a brand new, shiny website that has been designed for us pro-bono by Made by Katie, who reached out to us wanting to support parents’ mental health. Watch this space!
2025 brings unique challenges and growth for Frome Birth Talk; our most ambitious year ever. With a target fundraising amount of £80,000, we certainly have our work cut out for us but the rewards will be incredible if we continue to smash our goals as we have done in 2024.
We’d like to thank everyone who helped make Frome Birth Talk’s work possible last year, our volunteers, staff, counsellors and donors. The impact you have had is immeasurable.
Frome Rotary Club
Pictured: Father Christmas and his helpers on their travels around Frome
As another busy year draws to a close, Frome Rotary reflects proudly on the 30 local groups and charities supported throughout the year, as well as the international support provided to End Polio Now and Water Survival Boxes.
The opening of our pop-up charity shop in June—our eighth highly successful outlet—has brought together the Selwood and town clubs along with Inner Wheel to support local charities at the heart of the shop’s fundraising efforts.
This major commitment has not stopped us from supporting Marie Curie and the Poppy Appeal, helping them achieve record-breaking results this year.
Supporting youth opportunities is vitally important, and our work with Frome College has provided many highlights, including the Young Chef, Young Photographer and highly competitive Youth Speaks competitions, as well as mock interviews.
As we approach our centenary year, we look forward to extending our support with the revival of the Young Musician competition.
Our annual involvement with the Carnival and the Cheese Show, amongst many other activities, continues a long-standing tradition, but the ‘Frome delight’ with the Santa Float has been a high point, bringing our volunteering this year to a joyful close. The wonderful public support we received again this year has been exceptional and allows us to continue making a positive impact in the community.
We are especially proud of the Civic Awards presented to members this year, many of whom are now Honorary Members. Sadly, we lost members this year, most notably Dennis Barnard, who was a member for nearly 50 years and an exemplary Rotarian and community stalwart. As a friendly and sociable community service club, we will honour Dennis’s memory by striving to increase our membership, extend our traditions and enhance our support for the Frome and international community.
Richard Lines
Orchardleigh Ladies’ Golf Club
The ladies’ section of Orchardleigh Golf Club celebrated the end of the year with their annual Christmas lunch and presentation, held at the clubhouse on Tuesday 10th December.
The event was extremely well supported, with both playing and non-playing members in attendance. The ladies love any excuse to catch up for a natter and a drink together, followed by a two-course meal of roast turkey and Christmas pudding.
The ladies provided their own pre-lunch entertainment with the aid of whistles from crackers. Under careful instructions from Lin Handley, the noise resembled Christmas carols—no easy challenge, but one that caused much hilarity! After the meal, Ann James, as competition secretary, read out the trophy winners, who were presented with their awards by the 2024 Lady Captain, Lin Handley.
The club champion and winner of the Harris Trophy was Ann James. Sue Sweet was also presented with the Bath Salver, a trophy awarded by the Bristol & District Alliance League committee for achieving the most points in matches in division five during the season. Notably, an Orchardleigh lady also won it last year—Ann James.
Other trophy winners for 2024 were as follows: Club Champion and Harris Trophy, Ann James; Dicken Shield, Ann James and Sue Marshall, with runners-up Sue Sweet and Jan Light; Winter Eclectic, Ann James, runner-up Pat Pitt; Val Stringer Cup, Pat Pitt and Barbara Field; Vincent Cup, Sarah Hynds, runner-up Pat Pitt; Barwell Masters, Marion Underhill, runner-up Sue Marshall; Keysell Cup, Sarah Hynds, runner-up Sue Marshall; Macey Senior Bowl, Pat Pitt, runner-up Mary Ford; Pudney Pitcher, Anne Regler, runner-up Ann James; Sally Lock Trophy, Anne Regler, runner-up Sue Sweet; Pitt Rosebowl, Sheila Goodbody and Sue Sweet, with runners-up Pat Jones and Diana Bullock; Wykes Trophy, Sue Chalker and Pat Jones, runners-up Pat Pitt and Diana Bullock; Committee Cup, Lorraine Collings, runner-up Sue Sweet; Order of Merit, 1st Division – Sue Marshall, 2nd Division – Pat Pitt; Holden Plate, Sue Sweet; Gilchrist Trophy, Pat Pitt; Summer Eclectic, Sue Marshall, runner-up Lorraine Collings; Ping 4BBB, Sue Marshall and Ann James, with runners-up Sue Sweet and Marion Underhill; Daily Mail Foursomes, Gail Painter and Sarah Hynds; Coronation Foursomes, Lin Handley and Sue Chalker; Birdie Tree, Sue Marshall; Hole in One, none; and the Jefferies Trophy, Ann and Steve James, with runners-up Jan Light and Pete Merrett.
With a relatively small active ladies’ section, Orchardleigh is very proud to win such trophies and to have achieved enough points to move up into division four for 2025.
The Orchardleigh Golf Club Ladies’ section is a very friendly and welcoming club. They are always looking for new lady members who enjoy playing in club matches, competitions, or just social golf. If you are interested in joining, please phone the pro shop at the golf club, and they can put you in touch with the Lady Captain, Sue Marshall, who will be happy to tell you more.
Sarah Doble
The Pod Charity
Pictured: Frome’s Group of the Year 2023 – Becky Bird, Sue Paxton and members of the club with Ian Drew, editor of the Frome Times.
What a wonderful year it has been!
We were honoured to have been chosen as Frome Times’ ‘Group of the Year.’
This coincided with celebrating 10 years of the charity and since Pod Youth Club first opened its doors. Now we are running nine projects in the town for people with additional needs, young carers and families.
The Pod staff, volunteers, members and the community are looking back at a very busy 2024.
Pod Plus, PYC, and Zone have done lots of fun activities and visited new places such as the “Heal” outdoor space and forest school for our sessions.
Our projects have grown and we have been working with Frome Town Council to provide Pop-Up Play Pod activities in parks around Frome during the school holidays as well as in Victoria Park throughout the year March to October.
Pod Scrapstore has been providing craft activities at each Frome Independent Market throughout the year. Lots of scrappy, creative fun was had by children and families.
We ran a Pop-Up Scrapstore at the Cheese and Grain and also supported the Children’s Festival providing art and craft materials to families for the summer holidays.
We celebrated our amazing volunteers with a Thank You Party.
The Pod supported the Drone Show in November by providing an accessible space for anyone with additional needs.
We have been involved in the Frome Carnival with “Pod the Magic Dragon” created by members using Scrapstore materials and really enjoyed being part of the procession through the town.
We held a 10 Year party at Foxy’s Den. This was a special night for everyone to dress up and sparkle, with great music and lots of dancing.
To top it all, our members have become authors and written a book, in collaboration with Jenna Herman, titled “Hopes and Dreams,” which is available from Hunting Raven Books.
Mostly this year, we have been grateful for the continued support and collaboration with our wonderful Frome community to keep delivering social groups and activities for children and young people who would otherwise feel isolated. Creating a sense of belonging and community is at the heart of what The Pod tries to achieve.
The Pod has a big vision for 2025, of raising funds and finding a base from which to run all our projects and activities. If anyone would like to offer support towards this goal, please contact us at www.thepodcharity.org.uk .
We hope you all have a very happy 2025.
Vallis First School
Pictured: Students and their ‘Friendship posters’
This year has been another exciting one for the children and staff at Vallis First School.
We seek to encourage a love of reading, and with the arrival of new headteacher Mrs Muxworthy and new deputy headteacher Mrs Messenger came an exciting change in the names of the classes. The classes across the school are now named after favourite book characters.
At Vallis, we take every opportunity to use the local area to enhance the children’s learning. In the autumn, the children used their geographical skills to identify human and physical features in the local area. The Year 1 classes went on a local walk to identify signs of autumn. Other local visits have included the Black Swan Arts Gallery and Frome Library.
Earlier in the year, the children were thrilled to meet Moesha Kellaway, an author, at Hunting Raven Books.
Languages Day was celebrated with a range of exciting visitors who speak Dutch, Polish, Spanish, French and Ukrainian. Our vibrant and diverse school community meant that many children were able to share the languages they can speak. Tasting traditional food from other countries was certainly a popular activity!
School trips are always a highlight at Vallis. The children are still excitedly talking about their trip to The American Museum and the Carymoor Centre, where they enjoyed a Stone Age experience.
The younger children have enjoyed an outdoor adventure day and a trip to Welshmill Woods. Visits to watch performances at the Lucky Chance Theatre were great treats too.
Vallis First School is very much the ‘heart of Frome.’ One of our values is community.
Many huge boxes of food were donated to the Frome Food Bank by families of the children at Vallis after our harvest celebrations at Holy Trinity Church. The whole school community ran a mile for WHY, raising £220.
Our Christmas Giving Tree was decorated with tokens that represented donations to Fair Frome’s community pantry scheme.
We hope this gives a snapshot of our exciting year at our happy, vibrant school!
Purple Elephant
Pictured: Campfire cooking summer holiday skills and fun for so many local families
Purple Elephant Family Support is proud to say that family feedback has made it clear that this local charity’s very busy year has made a real difference to their lives.
This year alone, thanks to its National Lottery grant, the organisation has opened Frome’s new Youth Club at the Key Centre, catering for up to 20 young people aged between 8 and 13, and employed two new part-time core positions – an office and finance coordinator and a fundraiser.
A total of 130 families accessed the charity’s free holiday activities this year. New children have taken part in its specialist one-to-one befriending support service, its twice-weekly Small Steps early years intervention groups, and its drop-in Stay-and-Play sessions. Additionally, 12 families have been supported through 1:1 bespoke support, and over 3,000 people attended the Children’s Festival.
Across Purple Elephant’s services, 87% of service users come from areas of high deprivation, 77% are recipients of either Free School Meals or social benefits, and 41% have additional needs or disabilities.
Service manager Sue Willis said, “Although one of our aims is to bring joy and play to families facing disadvantage, we are not just about the lovely things. We provide vital parenting support, access to free meals and mental health support. All our feedback shows that we have made, and continue to make, a tangible difference to people’s lives, supporting some of the most vulnerable families in the area, as well as bringing laughter to young faces.”
Purple Elephant relies on the ongoing kind support of volunteers, donations and sponsors.
Sue added, “There are some words that stay with us, and we hope they will encourage Frome businesses to sponsor us, perhaps make us their ‘Charity of the Year’ for 2025, as well as rally individual Frome people to join us as volunteers.
“One statement from a family following the summer holidays stays with me particularly: ‘Thank God for you guys, this holiday has been tough. Getting them both out where I can talk to other people and not be judged has made me feel human again.’
“That, ultimately, is what Purple Elephant is about.”
Frome Festival
Pictured: Frome Festival chair Rosie Eliot with former chair Gavin Rea (Photo by Sarah Swales)
Frome Festival had its busiest year yet in 2024, with over 250 varied events taking place in 50 venues across the town.
Highlights included concerts by Sir Willard White and Old Time Sailors, a DJ set from Gary Davies, comedy featuring Jenny Eclair and Richard Herring and the ever-popular Food Feast.
The cover theme celebrated 60 years of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with five laser-engraved solid chocolate Golden Tickets, created by Choc et al, hidden at different events across the festival.
Rosie Eliot took over from Gavin Rea as festival chair after many years of dedicated service. As a registered charity, the chair and board play a key role in supporting the festival staff: director Adam Laughton, manager Sarah Swales and bookkeeper Clare Lloyd.
Frome Festival needs to raise £35,000 per year to deliver its programme and, with recent cuts to arts funding, the challenge is growing. In 2024, fundraising initiatives included popular monthly quizzes at the Grain Bar, a fascinating International Women’s Day book talk and lunch at Bistro Lotte and a successful fundraising gig featuring Alberta Cross and others at 23 Bath St.
Thanks to generous funding from Frome Town Council, the Friends of Frome Festival scheme will be expanded in 2025 with a new platform giving members additional perks, discounts and events alongside early festival booking.
You can find more information on the Frome Festival website.
Planning is underway for the 2025 festival, and now is the time for independent organisers to be thinking about their events. Anybody can be part of the Frome Festival with the right idea and approval from the festival office. Once approved and all details are finalised, the event submission window is 31st January to 28th February.
The upcoming festival will take place from Friday 4th to Sunday 13th July, and the brochure cover will celebrate Frome’s rich heritage in the textile industry, linking to the producers and artisans that make Frome so special today.
Frome Festival team
Frome Society for Local Study
Pictured: Former Frome MP David Heath
It has been another very productive year, with many highlights.
One of these is the increased popularity of our lecture programme, which runs on alternate Saturday afternoons between October and March. Each talk now regularly attracts more than 100 members, along with an increased number of visitors. Subjects covered this year included the Somerset Coalfield, the History of Bruton, the Ancient Trees of Selwood Forest, and Members of Parliament who have represented Frome over the centuries. These were given by speakers such as Shane Gould, Andrew Pickering, Julian Hight and former Frome MP David Heath.
The annual event organised by the Frome Society for the Frome Festival proved another success. This year saw a talk on Pipes, Bogs, Baths and Smells – Technology in Country Houses, delivered by the former curate of Cardiff Castle, Matthew Williams, and the event welcomed a packed audience of society members and other festival-goers alike.
The society also published the latest (27th) and largest (164 pages) edition of its yearbook, which is an annual compendium of historical events and local issues. In this edition, articles included ones on the Great Fire of Cheap Street in 1923, a medieval hall in Rode, a history of the cottages at Gorehedge, a brief study of what life was like for women in the workhouse, and biographies of local worthies. The yearbook is issued free to members or is obtainable from Winstone’s Hunting Raven Books.
A number of historically related trips were also organised during the summer, which included visits to the Avalon Marshes Archaeological Centre, Somerset Rural Life Museum, the reconstructed Roman Villa at The Newt and the Royal Mint.
The Frome Society for Local Study was founded in 1958 by a number of Frome townspeople who realised there was a need to make the history of Frome and the district better known and to preserve its historic buildings and records. The society also incorporates the Frome Civic Society, which was founded in 1970 to conserve Frome’s built heritage and, through its Planning Panel, to ensure high standards of urban and environmental design for the future.
For more information on the Frome Society for Local Study or the Frome Civic Society, please visit www.fsls.org.uk.
David Lassman – Chair Frome Society for Local Study
Mendip Community Speedwatch
Mendip Community Speedwatch is now widely regarded as ‘the best’ community speedwatch scheme in Avon and Somerset.
The 32 schemes provide massive amounts of data for the police and support for policing units.
Although the cooperation with the police is a good sign and some speeds seemed to be decreasing especially in the town areas of Frome, the rural area showed massive increases in excess speeds.
Around Berkley School, speeds have approached 70 mph in a 30 mph limit— a situation that the public will view with horror, and the police will address with extra enforcement and high levels of prosecution. There remains a need for heavy police enforcement in and around Frome, with nighttime cameras soon to be deployed, alongside new enforcement cameras on the Frome bypass.
Mendip Community Speedwatch coordinator Ashley Reay.
St Louis Catholic Primary School
Pictured: Students on a trip to visit the Houses of Parliament
The children at St Louis Catholic Primary School have had an incredibly busy year!
We started in January 2024 by taking part in the RSPB Big Bird Watch, an initiative championed by our Eco Warrior Team as part of our effort to achieve the CAFOD Live Simply Award.
The children wrote to local residents and were delighted to receive a response from a nearby neighbour who joined them in birdwatching. A local artist who creates pieces from recycled plastic also visited and worked with the children to produce beautifully colourful artwork now displayed on our school gates. In March, the chaplaincy team organised a charity fundraiser day for Emmaus WaterAid, raising hundreds of pounds. Activities included wearing blue clothes, participating in water-based challenges, and even throwing coins into an old toilet.
March concluded with our Community Week, where we focused each day on a different community important to us: our school, local, global, Catholic, and trust communities. The children engaged with members of these communities and undertook various activities to understand their significance.
In spring, our Year 6 pupils worked incredibly hard on their SATs tests, achieving not only St Louis’ best-ever results but also the best in Frome and across our DCET trust group. The dedication of the children and the staff who supported them throughout their time at St Louis truly paid off. Well done, children!
Over the summer, our children’s enthusiasm for sport came to the forefront with a variety of sporting events, including gymnastics, yoga, football, and swimming. These culminated in a fantastic sports day led by IG Sports.
We ended the school year with a mini general election organised by our school council. The Bouncy Castle Party emerged victorious, earning the children a bouncy castle for a day. While they loved bouncing on it, seeing Father Richard enjoy it was a highlight for everyone!
At the start of this academic year, we said goodbye to our old prefab building, affectionately named ‘The Hut’ by children and staff, creating more playground space. The children have enjoyed watching grass grow in its place and are enthusiastically coming up with ideas for its use. Year 5 and 6 also had an exciting trip to the Houses of Parliament and Tate Britain.
Towards the end of the year, we had our Catholic Schools Inspection, receiving a ‘good’ rating in all areas with some elements deemed ‘outstanding’. The inspectors were particularly impressed by how well our children spoke about the school. As always, they made us incredibly proud!
We look forward to another fantastic year ahead, with many more exciting events planned.
Frome Lions
Pictured: Presenting the cheque is Lion president Richard Phillips with fellow Lions and staff from the Health Hub.
Last year began with the January quiz at Frome Rugby Club, followed by three more in February, March and April.
Next was the club’s annual sporting dinner, held at Elmhay Park, Orchardleigh, on 1st February. The event saw 180 guests dine and enjoy entertainment from guest speaker Steve Backley OBE, a three-time Olympic medallist and world record-holding javelin thrower.
This year’s nominated charity was the Bath Cancer Unit Support Group. We were pleased to present a cheque for £11,500, and with the Richard Oatley Foundation generously agreeing to match-fund the amount raised by the Lions, a total of £23,000 was presented to the charity.
In March, a free PSA testing event was held in conjunction with the Somerset Prostate Support Association (SPSA) at the Frome Methodist Church. Some 240 men attended the event, 12 of whom received a ‘red’ result and were advised to seek further advice from their doctor.
Also in March, the annual sponsored swim took place at Frome Leisure Centre. The event saw 26 teams participate and raised £6,500, which was split equally between the participants’ chosen causes and the Lions’ selected charity, the Frome Youth and Community Care Centre (FYCC). FYCC provides young people with a safe space to talk to trusted youth workers and explore their feelings or concerns.
In April, several members visited Frome Livestock Market at Standerwick to present a cheque for £1,500 to members of the Frome Market Health Hub. This donation came from the proceeds of the 2023 hay bale initiative, where the Lions collected donated bales of hay from local farms and sold them to other farmers, with the proceeds going to the chosen charity.
In June, Dan Norris became the Lions’ new president, taking over from outgoing president Richard Phillips. June also saw the annual Golf Day take place at the Mendip Golf Club in Gurney Slade, raising £5,000 for the POD, a Frome-based organisation supporting young people and adults with additional needs, young carers and their families.
Also in June, the annual summer fete was held in Victoria Park. The event serves as a way for the Lions to thank the public for their support and provides charities and various organisations with an opportunity to promote their causes.
In late November, the Tree of Remembrance at Rook Lane Chapel was erected and dedicated. This tree allows people to remember departed loved ones and causes at this special time of year while also supporting the Lions’ charity work. This year, the proceeds will fund another PSA testing event in March.
As the year came to an end, the Lions, along with colleagues from Frome Rotary, escorted Father Christmas around Frome and the surrounding villages, delighting both young and old alike.
