Tenby and Saundersfoot Lions Club welcomed several new members again this month, swelling its membership to nearly 40 male and female members, showing that the club over the last few years has gone from strength to strength.

Local people, both young and old, have seen the success the club has had with high profile events like the paella festival in Tenby harbour and the sponsored horse ride held at the point-to-point course at Lydstep; and they have seen how the funds gathered from these and other fund-raising events go directly to numerous local and international charities and groups.

Tenby's Greenhill School Orchestra recently benefited from the presentation of a top of the range cello. This instrument will benefit a local teenager who has exceptional talent, allowing her to develop her skill to an even higher note, and who knows, in a few years we may see her performing on the world stage, all through the initial assistance of her local Lions Club.

Several local youth groups have also received financial assistance to help set up their own projects, some of which will benefit other youths in the area directly.

There have been donations to assist local students with 'gap year' expeditions to far flung destinations where they have done excellent humanitarian work assisting the locals to provide clean drinking water and constructing hospitals, then returning to Tenby and the Lions Club with detailed accounts of their time overseas and how they now have a different perspective on life and attitude to charity work,

The Lions have for several years supported the Air Ambulance, the RNLI and the Ty Hafan hospice, regularly donating substantial sums to these most worthy causes.

The club recently received a request for funds to assist with the earthquake disaster appeal in Haiti; they immediately responded with a donation of £2,000. The money will go directly to a Lions Club in that part of the world, who will use it with the benefit of local knowledge to best assist the sick and homeless.

The continued success of the club is in part due to the hard work done in its early years by its founder members, who set the standards that all current members try hard to emulate, continuing with the Lions motto 'We Serve' and tirelessly working for and within the local community.

The Lions meet at the Giltar Hotel in Tenby on the first Monday of each month at 7.30 pm.