Major honour for Lions

Recipients of International Awards for Dedicated Humanitarian Service.

Charter member Owen Henderson was among four Hamilton-Chartwell Lions honoured earlier this month.

The quartet received the highest honour available to Lions - the Melvin Jones Fellow Award. The international award is for dedicated humanitarian service.

Melvin Jones founded the Lions International Service Club in 1917. .

Owen is the Chartwell club's sole charter member. He was among the originals when the club was formed in April, 1971. Kerry Beach has also served 42 years in Lions. He was inducted into the Thames club and later transferred to the Hamilton-Chartwell club.

Sam Armstrong and Norman Thomson have served almost 40 years in Lions. Like Kerry, they transferred membership to the Hamilton-Chartwell Lions Club.

Owen Henderson recalls how the founder president Sir Ross Jansen, a Sir Winston Churchill Scholarship recipient, applied to the scholarship trust to name the new Lions club after the Churchill family home - Chartwell.

Owen and Kerry Beach said one of the Chartwell Lions' most memorable of many achievements was to raise more than $250,000 to finance the Life Education Trust mobile classroom which plies primary schools to carry the message against drugs.

Another project they are proud of is the annual One World Festival of Magic which, during the past 25 years, has raised close to $300,000 and entertained thousands of under-privileged children.