Youth
Burgess Hill District Lions Club has created a special award that recognises and encourages the skills of young engineers in memory of Lion Rod Palmer of Sayers Common.
Rod, who had a great love of machinery, ran R. A. Palmer Garden Machinery in London Road from 1972 and was a member of Burgess Hill District Lions Club for more than 30 years.
When he died last October aged 65, his family and Lions Club members agreed that the most fitting tribute would be a special award for engineering students at Central Sussex College.
The first recipient of the Rod Palmer Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement was 17-year-old John Oxley, who is studying motor vehicle maintenance and repair. Remarkably, John also shares Rod's particular enthusiasm for garden equipment and works part-time in a garden machinery specialist in Lingfield.
Lion Rod's engineering skills were invaluable to the club. He brought the club mascot to life in the form of Percy the Penguin and also introduced three loveable automated musical bears that we regularly use for charity fund-raising. He also salvaged and restored the old milk floats that the Club still uses for parades and for our Santa's sleigh at Christmas.
Rod's wife Sue said she was delighted that John, who lives in East Grinstead, was the first recipient of the award.
"Rod was always encouraging young people to take an interest in engineering and we thought this award would be a perfect memorial to him."
"If he knew that it had been awarded to John, who shares so many of his passions, he would have been amazed and delighted."
*************************
One of the earliest commitments of the Burgess Hill District Lions was the provision of a new hut for the Burgess Hill Scouts at a cost of £500 (a not inconsiderable sum for a young Lions Club). Part of this sum was raised from the proceeds of a Flannel Dance. (Who, today has heard of such an activity?).
Town Day was an annual activity held jointly with other service clubs in the town to raise funds for either their own charities or for the total proceeds to be used for a specific purpose. One of the joint efforts was the provision of an adventure playground for young people, which is situated in Chanctonbury Road. It is still there today.
One of the earliest project was the formation of the Burgess Hill Boys Club and details of the history are given in the adjoining page.
Since then, Youth has been a major commitment of the Club abd we have had a grant for several years now from the Kleinwort Trust. Amongst the areas we support are:
- Scouts
- Guides
- Local school children with awards for business enterprise
- TACADE to schools to assist with drug awareness and bereavement counselling amongst other important social topics
- Formation of new Youth Clubs
- Assistance with local marching bands
- Provision of sports wear to local young football teams.
