A place to serve the community, have fun, make new friends, and learn new skills
Signature projects
Other projects
Licola Youth Camp
Licola youth camp is a wilderness camp owned and run by Lions. It is located in the Victorian High Country in Gippsland. Each year Tatura Lions send 3 children from Tatura Primary School and Sacred Heart Primary School to the camp in January. Tatura Lions meet the full cost of the attendance by the students
Signature projects
Signature projects run at regular intervals, some for many years, for example Carols for 40 years. They impact directly on the Tatura Community, for example TatFest, or contribute to national and international Lions projects that have the potential to change the lives of people in the Tatura Community, for example Childhood Cancer.
TatFest
TatFest is an annual event held on the first Sunday in March with the gates opening at 10am and closing at 4pm.
This is a festival for the whole family and attracts up to 1600 people from the local area as well as people from up to 150km around.
We provide amusements for children including Zorb Balls, bouncing castle, train rides, abseiling tower and other activities. Musical entertainment is available all day.
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Food, mostly ethnic foods not readily available in Tatura, beer, cider, soft drinks, coffee, ice cream etc are available all day.
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Up to 30 market stalls are present selling a very wide range of goods.
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Each year we have a different major attraction. One year, Ambulance Victoria, CFA and SES combined to demonstrate the rescue of a person trapped in a motor vehicle.
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If you are interested in running a stall or providing a signature activity please contact us by email. Entry is free.
Opportunity Plus
In our area, as in many others, there are children who have few or no aspirations for future employment and who have no knowledge or understanding of the career and employment opportunities available to them.
Four or five times each year, in collabration with the local primary school and with local businesses we take 5 or 6 children to visit local businesses. The children are selected by the school and are usually in their last year at primary school - age range 9-11 years. At each business they meet owners and staff who describe and show the employment opportunities and skills required at that business.
We organise the businesses and bus the children, accompanied by Lions, to the businesses.
Christmas
Christmas trees and cakes and puddings
We sell Christmas cakes and puddings thoughout the year, but particularly in the months leading up to Christmas.
We obtain and sell live Christmas trees on the first and second Saturdays in December each year. Trees must be ordered in advance.
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Tatura Carols
For more than 40 years we have been organising and running Christmas Carols at Mactier Gardens in Hogan Street Tatura on a Wednesday just before Christmas.
We start at 5:30 with a fair. Stalls provide icecrean and coffee, school bands provide entertainment, there is a free sausage sizzle, and a free bouncing castle. Carols starts at 7:30 with performances by local singers, Turaton Singers, Shepparton Brass band, school students and Shepparton Pipes and Drums.
We collect donations for Vision Australia.
We rely on sponsorship from local businesses to enable the free BBQ and a grant from the City of Greater Sherpparton to run the event.
Want to volunteer?
Other projects
Licola Youth Camp
Licola youth camp is a wilderness camp owned and run by Lions. It is located in the Victorian High Country in Gippsland.
For many years up to 2020 we have funded attendance at a January camp for 3 students from the local state primary school.
From and including 2020 we have increased attendance to 6 children, adding 3 from the local Sacred Heart Primary School.
The camp gives the children activities that they would otherwise be very unlikely to experience including a range of physical activities.
The students are selected by the local school and are in their last year at the school prior to graduating to the next education level. We ask that the schools select students likely to benefit for the activities, who are unlikely to otherwise enjoy those opportunities, and whose parents are unlikely to be able to give them similar experiences.
We pay for attendance and organise transport for the students to the event.
Childhood Cancer
The Australian Lions Childhood Cancer Research Foundation is a signature activity of Australian Lions.
Annually we contribute to the research foundation by raising money through the World's Biggest BBQ and Coins for Kids. We are often able to add additional funds from other events or activities.
World's Biggest BBQ and Coins for Kids are run at both of the local primary schools whose children participate with exctement. Participation of the children helps to spread the message about the importance of childhood cancer.
Good Friday Appeal
Each year ther is a statewide appeal run by a Television network on Good Friday to raise funds for the Children's Hospital.
We have donation tins located in businesses throughout the town for the whole year. On Good Friday we join the SES and the CFA to collect donations thoughout the town.
Final Series Football Gates
Football and netball are very important social and sporting activities in our wider community. The Australian Football League organises a district wide competition for juniors. The Kyabram and District Football League, amongst other leagues, organises a district wide competition. Both culminate in finals series in September each year. The money raised from entry fees to both finals series fund the operation of the league through the year and are therefore critical their continued operation.
We run the entry gates for the finals for both leagues each year collecting the entry fees.
Barbeque events
We have a BBQ built onto a trailer that we use around the district.
We have a great reputation for providing food from the BBQ for events including clearing sales, Tat 200, World's Greatest BBQ, social events. We run the BBQ for events at least once each month.
Sometimes we cook food to support a community activity such as a demonstration and training the public by Ambulance Victoria in Stuart Mock Place or cooking breakfast for Australia Day. In those cases the food is provided by the organisation we are supporting and provided free to attendees.
In other cases we use the events to raise funds that are subsequently and in their entirety invested in local projects or projects that will provide future benefits to the local community.
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