21 July 2026: Changeover Night
More than 70 members and guests gathered at the Tewantin RSL for our annual Changeover Night on Tuesday, recognising the achievements of the outgoing board and welcoming a new leadership team for the year ahead.
The evening also highlighted our remarkable contribution to the Noosa community over six decades, with more than $2.4 million donated to local causes since it was chartered. The club will celebrate its 60th anniversary in April next year.
Among the guests were Noosa MP Sandy Bolton, Noosa councillor Amelia Lorentson, Lions District Governor Murray Wegner and his wife Maxine, First Vice District Governor John Campbell, representatives from the Cooroy Pomona and North Maroochy Lions Clubs, Tewantin RSL chief executive Chris Mead and Noosa Tigers coach Joshua Scrivano.
Lion Sheila Glew kept the evening flowing as master of ceremonies, while members also acknowledged Lion Michael Roach, who had organised the event but was unable to attend after being admitted to hospital on the night. Thanks to his detailed planning, the celebration proceeded without interruption.
Acting Senior Sergeant Mark Jones delivered the keynote address, speaking about the challenges police face when responding to domestic violence incidents and the compassion and specialist skills required to support those involved while keeping communities safe.
Outgoing president Frank Spano brought a light-hearted touch to the evening by combining his farewell address with live music, picking up his guitar to lead guests in a spirited rendition of the Lions Ditty.
District Governor Murray Wegner outlined his vision for Lions District Q4, focusing on strengthening community service, ensuring members enjoy their Lions experience and expanding the organisation’s impact across local communities.
Murray made special mention of John Crossley, Order of Australia, who has been a Lion for 62 years, and presented him a plaque. John summarised some of the achievements of the club during his tenure.
Incoming president Ross Barker said he was honoured to lead the Tewantin Noosa Lions Club into its 60th year of service.
Mr Barker said he hoped to continue growing membership while ensuring current members enjoyed being part of Lions, improve the club’s capacity to serve the community by replacing ageing food trailers and upgrading the Lions Den and community hub, and strengthen partnerships to ensure the organisation remained visible, relevant and ready to help wherever needed.
The club’s new board for the coming year includes Ross Barker, David Watts, Michael Roach, Michael O’Brien, Alan Rouse, Gary Gleeson, Trevor Luff, Veronica Whitter, Frank Spano, Paul Beeston, Michael Whiting, Jay Roach and Gary Dunn.
Members were recognised with a range of awards, including humorous plaques presented to outgoing board members. One recipient was affectionately described as “a force to be reckoned with”.
District Governor Wegner also presented his “Inspiring Others to Serve with Heart” badges to participants who completed the club’s “60 kilometres for 60 years” fundraising walk, which raised money towards a new food trailer and improvements to the Lions Den and community hub.
Treasurer Michael O’Brien received the evening’s highest honour, the J.D. Richardson Award, in recognition of his outstanding service to the club.
The Tewantin RSL staff were also thanked for their hospitality and support in hosting the event, which launched another year of community service for one of Noosa’s longest-serving volunteer organisations.
10-12 July 2026: 60Km for 60 Years Sponsored Walk
In April 2027 Tewantin Noosa Lions Club celebrates its 60th birthday. The first event to celebrate this remarkable milestone was a sponsored walk from Mooloolaba to Tewantin. It covered 60Km along the coast, passing through Marcoola, Coolum Beach, Peregian Beach, Noosa National Park and Noosa Heads before finishing at our Den.
Three of our intrepid walkers, Steve Whitter, Veronica Whitter and Sharon Haager, completed the walk over three days. They were joined for parts of the distance by other members and by local supporters. Their efforts raised a fantastic $4,000 towards the cost of replacing our ageing catering vans and renovating our base (affectionately known as The Den).
20-21 June 2026: Noosa Enduro
The Noosa Enduro is a cycle ride with a difference, for off-road bikes! There are a number of courses ranging from 6Km to 100Km, through Noosa National Park, Tewantin National Park and Ringtail Forest Reserve. Entrants can choose to race or to just cruise and take in the scenery.
The routes pass through Noosa National Park and Tewantin National Park.
We were marshalling at three points in Ringtail Forest Reserve. One of the marshalling points served refreshments to the competitors.
The weather was ideal, being warm but overcast but with no rain. However rain in the previous days meant some of the course was waterlogged so some minor diversions were needed.
29 April 2026: Tour of Sunrise Beach Village
Keyton Holdings invited us to view their new development of retirement homes at Sunshine Beach. They gave us a tour of the facilities to demonstrate the high quality of the construction and the great facilities offered to their clients, including a swimming pool, a cinema, a gym and a library. They explained that their more active residents might be potential future members of our club.
The tour ended in their restaurant where we we given coffee and snacks.
As a gesture of their appreciation they gave us a donation of $500.
25 April 2026: Anzac Day
While we took part in the Commemoration Service we also used our food van to serve snacks to the other participants and attendees. Later in the day we ran a barbecue to serve sausage sizzles to the crowd that had fun at the Two Up.
3 – 6 April 2026: Car Parking at Noosa Heads Lions Park
Noosa Council open the Noosa Heads Lions Park for car parking during peak holiday times. We collect payment on behalf of the council, assisted by Cooroy Woodworkers Club who direct the cars to ensure they park correctly.
All the proceeds go to Noosa Council, but they give us a proportion back in recognition of the many hours we spend collecting payments.
The car park was open from 3 – 5 April, but not on 6th because the field was waterlogged.
21 March 2026: Noosa Ultra-Trail
While some of our members we feeding surfers at the Festival of Surfing others were helping with marshalling at the Noosa Ultra-Trail. They helped make the event a success by directing traffic and generally interacting with participants and spectators.
The Trail has been developed to showcase the beautiful Hinterland region of Noosa by utilising a large section of the existing Noosa Trail Network which has been rebranded to the Noosa Biosphere Trail.
The Trail Network was developed over 20 years ago and has 8 interconnecting trails of different lengths and degrees of difficultly which form a circular loop from Lake MacDonald in the east to Kin Kin in the north to Cooran and Pomona in the West and then to Cooroy in the southern parts of Noosa Shire.
Since its development the Trail has only been promoted for walking, horse riding and mountain biking. Now we are bringing the sport of Trail Running!
In April 2020 a Masterplan was developed to upgrade many elements of the trail network with a focus on the trails in and around Pomona and the spectacular Mount Coorora.
With the growing popularity of trail running around the globe the opportunity presented itself to develop a Trail Running Festival by using the Noosa Trail Network as the basis of the routes.
14 – 22 March 2026: Festival of Surfing
Our members spent many hours sweating in a hot food van preparing and selling bacon & egg rolls, burgers, sausages and steakburgers to hungry surfers and their followers. Over the course of the week we sold several hundred and raised about $5,000 for our charity account, which will be used to fund local good causes and people in need.
One member in particular deserves special mention: Gary Dun manages the food van and was there every day from 6:00am until we closed at around 3:00pm. As well as sourcing all the ingredients he leads the preparation and sales.
This year celebrated the milestone of 35 years of this iconic surfing festival. The Queensland Government is proud to support the event through their Tourism and Events Queensland’s Homegrown Fund, which backs events developed in our state and helps connect them with the unique destinations we call home.
Saturday 7 March 2026: Bunnings Sausage Sizzle
Bunnings offer voluntary groups the option of manning their sausage sizzle by the main entrance. We took it for a day to raise funds for the Australian Lions Childhood Cancer Research Foundation (ALCCRF). It was a dull day with lots of rain but we still sold around 600 sausages and raised almost $2,000 for this worthy cause. We thank Bunnings for giving us the opportunity to do this.
This was part of our contribution to the Australian Lions Biggest BBQ, which is an annual fundraising event undertaken by many of the 1,200 Clubs across the country.
Since 1996, Lions Australia have shown outstanding commitment contributing over $12 million dollars to childhood cancer research. This effort has resulted in, amongst other things, safer and more effective blood stem cell transportation for leukaemia patients following chemotherapy which can lead to shorter hospitalisation and more rapid recovery. Lions have done a lot but the job is not over because we believe every child has the right to a healthy life.
The Australian Lions Childhood Cancer Research Foundation was officially established in 2009 with the prime focus being to increase survival rates of childhood cancer by supporting cancer research efforts not just here in Australia, but around the world..
Friday 20 February 2026: It’ll Take a Tribe
It’ll Take a Tribe is a charity that supports parents and carers doing it tough by providing free birthday gifts and cakes for their children. They also offer essential items-food and clothing to families in need — because no one should face hardship alone.
We consider them to be a very worthwhile charity so we bought $500-worth of toys from Big W and donated them to It’ll Take a Tribe. Big W kindly added even more toys.
Tuesday 17 February 2026: Youth of the Year
The Lions Youth of the Year program has a proud history in encouraging and fostering leadership skills in Australian students approaching the end of their high school years.
By emphasising qualities like contribution to the community and school, public speaking, academic skills, sporting and cultural involvement, Youth of the Year aims to bring forth the next generation of outstanding young Australians.
We invited entries from years 10 and 11 of various schools and from them six contestants were shortlisted. Each contestant had to give a two-minute spontaneous response to two questions for which they had no time to prepare. They then had to give a five-minute talk on a subject of their choice. The audience of about 70 were amazed at the ability of these youngsters. They gave talks on a variety of subjects, ranging from saving koalas to the impact of AI.
The event was compered by the organiser, Lion Steve Whitter, assisted by three judges:
- Councillor Amelia Lorentson- Noosa Council
- Julie Ainscough – President of Noosa Women’s Shed
- Craig (Burts) Burton- General Manager Noosa Heads Surf Lifesaving Club Inc.
The judges had the difficult task of choosing an overall winner and a public speaking winner. Madeleine Stevens was the overall winner and Ava Jorge was the Public Speaking Winner. However everyone agreed that all six contestants were winners!
UPDATE: The Regional Final for Youth of the Year was held in Marcoola on 28 March and our winner, Madeleine Stevens, won! Congratulations to Madeleine
Photos and video courtesy of LensArt
Alexander Nade, St Andrews
Lachlan Parnel - Sunshine Beach
Madeleine Stevens - Good Shepherd
Ava Jorge - St Andrews
Mathius van Velzen - Good Shepherd
Priya Rogers - Sunshine Beach
Alex Von Homeyer gave an inspirational talk on her year since winning last year's Youth of the Year
The contestants with the organiser, Steve Whitter
They were all winners, but the judges voted Madeleine Stevens as the Overall Winner and Ava Jorge as Public Speaking Winner. Certificates were awarded by Lola McDonald
Monday 26 January 2026: Australia Day
Every year we organise and run the Australia Day celebration on behalf of Noosa Council. It’s free and there’s a full day’s entertainment and an array of food vendors (including our sausage sizzle). There’s fun for the kids, with stalls including facepainting and rock climbing. It’s held in Lions Park, Gympie Terrace, right next to the waterside so it’s a lovely venue for a relaxing day out.
Photos and video courtesy of LensArt
January 2026: Car Parking in Noosa Heads Lions Park
Many years ago our members helped Noosa Council with the development of a recreation area at Noosa Heads. In recognition of our help the council named it “Noosa Heads Lions Park”. During peak holiday periods the council open it for car parking to alleviate the shortage of parking spaces in Noosa and invite us to collect payment on their behalf.
This year was no exception and we parked 6,000 cars over the holiday period! All the proceeds were passed to Noosa Council who gave us a proportion in recognition of our efforts. Our members spent a total of well over 200 man-hours planning and marshalling.
Sunday 7 December 2025: Tewantin Christmas Carnival
Tewantin Noosa RSL organised their annual Christmas Carnival on 7 December in the RSL Memorial Park. There was live music all evening, with carol singing and fireworks. We were there with our burger van to provide sustenance to the crowd and earn a little income for our charity account.
December 2025: Santa’s Classy Helpers
Santa’s Classy Helpers was set up 10 years ago by Lorraine Kenway to support underprivileged families at Christmas. They do this by collecting food, and Christmas presents during the year, then opening a free market where each family can choose whatever they want and fill a supermarket trolley. In total they supported 640 families (all only invited by referral) and over 2000 children.
We helped by providing a free sausage sizzle with sausages kindly donated by Coles Peregian Springs. Over 450 sausages helped keep energy levels up and spirits high. We were also busy with rubbish collection. We filled four skips with discarded packing materials.
We love being involved in this special event and thank Lorraine and her team again for bringing us all together to share the true joy of Christmas
26 September 2025: Blue Hope Ultra
We supported the Blue Hope Ultra with friendship and food for 25+ Police at Noosa Heads Police Station. The charity run is in memory of Constable Russell Sheehan -raising awareness and funds for mental health support for Police
