Jimmy made a request for financial assistance from the Mark Charities Fund for Tommy’s when he received a request from the club that they were in dire need of a laptop computer to help the youngsters with their activities. Jimmy is well aware of the valuable work the trustees do within the club for local youngsters - many of them disadvantaged - and its aims and objectives. Jimmy felt it was a project well worth supporting and the Mark Charity agreed by providing the £330 required for the laptop.

Pic 1: Pictured, from left to right are: Jimmy Rogers, Howard Emmett, John Forster, Jed Sullivan, Keith Beardmore, Tommy Norton, Alan Jones and Stewart Walker.

One of the activities for which the club, founded as Fleetwood Gym in 1894, is renowned is boxing. Young boxers who have trained at the club have gone on to make their mark in the sport or have simply learned the disciplines required.

Pic 2: Making their mark at ringside are Keith Beardmore and other visiting colleagues to Tommy’s with some of the young boxers. John Forster takes it on the chin!

Female boxer Jane Couch, the ‘Fleetwood Assassin’, who trained under Tommy Norton MBE, after whom the club is named, went on to gain fame worldwide. One of the uses the laptop is put to is to visually record the young boxers in action and the playback helps them develop their skills.

Tommy Norton, youth worker Jed Sullivan and Stewart Walker, Chair of the Trustees of Tommy’s were on hand to explain to Keith and the other visitors many of the activities and the development of social skills which take place within the club, at away trips to other centres and by the club’s interaction with Fleetwood schools.

Pic 3: John Forster, Keith Beardmore, Jimmy Rogers, Alan Jones and youth worker Jed Sullivan see the laptop in action.

Stewart Walker, in thanking Keith on behalf of the club for the gift, said that Mark Master Masons would take their place on Tommy’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ feature which lists the names of benefactors of the club on individual bricks.

Keith saw the versatile laptop, which is used by the club for everything from cataloguing records of membership to providing karaoke, in action. And though he owned up to being strongly tempted to join in a karaoke session he resisted the temptation - leaving it to the youngsters.

Pic 4; Alan Jones, Keith Beardmore, Stewart Walker and Howard Emmett hear about Tommy’s from          Jed Sullivan.

Keith said how impressed he was by what he had seen and how delighted he was that Mark Masons had been able to help with such a worthwhile enterprise as a continuing part of Freemasonry’s involvement with local communities.