20 years and counting-

Sue Stevens and Pat Hall began the Thursday club nights at The Lighthouse pub in Coombes Road, Halesowen, on the 8th March 2001. Initially these were held every fortnight. Between May and December 2002, they ran a session called Little Eileen's which met on each alternate Thursday, upstairs at the Hill & Cakemore Ex Servicemen's Club in Victoria Road, Halesowen. They decided to leave this site and meet weekly from January 2003 at The Lighthouse. Between March and May 2004, the pub was closed for refurbishment, and we met at The Grange pub in Church Road, Rowley Regis. Apart from one final visit to the Grange on 24th June, due to football TV screening, we  met at The Lighthouse virtually every Thursday night until 19th April 2007. The Grange was demolished soon after we left it, but that wasn't the club's fault- nor was it our fault that the Lighthouse Pub suffered an arson attack within days of our departure! On Thursday 26th April 2007, Tommy Dempsey became the first artist to feature at the Rowley Regis Conservative Club. On Thursday 9th February 2012 we moved again, just along the road to the Rowley and Blackheath Labour Club. Pat Hall passed away 3 days later on 12th February 2012. A  sad loss for the club. We met there regularly, apart from 2nd & 9th March 2017 when we adjourned to the Hill & Cakemore Ex Servicemen’s club due to refurbishment of the room. We celebrated our 18th anniversary on our 14th March 2019 club night with a special performance from Sunjay Braine. We had to suspend operations after 12th March 2020 due to COVID 19. We resumed on 27th August 2020 but were forced to close again after 29th October 2020, resuming again on 21st May 2021.

Festivals

The club held sessions at the Alcester & Arden Festival in 2007 and 2013, and our own One Day Festivals were held on-site in 2008 and 2009, but we had to cancel the planned 2010 Festival due to Pat’s illness. We held further one day festivals on 6th July 2013 and 16th June 2018.