Category: News
Parish Events for March
This year the month of March came in like a lion and hopefully will leave as a lamb. The heavy snow fall, and the consequent drifting, confined a lot of us to our homes until we dug ourselves out. Thanks to Mike for doing a great job clearing the path to the church porch to enable access to the church for the Sunday morning services. Mothering Sunday was made all the more memorable with the presentation by our “Pebbles “ children on what their mothers meant to them. So a big Thank You to their leaders for organising this time in church in place of the sermon.
A recent meeting of the P.C.C revealed that we are still awaiting a reply to our request to the Wenvoe Community Council for the ash tree at the entrance to the Community Cemetery to be taken down as its roots are affecting the stone boundary wall. Also that when in full leaf it overshadows the 18th century headstone of Mary Morgan who died at the grand age of 109 years. This grave at present has a lovely show of daffodils in full bloom. The PCC Secretary has now sent a reminder.
Our financial situation is in good health, and donations to maintain the Building Fund are always welcome as we have quite an extensive programme of work planned for the year ahead.
BBC Radio Wales recordings…The Ministry Area has been chosen to record two programmes, to be broadcast on 28th October (Bible Sunday) and 6th January 2019 (Epiphany). The recordings will take place in St. Mary’s on October 8th 2018 and the support of all the congregations across the ministry area is needed to make this worthwhile.
More information about the formation of a Rectorial Benefice will be made available (but not to be discussed) to the Annual Vestry meetings before submitting it to the next ordinary meeting of the PCC on the 14th May.
A faculty will be presented to the Diocesan Care of Churches committee to allow us to improve the drainage at the East end of the Chancel by digging additional French Drains, a complication are the two box tombs which are in the way, which may have to be removed and re-erected close to their original position.
The Social Committee reported that 2017 had been a
busy year, and that this year the Annual Fun Quiz was a great success. The Lent Lunches have continued each Wednesday in Lent and the Agape supper on the evening of Maunday Thursday was also well supported. There has been no charge for these meals and donations were given for the Christian Aid appeal. The “Chattery” continues to be a friendly, enjoyable occasion on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Heartfelt thanks to the faithful small band of people who work so hard to make these occasions happen.
Messy Church – Messy Easter—The first session of Messy Church took place on Saturday 10th March in the Wenvoe Community Centre. The theme was the miracle of Easter and the Resurrection. There was a range of Messy Craft activities which included handprint Easter Chicks, edible Easter gardens, nail and wool woven crosses. Families also contributed to creating two large cross pictures by dipping their fingers in paint and printing their fingerprints onto the crosses which will be displayed in both churches over the Easter period. Many more activities also took place and the session ended with a delightful afternoon tea donated by the congregations of both churches. Messy Church regularly attracts between 50 – 60 people of all ages, so there is clearly a need in the village for this kind of worship.
A reminder and an invitation to the Easter Day Services at St Mary’s on Sunday April 1st. Please see the notice on the church gates and in the “Connections” parish magazine. Easter is known as the Queen of Festivals and a welcome awaits all who come to worship the Risen Lord.
Blessing to all our readers.
Parry Edwards.
200 Club – February Draw Winners
Spring Craft Fair
WENVOE SPRING CRAFT FAIR
Sunday 20th May 2018
Community Centre 10am – 4pm
Not long now until the Wenvoe Craft Workshop™️ second annual Wenvoe Spring Craft Fair on Sunday 20th May. Save the date and come along and see a lovely selection of hand crafted items made by talented local crafts people! As well as some old favourites we have some extraordinary new products on offer from crafters who are new to our craft fairs. Vale Cider will be offering taster sessions and selling their delicious locally made cider to thirsty customers. We see a return of Tricycle Treats with their fabulous ice cream flavours on sale from a beautiful 1940’s style stop-me-and-buy-one trike. We also have locally made artisan fudge (and locally made salted caramel sauce!) on sale in some sensational flavours as well as jewellery, woven basket ware (our lovely crafter will be doing some crafts in action on the day), textile, paper, felt, natural body products, and a variety of different medium greetings cards to name but a few. We have a couple of wood work stalls with a much welcome return of Wenvoe’s very own Gwyndaf Breese, whose craftsmanship has to be seen to be believed. Mike, the Village Gardener, will be selling plants and giving out gardening advice to those who want it ( and very possibly to those who don’t! ). We also have a local couple who make and sell safe children’s scientific experiment sets which may well be demonstrated on the day so bring along your budding scientists! Why on earth would you want to miss all that? Then when you’ve shopped you can drop – in to the refreshment area where you can indulge in a hot or cold drink and a slice of home made cake. There are some lovely prizes in the charity raffle, including an item donated by Gwyndaf, and this time the proceeds will be going to the Wenvoe Wildlife Group to help enable them to continue their sterling work around the Village. A member of the Wenvoe Wildlife Group will be in attendance on the day to give visitors information about their invaluable work and maybe ( rumour has it ) have some wild flower seeds to give to those interested. Do come along, it will a good, entertaining day where you can meet both present and past Wenvoe residents and have a chat and a catch-up.
If you have any queries you can contact the Organisers, Glenys and Mike Tucker, by email at pukkatucker@gmail.com or by phone on 079 2210 9721.
ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND RUGBY
Second from the TOP
Didn't Wales do well in the end in the six nations rugby competition. All seemed well on the first weekend when we gave Scotland a shock. That woke them up a bit and improved their play. In the past I was always in awe at how France played ‘basketball rugby’ with high passes and adhesive palms before velcro was invented. Sadly, this year when we tried it against Ireland there was a leprechaun ready to intercept and steal a win away from us with a try. Not that we had had a great game. Ireland seemed to play ‘special rugby with a few dull phases. We seemed to play ‘ordinary rugby with a few special moments. It was a shame that Scotland pipped Italy at the post to deny them a consolation win to go with the wooden spoon. But our hard graft against France, and hard graft it was, edged us into second place in the table. In the words of many of my school reports: “satisfactory progress, could do better".
Second from the BOTTOM
Eddie Jones recently had to apologise for insulting the Welsh and the Irish during an after dinner speech last June. Better late than never I suppose. Happily, Celts have a sense of humour. Sadly, he is arrogant enough to have meant the insults, and the super rich English Rugby Union and players have the same personalities. All water under the Severn Bridge. He set his squad up to ride roughshod over the other five teams, and he did win, just, over Wales. But the French cockerel pecked them in their ‘derrieres’. Ireland taught them the final lesson about all round fifteen man rugby. Gauls and Celts can smile while the Anglo-Saxons take comfort that they didn’t come last.
AyJay
I Had to Laugh – Social Media
I had to laugh at the item in March What's On ‘Living Without Facebook'. I love reading and it reminded me of some paragraphs that had jumped out at me.
I have recently re-read JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, first published in three parts in 1954-55. Every time I read it something new always surprises me and this time it was a short paragraph which brought to mind our modern focus on ‘seeing' news through social media, being kept informed by sound and video bites on mobile phones and i-pads. Some of the Fellowship of the Ring were returning to the Shire after the One Ring had been destroyed and the Dark Lord had been defeated. Pippin, the Hobbit, had earlier had a bad, frightening, dangerous experience looking into a Seeing Stone (a Pallantir) and seeing the evil eye of Sauron. In spite of that experience, he still yearned for
“ a Stone that we could see all our friends in, and .. We could speak to them from far away".
This seems to be 50 years ahead of it’s time, yearning for the powers of Skype, Facebook, Snapchat etc. But Pippin's earlier bad experience of naively using the seeing stone without parental or any other access controls also foretold the pitfalls and risks.
I have also been reading a 2014 book by Orlando Fires- a History of Revolutionary Russia 1891 – 1991. In these days news is spread by social media wild fires so it was interesting to read this in relation to the year 1916. Russia was transitioning from the Tsar’s autocracy, through the first world war and deprivation, into the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Communist Party. A resident of the then capital Petrograd was quoted.
“ Rumours filled the lives of all inhabitants. They were believed more readily than the newspapers….The public was desperate for information, for almost anything, on political subjects, and any rumour was bound to spread like wildfire. What gave these stories their power and significance was how far they accorded with the general mood and with previous rumours that had shaped that mood. Once a rumour, however fake, became the subject of common belief, it assumed the status of fact, informing the attitudes and actions of the public. All revolutions are based in part on myth.”
This seems to be 100 years ahead of it’s time when seen against the backdrop of social media frenzies, of anti-austerity momentum, of the disease of trumptweets and fake news, of the revolutions against established norms that seem to be commonplace.
Lastly, and more up to date is Dan Brown's Origin, 2017. One of his characters is sad because
‘What had been life's quiet moments of solitary reflection – a few minutes alone or on a train, or walking to work, or waiting for an appointment, could no longer be borne. People impulsively reached for their phones, their ear buds, their games, unable to fight the addictive pull of technology. The miracles of the past are fading away. Whitewashed by a ceaseless hunger for all-that-is-new sound and video bytes.”
Spanning over a hundred years, these quotes show that technology may change, but human behaviour adapts more slowly. On a lighter note, for many years I thought that the textspeak acronym LOL stood for Lots of Love. Finally I was educated that it stands for LAUGH OUT LOUD. Thank goodness I still can do just that…..
AyJay
OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS
OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS
The recent spell of cold and snowy weather couldn’t have come at a worst time for our native birds. By March stocks of natural food such as berries are dwindling at a time when birds are needing to be at their healthiest to breed and raise their young. When food is scarce especially when covered by snow our birds become even more dependent on the food that we put out for them and so with the advent of this recent spell of bad weather it was worth the struggle to get to my feeders to ensure that the birds had a plentiful supply of food and equally important drinking water as any other sources would be blocks of ice..
I was amazed at how my efforts were rewarded as over the weekend I saw an amazing variety of birds. I have listed the birds I saw and would be interested to hear if anyone saw any other species.
New Dogs Trust Homing Centre
The charity have at last received planning for a brand new homing centre in Cardiff. It will be sited in Splott. With the number of stray and abandoned dogs in Wales totalling 4,900 last year, our only centre in Wales, at Bridgend is always full to capacity and the new centre, due to open in 2020 will go a long way to alleviate the pressure on Bridgend and continue to provide for the welfare of dogs in our country.
I have spoken on occasion of dedicated volunteer Jenny Thomas who has raised thousands of pounds for Dogs Trust over many years. In 2017 alone she raised over £30,000, enough to sponsor five kennels for a year and this by sorting and selling your unwanted stamps, albums and foreign currency. Please keep them coming as every one is gratefully received. As usual they can be picked up from the What’s On box or can be sent directly to Jenny Thomas, 15, Wentworth Ave, London, N3 1YA.
LEARNER DRIVERS
LEARNER DRIVERS
on motorways from 4 June 2018
From Monday 4 June 2018, learner drivers will be able to take driving lessons on motorways in England, Scotland and Wales.
This will help to make sure more drivers know how to use motorways safely.
Learner drivers will need to be:
• accompanied by an approved driving instructor
• driving a car fitted with dual controls
Any motorways lessons will be voluntary
It will be up to the driving instructor to decide when the learner driver is competent enough for them.
Until the law changes, it’s still illegal for a learner driver to drive on a motorway.
International Women’s Day
This International Women’s Day I had the incredible opportunity to be on BBC Radio Cymru with some of the most incredible young women. Speaking about a subject so close to my heart in my native language is a high I feel I can’t come down from. But more importantly, the women I got to speak with on the radio all have incredible personalities and views, and I can’t wait to see what they do.
I missed blogging on International Women’s Day, but I felt like I couldn’t express how important it was to me then – I was too caught up in seeing the ways women were uplifting other women and men were taking the time to thank the women around them. But now I know what it means to me. It means a future filled with possibilities and hope. It means that maybe by the time I come to have children, I can tell them how the women I was surrounded by helped to change the world, in a similar way to the Suffragettes 100 years ago.
This International Women’s Day I want to celebrate all women. Women who have expressed themselves enough and are strong enough to come out to the world. Women who accomplish the phenomenal even when those around them limit them due to their race. Women who own their femininity and those who choose not to. Women who have to fight with the world to be seen as women. Women who don’t
let disability stop them from achieving the extraordinary. Women who are survivors of domestic abuse or sexual assault. Women who are bosses and run countries and empires. Women who have to battle every day against their mental health. Women who support other women.
I can’t help but be in awe of the young women I am surrounded by and see on the news. The girls I see every day breaking stereotypes and controlling their own destinies. The young women who inspire me every day. The young women I see supporting men and women when they feel down. The young women I see in school, achieving their goals and owning it. The young women in the media like Zendaya and Tavi Gevinson and Emma Gonzalez creating a path we didn’t previously think existed.
This International Women’s Day I was grateful to be surrounded by incredible women. And incredible people, in general. I was grateful for my brother always encouraging me to chase my goals, and grateful to have parents who work tirelessly every day and prove the importance of hard work. I was grateful for my sensational friends who support each other under all circumstances. I was grateful for a family who is always there to listen. I was grateful that the women I am surrounded by prove the impossible is possible (I’m not grateful that I’ll have to follow in their footsteps, however!).
Time’s Up is still a movement which is incredibly important, and with the UN Women working against child marriage and for equal reproductive rights for women, a change is imminent. With the age of marriages being raised to at least 16 in many countries, a change is clearly possible. We need to keep this change on the up-rise. This International Women’s Day I came to appreciate that the women who inspire me every day don’t simply have to be the women I see on my newsfeeds. They’re the women I see day-in and day-out. The women who are going to blow us all out of the water.
Who knew the world was filled with dozens of Wonder Women?
By Tirion Davies