Category: News

Covid Rules: For The Moment, Nothing Has Changed

News for June

Here in Wales, the Welsh Government has relaxed some of the COVID restrictions we have lived under for the past 14 months, but with new freedoms come the responsibilities we have to each other.

While cafes, museums, cinemas and much more can now open, churches still have to abide with the previous rules of social distancing, the wearing of face masks, no singing allowed, and having to book your place in the congregation. So, for the moment, nothing has changed. At St. Mary’s we are having repairs and repainting in the nave and chancel, so the building remains closed. All worship was transferred to the Church Hall and it is hoped services in June will be back in church. See the church notice board for the latest details and arrangements.

After much hassle and delay, Wi-Fi was finally installed in the church. The streaming of services will now go ahead when we are able to reopen. The delay was caused by not having a postcode, not having a letter box, the “Open reach” ladders were too short, need I say more!! The 10.30am service on Facebook stopped during the month as we were able to stream a service from either Sully or Wenvoe at the regular times of 9.30am and 11.00am. The Facebook service was widely popular with people logging in from far and wide, and far more were taking part on line than we could ever hope to see in church. Reaching out beyond the confines of the church building is our Mission to the community and we invite those who cannot attend in person and have a Wi-Fi connection, to join in with us as we explore different ways of doing “church”.

The Christian Aid appeal “MAKING STEPS MATTER” took place during the month, and first results are encouraging. This year like last year, we could not organise a house-to-house collection, but the bunting and banners outside the church and the village school, was a reminder that the gift of water in many parts of the world is a rare commodity. The appeal was to count the steps we take each week in our daily lives and compare them with the many steps the women in Africa have to take to fetch water for their daily use. The appeal remains open, and your gift of money will help so many to build water dams in their villages so that walking many miles will be a thing of the past.

The latest news on the church tower is that our architect has prepared the “spec” and this has gone out to tender, for the work to be carried out as soon as possible. Any contractor who submits a tender must have proven “conservation experience of stonework” in churches and other listed buildings. Until these tenders come in, we have no idea of what the likely cost is going to be. The churchwardens aided by the PCC have the responsibility of ensuring that the fabric of the church is kept in good order, and the last time the tower was under investigation was almost twenty years ago. The work carried out then has not stood the test of time and the weathering we have had over those years has caused the deterioration of the mortar applied at that time.

Kevin Barry, who has been serving his time as an ordinand in St. Mary’s is coming to an end with his ordination as a deacon in the cathedral on June 26th. He will then be welcomed into Wenvoe parish as a curate on Sunday 27th June. His ordination to the priesthood will be at a date and place yet to be agreed. To mark this great event in his life, it was decided, that he will be presented with a purple stole from the three churches (Sully, St Lythans and Wenvoe) as a mark of the great affection he was held in during his training with Jon.

Our congregation in Wenvoe, as in many other parishes, has a large number of elderly parishioners, and however hard we try to encourage younger people to join us, we remain as we are, reliant on older generations to keep the roof on and the door open. Recently Mrs Mary Turner celebrated her 90th birthday. Mary is not able to attend church these days so home visits are a real treat for her. A copy of the church magazine is really appreciated, as is a copy of the weekly newsletter, and she listens intently as the readings and lessons are read to her. During this time of COVID these visits are very limited, and her carers are doing a truly wonderful job in looking after her. To all in this older generation the congregation is very thankful for the support they have continued to give to the church in Wenvoe, and there will be a place for them when they are able to return to what we are calling the NEW NORMAL pattern of services.

The development and progression to the new Ministry Area has continued, with meetings arranged on Zoom. You will have read that the name of our ministry area will be “de Morgannwg” that is “south Glamorgan”, and that we in Wenvoe will be one of nine churches coming together to spread the “love of Christ to our communities”. There is still much to do in setting up the various groups to iron out any difficulties in time for the decree to be issued on January 1st, 2022.

At a recent meeting of the PCC, held on Zoom, the chairman, Jon, thanked all members of the PCC for their continuing help and support during these days. We are awaiting the very latest guidelines from the Bench of Bishops. Until then we are still under the same guidelines that have applied since we were able to re-open our church on the 21st March.

Keep safe and God Bless,

Parry Edwards

 

 

Please Help Me Raise Funds

PLEASE HELP ME RAISE FUNDS FOR A HOMELESS CHARITY

I am taking on this challenge to raise £1000 for a homeless charity in Wales which is run by my daughter Bonnie.

Housing Justice Cymru mobilises Christian action on homelessness and housing need through love, justice, advocacy and nurture. They really do excellent work. I will make four pilgrimages to holy places this year starting with a mini pilgrimage from Llandaff Cathedral to the holy shrine and statue of Mary at Penrhys in the Rhondda. My final pilgrimage will be to some Orthodox monasteries in Greece. I aim to complete all four between June and December this year.

Please donate to this good cause. The link to my JustGiving page is

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Alun-Davies-walks-Wales

I have pledged to raise £1000 for homelessness in Wales this year and any more will be very welcome by this charity.

My four pilgrimages will be as follows:

  • Llandaff to Penrhys – a 21 mile walk from the door of Llandaff Cathedral to the medieval shrine at Penrhys in the Rhondda valley where there is a fine statue of Mary, known as Our Lady of Penrhys.
  • The Monk’s Trod from Strata Florida to Abbey Cwm Hir – across bleak mid Wales! This is a 25-mile route linking two former Cistercian monasteries and follows the historic track used by monks, workers, merchants and officials of the Cistercian order who would walk, ride on donkeys or mules, or even travel on slow moving ox carts in dry weather.
  • St Cuthbert’s Way from Melrose to the Holy Island. This is 62 miles of varied cross-country walking from Melrose where St Cuthbert began his religious life to Lindisfarne his final resting place.
  • A week on the Holy Mount Athos in Greece clearing the pilgrim footpaths. Members of the Friends of Mount Athos meet up to clear the historic paved paths linking the 22 monasteries there.

 

I will be most grateful for a donation however large or small.

Best wishes

Alun Davies DL, Honorary Consul of Hungary.

Email: alun@alunjdavies.co.uk

Tel: 07802 767877

 

 

 

Homelessness and Rough Sleeping – The Sad End Of Society

HOMELESSNESS AND ROUGH SLEEPING – THE SAD END OF SOCIETY

It is all too common a sight to see people sleeping rough on the streets of Cardiff. Our first thoughts are usually of compassion and charity. I remember travelling back from London by train one winter evening and as I left Cardiff Central station on foot it was dark and raining. I passed a young, girl on the pavement who was wet and crying, and my social conscience nagged at me. That prompted me to visit the Huggard centre for rough sleepers. It is run by Cardiff Council and situated at the back of the station, and I soon realised the immense scale of the problem.

Before the pandemic, the number in England alone was over 219,000. During the Coronavirus pandemic there has been a reported rise of 150% in people seeking emergency accommodation. In Wales each year, 2,900 people sleep rough. However, rough sleepers account for just 7% of the total number of those experiencing homelessness. Many are sofa surfing, sleeping in their cars or in places such as storage units.

It is important to know that in Wales, we are fortunate that our government, unlike England, has made the bold commitment to housing everyone experiencing homelessness. This means all Local Authorities in Wales, have a duty to house people experiencing homelessness. However, while the ambition is good, the reality is more problematic. Firstly, there is a housing crisis in Wales, specifically there are not enough affordable homes. Furthermore, the complex reasons which cause people to become homeless mean it can be very difficult for individuals to access services.

People become homeless for lots of different reasons, such as when they leave prison, hospital, the care system, or the army with no home to go to. Many women experiencing homelessness have escaped a violent or abusive relationship. However, there is often a common link between the underlying causes of these situations.

The link is difficult events in our childhood, now referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences, which can have a lifelong effect on our lives. Research undertaken by Public Health Wales has

shown that being raised in a home where there are problems such as domestic abuse, neglect, violence or use of drugs, results in excessive and prolonged stress on children during their early, formative years. Crucially, when four of more of these problems occur within a household the prolonged exposure to stress changes the development of a child’s brain and immune system changing their prospects, including detrimental impacts on mental health, increased likelihood of chronic disease and early death, and higher probability of engaging in health harming behaviour, such as alcohol addiction.

And, for those who experience four or more of these problems in their childhood, they are 16 times more likely to experience homelessness.

There are several charities in Wales who work to alleviate homelessness and rough sleeping and I am raising money for Housing Justice Cymru. They mobilise faith and community groups to take action on homelessness and housing need. Sponsored by the Church in Wales, they are a small, highly influential charity. Their work makes a huge difference to thousands of people across the country, through their volunteer led projects which help people experiencing homelessness, either through night shelters, hosting projects or their Citadel project, which helps people to find and sustain a tenancy. Housing Justice Cymru also helps Churches with derelict land and buildings to sell their assets to enable the building of affordable housing, helping to address the housing crisis in Wales.

If you see someone sleeping rough – Be Kind, establish a human connection by making eye contact and smiling. Crouch down to somebody’s level if they are sat down. Ask them how they are doing and if there’s anything you can help them with.

Getting Involved – If you want to volunteer, contact the Wales Council for Voluntary Action or Housing Justice Cymru.

 

 

Wenvoe Forum – Considering Today And Tomorrow

WENVOE FORUM – CONSIDERING TODAY AND TOMORROW

A big thank you to those of you who completed our survey or sent us comments. We need to get many more replies to make sure we are really hearing the views of the whole village but those who have been kind enough to give us a few minutes of their time seem to confirm that we are thinking along the right lines, with a high percentage interest in environmental issues.

As a next step we have set up a community meeting

Act today so that we can bequeath our children and grandchildren clean water, fresh air and a healthy environment in which they too can thrive. Tomorrow will be too late. Join our meeting to plan what we, the Wenvoe Community can do.

Zoom Meeting

Achieving Zero Together

Thursday 1st July

7.00 – 8.30pm

  • Vale of Glamorgan – Project Zero, what the LA can do, how we can help
  • Wenvoe residents – Your ideas for projects, activities and actions
  • Next steps – We’ll need help to move forward with the priorities

E-mail Gwenfo.Forum@gmail.com with ZERO as a title to book your place (limit 100 connections)

The need to tackle climate change is pressing. According to its website “Project Zero is the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s response to the climate change emergency. Project Zero brings together the wide range of work and opportunities available to tackle the climate emergency, reduce the Council’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2030 and encourage others to make positive changes.”

It is an ambitious wide ranging plan that covers buildings and energy use, sustainable travel and transport, a green infrastructure plan, waste management and promotion of a circular economy and more. You can read more on the Vale of Glamorgan website and at the above meeting on Zoom, Tom Bowring, Head of Policy and Business Transformation will give an overview of Project Zero and what it will mean for Wenvoe, how we can help the local authority meet its carbon emission aims and how it can help us with our projects to tackle climate change.

Another idea that scored highly with survey respondents was helping to reduce food miles by making sustainably produced, low waste, food available to buy easily in the village, particularly fresh products.

We will be setting up a social media presence for the forum so that people can link with us more easily, so look out for Gwen Fo on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/gwen.fo)

The need to tackle climate change is pressing. According to its website “Project Zero is the Vale of Glamorgan Council’s response to the climate change emergency. Project Zero brings together the wide range of work and opportunities available to tackle the climate emergency, reduce the Council’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2030 and encourage others to make positive changes.”

It is an ambitious wide ranging plan that covers buildings and energy use, sustainable travel and transport, a green infrastructure plan, waste management and promotion of a circular economy and more. You can read more on the Vale of Glamorgan website and at the above meeting on Zoom, Tom Bowring, Head of Policy and Business Transformation will give an overview of Project Zero and what it will mean for Wenvoe, how we can help the local authority meet its carbon emission aims and how it can help us with our projects to tackle climate change.

Another idea that scored highly with survey respondents was helping to reduce food miles by making sustainably produced, low waste, food available to buy easily in the village, particularly fresh products.

We will be setting up a social media presence for the forum so that people can link with us more easily, so look out for Gwen Fo on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/gwen.fo

More opinions needed please

If you haven’t completed the survey please, please do, it only takes 2 minutes. You will find it at this address:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/7Y2G95H

or on our Facebook page.

We particularly want to hear from younger residents, under 25s, students at school, college or university after all it’s your future we are thinking about.

Anyone who would like to join the Forum for its on-line meetings will be very welcome, please contact us at  Gwenfo.Forum@gmail.com  and we can tell you more.

 

 

Talk About Having To Go!

TALK ABOUT HAVING TO GO!

Wood frogs in Alaska have been known to hold their urine for up to eight months, sticking it out through the region’s long winters before relieving themselves once temperatures increase. The urine actually helps keep the animal alive while it hibernates, with special microbes in their gut that recycle the urea (urine’s main waste) into nitrogen

 

 

 

Turn On, Tune In And Drop……Everything !

TURN ON, TUNE IN AND DROP…………EVERYTHING !

The Wenvoe Mast is transmitting another Royal Event this June

On 17th April, more than 13 million people in the UK watched live television coverage of the funeral of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. The BBC’s coverage of the scaled-back military procession and St George’s chapel service at Windsor Castle alone attracted 11 million viewers. The Queen Mother’s 2002 funeral was watched by 10.4 million, while that of Diana, Princess of Wales, had a record 32 million in 1997. On happier days 26 million tuned in to watch the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge tie the knot at Westminster Abbey, while Harry and Meghan’s Windsor wedding, pulled in around 18 million across all TV channels.

We have become accustomed to seeing royal events on our TV screens. It was Prince Philip himself of course, who paved the way for national TV coverage of royal events. As chair of the committee organising his wife’s 1953 coronation, the Duke of Edinburgh overruled the fierce view of the then prime minister, Winston Churchill, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, that admitting cameras to film the ceremony would destroy the majesty of the occasion. But Prince Philip, already an early adopter of home videos, gambled that letting family pictures into homes would humanise and popularise the Royal Family.

Planning began immediately after King George VI died (on 6 February 1952), and over the following months the sale of television sets rose in anticipation of the big day. The BBC had acquired 100 redundant military transmitters at the end of the War, and BBC engineers went to work converting them for sound and picture transmissions for the north east of England and Northern Ireland – which would otherwise be without coverage.

We did not have that problem of course, because our local Wenvoe transmitter had already been built at a cost of £250,000 and opened in August 1952. Fully operational, the original Wenvoe mast, some 750 feet high, allowed households across South Wales and the West Country to see the Coronation as it happened. By late 1952 it was estimated that about one family in every 25 owned a TV and the mast ensured 8 million people would get the opportunity to tune in to the historic events.

Nearly 70 years later, the Wenvoe transmitter is still enabling us to watch live coverage of royal events. If Covid 19 rules allow, on 12th June many of us will tune in to TV coverage of the Queen’s Official Birthday Parade or Trooping the Colour. The ceremony is believed to have been first performed during the reign of King Charles II (1660–1685) and has been used to mark the official birthday of The Sovereign since 1748. The Queen has taken the salute at every parade since her accession to the throne in 1952 other than in 1955 when there was a national rail strike.

These spectacular royal events make for great television and the British seem to be able to pull them off with a panache and style the envy of other countries. Subject to restrictions, which could mean a scaled down and less public event, F Company Scots Guards will this year Troop their Colour in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen. It is hoped that up to 1,450 soldiers of the Household Division and The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, along with up to 400 musicians from the Massed Bands, will take part. Over 240 soldiers from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards will line The Mall. A fly past by the Royal Air Force will also take place.

 

 

 

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