Month: October 2019

October Church News

October Church News

The Harvest Festival was held on the Sunday following the “scarecrows” and the church was full to capacity at the “all Age Service “at 9.30am. Once again the church was decorated with flowers and fruit and vegetables, and the “Pebbles” children and others from Gwenfo Primary School brought many gifts of tinned goods and dry goods for the Food Bank in Barry. The fruit and vegetables were taken to the Salvation Army in Cardiff and the loose money on the collection plates which was donated to the Christian Aid Harvest Appeal came to £214.00.

Harvest Celebrations at St. Bleddians’s, St Lythan’s. Sunday 6th October, the Harvest was celebrated at St Lythan’s in the traditional manner at 3.00 pm. There was lusty singing of the old favourite harvest hymns and the collection in aid of the Christian Aid harvest Appeal came to £159.00 with an opportunity for refreshments afterwards, a time of fellowship was a welcome addition to a time spent together with the Lord.

Work has continued in the churchyard in stabilising a number of the stone memorial crosses which had become dangerously loose, and the restored wrought iron arch is now back in place between the old and the new churchyards. This now awaits its new light fitting and will hopefully survive for another 100 years. Way back in 1930 it was removed from the original front entrance when the memorial arch and gates were installed in memory of Mrs Laura Jenner of Wenvoe Castle. Maintaining our church and grounds is a real drain on our resources, and donations are always welcomed, either by digital giving or old fashioned cheques. Alternatively, by supporting our “200 Club” or any of our fund raising events; these are the means by which we are enabled to carry out our regular repairs which are so necessary if we are to pass the building on to future generations.

Inside the church we are awaiting our conservation builder Mike to begin the plastering of the walls near the altar and at the organ console. The exposure of the historic tile flooring throughout the building has been accepted by the congregation, and we await the restorers to work their magic in bringing the tiles back to life. The acoustics within the church have been greatly improved with the removal of the blue carpeting, and in the chancel and sanctuary the tile flooring is much easier to walk on, without the risk of getting the feet caught in the edges of the carpet. We are continually being complimented on how well kept the church and grounds are, and all this comes at a cost for which we are always grateful for the support of the community at our fundraising events.

The late Ronald Sidney Thomas RIP
During the month there was a poignant occasion when the ashes of the late Mr Ronald Sidney Thomas, formerly of Walston Road were brought from Sussex to be interred in the churchyard. This was requested in his will and his niece, Sue Lindsay, came from Australia to carry out his wishes. Ron had been a faithful worshipper at St Mary’s and had made things for use in the choir, which we are still using today, and would be lost without them. He was so friendly and would do anything he could when he thought he was able to be of help. We missed him when he decided to move to Lewes, but he never forgot the happy times he and his wife Sheila had spent in Wenvoe. His funeral at the Woodvale Crematorium in Brighton had a Welsh theme with hymns “Jesu lover of my soul” to the tune Aberystwyth and “Guide me O thou Great Redeemer” to the tune Cwm Rhondda. He was generous in life and equally generous at his passing, when he remembered St. Mary’s with a generous legacy towards the upkeep of the church he called his spiritual home. Thank you Ron.

Dates for your diary during November

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY 10th November 2019
Our commemoration of Remembrance Sunday will begin in St. Mary’s Church at 10.00am with representatives from village organisations taking part, in a service of prayers, readings and hymns on the theme of “Remembrance” in this centenary year of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. This will be followed by the usual service at the Village War Memorial with the Silence and the Laying of Wreaths. The Vale Brass band will be in attendance and all are welcome with refreshments in the church hall after the service.

Christmas is coming: Foodbank and The Big Wrap  “Bring a Toy to church” Sunday November 24th.
As we begin to prepare for Christmas we ask you to remember other families in the Vale who may find this time particularly difficult. As has become our custom we will be collecting for extra Christmas food items and treats for families alongside the Foodbank. These can be donated at any time with our usual collections.

Toys and gifts for the Big Wrap, ensuring families have children’s gift items in time for Christmas, can also be donated with food items. These should be new toys and donated unwrapped (any wrapping paper would also be helpful).

The Family Service on 24th November will include a specific collection including the children bringing their gifts during the service. That will be the final date for gift donations to ensure they can be collated, wrapped and distributed in time for Christmas.

Commemoration of the Faithful Departed
This service will be at St. Mary’s at 6.00pm on Sunday November 3rd.

If there is someone you would like to be remembered at this service, please print their name on the list in church.

Parry Edwards

 

 

Bonfire Night Treats

Bonfire Night Treats

Chocolate Toffee Popcorn

200g milk chocolate

200g white chocolate

2 x 30g bags toffee popcorn

Line a 20 x 30cm baking tray with parchment. Melt the milk chocolate and white chocolate separately, then allow to cool slightly. Pour most of the chocolate onto the tray, roughly swirling together. Sprinkle over the toffee popcorn, then drizzle over the remaining milk and white chocolate, and chill until set. Break into big chunks before serving.

Mini – Tiny Toads

2 – 3 tbsp. sunflower oil

85ml milk

1 large egg

50g plain flour, sifted

12 mini cocktail sausages

Preheat oven to fan 180C. Put a generous half-teaspoon of sunflower oil in the bottom of each cup of a deep 12-hole mini muffin tin set on a baking tray. Pour the milk into a jug, add the egg, flour and a good pinch of salt and whisk everything together with a hand blender or wire whisk until a smooth batter forms. Put the muf-fin pan in the oven for a minute or two until the oil becomes very hot. Remove from the oven and quickly fill the cups just under two- thirds full. Drop a sausage into each cup and bake for 20 – 25 minutes until golden brown, well risen and crisp. Serve with a dipping bowl of tomato ketchup.

Chocolate Fingers

125g plain chocolate

175g butter

4 tbsp. cocoa powder

1 tbsp. golden syrup

1 x 200g packet ginger nut biscuits, crushed

75g glace cherries, chopped

125g muesli

75g chopped walnuts

Break chocolate into pieces and melt in a bowl with the butter over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir in co-coa, syrup, biscuits, cherries, muesli and walnuts. Mix well to combine. Pour into a prepared loose bottomed tin 20 x 28cm tray. Smooth and leave in the fridge for about 6 hours until set. Remove mixture about 15 mins before eating. Mark into 3 x 1in fingers. Remove from tray with a plastic fish knife

 

 

 

Gap Year Expedition With Raleigh International

My Name Is Jacob Morgan

Dear Wenvoe Residents; my name is Jacob Morgan. You may know me from the Wenvoe Arms where I have worked for the past few years or seen me around the village walking the dog. I’ve lived in Wenvoe for the past fifteen years, moving here at the age of three with my parents and younger sister ready to enjoy playgroup and later start school at Wenvoe Primary. Now I’m eighteen years old and have finished compulsory education. Whilst most of my peers are starting their further education at university, I have decided to take a gap year to hopefully gain some experience in order to help me decide on what career I would like to pursue.

One thing I’ve decided to take part in during this year is a 10-week expedition in Tanzania. I’m doing this with other young people aged 17-24 from all around the world through a charity called Raleigh International. They strive to create lasting change in areas of the world less fortunate than ours. The expedition will consist of three parts, ‘Community’, ‘Environment’, and ‘Adventure’. We spend about 3 weeks on each project, the first being community in which the main aim will be to improve the safety of water, as well as sanitation and hygiene knowledge for locals in Tanzania. We will work with local schools, educating the pupils on these topics and helping to build sanitation facilities for them; overall improving the health of the community. The second project is environment. During this project the focus will be in forest management. We will work collaboratively with the local farmers and workers to develop forest management plans and raise awareness on the importance of these forests and plants, aiming to create a more sustainable and healthier environment. The final part of the expedition is adventure, which will consist of trekking through the Morogoro region or Southern Highlands of Tanzania. We will pass through small communities and see wildlife such as Lions, Zebras and Elephants along the way. After a day of hiking we will set up camp and sleep under amazing night skies unaffected by light pollution. During this section of the expedition my leadership and teamworking skills will develop and improve, which is brilliant for any workplace I could potentially end up in.

As a part of the experience I will need to fundraise money to pay for my flights, accommodation, and food whilest out there, but also a little extra to donate to the charity, so that more of a difference can be made throughout all the areas in which Raleigh International offer voluntary work. It will allow more projects such as the one I am taking part in to continue, helping to create more positive change all around the world.

I have several ideas for fundraising. Firstly, I am going to climb Pen Y Fan a total of 5 times in one day as a sponsored event. I am looking to do this around the end of November, most probably on a Saturday or Sunday so that my family can come with me (therefore the 23rd/24th/30th Nov). I am looking to organise a raffle, quiz night or race night in the Wenvoe Arms as this would not only be a great fundraiser but also a fun and enjoyable night for the village and the locals who would attend. I aim to arrange one or two in the run up to Christmas. I will have a meeting with Jenny and Digby to see which night of the week they think is best

to hold these events and further details will be posted around the village or on the Wenvoe Arms twitter page. Finally I have set up a ‘Just Giving’ page on the internet – www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jacob-morgan where any donations can be made. Any help in fundraising for Raleigh International or for my expedition in Tanzania would be greatly appreciated.

I will keep you updated on progress and plan to write an article on my return to tell you all about my adventures and experiences. If you’d like to know more or share any ideas for fundraising with me pop into the pub!

 

 

Upper Orchid Field

Upper Orchid Field

Visitors to the Upper Orchid Field will have noticed that the field has been cut and the cuttings removed which is essential to keep the meadow in the best condition for wildflowers to flourish. It is just over 10 years since some residents expressed concern that the field was becoming overgrown and was half-way to becoming woodland. The Wenvoe Wildlife Group was formed and we have been keeping an eye on it as best we can. The Vale of Glamorgan Council, who own the field, agreed to carry out an annual cut but 5 years ago they decided they could no longer afford to do this. The field is now cut by a local contractor with the costs shared between the Wildlife Group and the Wenvoe Community Council. This is one of less than a handful of wildflower meadows left in or near Cardiff but no funding is received from any public body to help to maintain it. The weather has not been conducive to conservation work but we shall continue to plant hedgerow saplings and clear vegetation if and when the sun shines. Our thanks to residents who have donated a Bay tree and 2 Damsons; the latter seem to do well locally. Our harvest of apples continues to go well with the Medlars just waiting for the first frosts. This year’s revelation has been Bullace* which is relatively uncommon in local hedgerows. We have planted it in the Wild Orchard near St Lythans where it has cropped well this year and has proved great for jams and pies

 

*The Bullace is a variety of plum. It bears edible fruit similar to those of the damson, and like the damson is considered to be a strain of the insititia subspecies of Prunus domestica

 

 

 

 

 

Welsh Cycling Club of the Year

WENVOE WHEELERS

Welsh Cycling Club of the Year

Well what a year we have had so far! On Saturday 12th October Wenvoe Wheelers won the Welsh Cycling ‘Club of the Year’. To say we are delighted would be an understatement.

Welsh Cycling and British Cycling have, over the last few years focussed a great deal of energy into getting children into cycling, a very worthwhile aim but our club, as a road cycling club felt from the outset that we simply didn’t have the expertise, time, location or capability to offer road cycling to children. We are not an off-road club (which is what many other cycling clubs for kids do offer) and although many of our members do cycle off-road, we felt we could not offer this to youngsters.

Whilst we are open to anyone over 16 (accompanied on the road) when you look at our membership, we are probably at the other end of the spectrum, age wise! What we do is get adults into cycling and we have been very successful at it. So successful that we recently passed our 200th member mark.

We are first and foremost a social cycling club and although we have quite a number of speedy riders, the main part of our membership comprises a bunch of people who just want to ride, chat and eat cake, taking in the fresh air and scenery. Keeping fit obviously goes hand in hand with cycling but it is not just physical fitness that we all benefit from. You cannot go far these days without hearing about mental illness and how good getting out into the fresh air and taking some exercise is if you are struggling with those sorts of problems, especially with a group of like minded people. And of course, children take their cue from what they see the adults in their lives do. So if they see their parents, grandparents and their friends getting out on their bikes, it surely passes a positive message to the kids that cycling is a ‘good thing’.

We knew that our rivals offered cycling opportunities for kids and we knew that this was a strong point in the eyes of Welsh Cycling so we were a bit nervous about our chances of winning but we did! For a club that has only been in existence for 3 ½ years we think we have done pretty good.

The awards dinner was quite a smart ‘do’ held at the Cricket Academy in Sophia Gardens and so it was that a group of unusually smart cyclists turned up in their best clobber (no lycra allowed) for the evening. We had decreed that the men should wear DJ’s and real bow ties – cue much anguish on how to tie a real bow tie. Some of them couldn’t even figure it out from a You Tube tutorial but luckily one of us ladies came to the rescue. Our slate plaque was presented by Dot Davies (Wimbledot to some of you) and we hope to display it in the village, possibly in the pub.

One of the things which we think impressed the judges was our Valeothon event which started and finished in Wenvoe on the last Sunday in June. If you happened to be up and about at 8 am that Sunday you would have been amazed to see so many cyclists in the village. We had riders from all over the Vale and further afield taking part and the feedback we had was so good, we are doing it again next year. Personally, I think the participants gave us their vote of approval because of the Welsh cakes we supplied for the feed stations. Everyone loved them! We had the racing snakes doing the 80 mile route back in about 4 hours and at the other end of the scale we had the 40 milers pootling along at their own more leisurely pace. It was a fantastic day, helped by good weather (which seems a distant memory as I write this) but what really made it work was all the planning and hard work which went into it in the months leading up to it.

We have also run a second very successful ladies ride which happened in September – again in glorious weather (clearly we have a hotline to the weather gods). We will shortly start our winter programme of turbo in the village hall and watt bike sessions in a gym and next year look forward to our club trip to Mallorca. So if you fancy getting out on your bike, get in touch on facebook or find us at British Cycling

 

 

An Autumn Stroll

An Autumn Stroll

Autumn had definitely arrived for the October stroll. Shorts and t shirts were replaced with coats and bobble hats; blue skies and sunshine were replaced by grey clouds and cool breezes. The companionship and chatter on the walk were the same as ever: is there a better way to spend the first Thursday of every month? Fresh air, lovely countryside, gentle exercise and coffee….join us next month!

 

 

Tombland by C J Sansom

Tombland by C J Sansom

This is the seventh novel in the series
featuring the lawyer, Matthew
Shardlake. Set in the summer of 1584, Tombland
weaves a murder mystery around the Kett uprising in
East Anglia.
John Boleyn is accused of murdering his wife Edith so
the Lady Elizabeth (Queen to be) takes an interest in
the case leading to extra complications.
For most of us it was a thoroughly enjoyable read, the
descriptions made you feel that you were actually in
the camp with the peasants when they were preparing
for their rebellion. The solving of the murder took
many twists and turns, and the characters really came
alive. The author is a master of Tudor historical
fiction.
Some felt this was one of his weaker plots and it was a
real tome to get through – 800 pages. There was no
wandering in to a second book this month! A few
historical inaccuracies were noted, including one
regarding the emblem of Wales. However, these were
forgiven in a jolly good read. Highly recommended
and we gave it a score of 9.
Tombland has in fact been No I in the Sunday Times
Best Sellers list recently.
Tess rewarded us with some delicious cakes,
especially the Welsh Cakes (actually made by Alan)

 

 

 

English as She is Spoke!

Autumn/Winter Session

Our Autumn/Winter session began with the AGM. Listening to our chairperson’s report of last year’s talks and activities one realised what a good job Irene had done in organising the programme.

All the officers were re-elected and the main decision taken was that we would pay our £5.00 membership in September and then pay another £5.00 in January. This was voted through unanimously as it would give the club more income for our charity donations and speakers.

Our first speaker was John Richardson who gave a talk on the annoying use of English. John is a retired special needs teacher who has an interest in the theatre as well as the English language.

Having taught English to adult foreign students he was well aware of the idiosyncrasies of our language giving the word “ought” as an example of something that can be pronounced in six different ways depending on the word.

John spoke to us about the importance of correct grammar and how this is no longer taught in schools. As language is continually evolving new words are being introduced some of which John found particularly meaningless. Listening to Radio 4 was obviously one of John’s passions and he pointed out phrases that are frequently used but have no logical meaning such as “very unique”

Spoken English can vary from region to region and we learnt that this is due to the difference in the pronunciation of vowels. Also people have different ways of speaking depending on the situation.

After giving us examples of frequently used clichés John gave an amusing account of things he had overheard on buses.

This was a very thought provoking talk and I am sure we will all be listening out for examples of bad English when we are listening to the radio/television.

 

 

 

Proposed Care Home

Proposed Care Home

Following a Public Engagement Event held at the Village Hall in September, during which the applicant found it beneficial to discuss the proposal with interested local residents, proposals for the development at Glenburnie, Port Road have now been submitted to the local authority. Proposals comprise of an Outline application for the demolition of existing on-site structures and the development of a 70 bed care home and associated works.

 

 

 

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