December 2006
November has been a very busy month and we're looking forward to an equally busy month in December.
Our fundraising continued with Flower Arranging on the 11th and a Quiz Night on the 25th. We must thank Virginia Davies for her demonstration with the flowers and Auriel Hoccom for her work in selling the tickets. We must also thank the person who left a donation in an envelope without a word of explanation or identification. Thank you very much whoever you are.
The Quiz Night was a larger and noisier affair with about sixty attending. Halfway through the evening we had a break for a Balti. The meals were donated by the New Dilshad restaurant and the staff who delivered the meals got a round of applause when they arrived with the vats of curry and rice. The New Dilshad gave us generous servings of an excellent curry and we would urge all our readers to visit them next time you feel like eating out.
These two events have taken our fund well over the first £5,000 mark. Our thermometer is on display in the Parish Office on Bear Hill and we hope that it will not be long before we are unveiling the next step in the ladder.
It's not fundraising but this year it's our turn to host the Carol Service for the local Ringers' Association. This will be on December 9th at 7:00 but you'll hear our guests ringing for an hour beforehand. Everyone from the village is welcome at the service and at the refreshments in the Ark afterwards. If you're interested in bellringing then here's your chance to meet ringers from around the county and discover why it's such an absorbing occupation.
A Buffet Dance is the first event planned for January. We'll be having a dance band in the Ark and you'll be seeing the adverts for that closer to Christmas and early in the New Year.
Later on in the summer we'll be having our Lamb Roast and the plans for that are also going well. I was asking last month about somewhere to keep the meat safe over the weekend but we've got that sorted now.
Our ringing in November started as usual with us ringing muffled bells for the services on All Souls and Remembrance Sunday. We always try to field a full team for these major events but this year we just didn't have enough people available. Some ringers were involved in the service itself, others were ill, others were out of the village with unavoidable family commitments. We have built the team up nicely over the past couple of years but we could still use a few more ringers to give us a little more in reserve. Come up and see us on a Tuesday or come to our Carol Service if you'd like to know more about starting to learn in the New Year.
Then of course it's Christmas and we'll be ringing for the traditional services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day itself. The ringing for the midnight service is always my favourite time of the year. We'll have a tower full of ringers - many of whom we only see when they're visiting their family over Christmas - and it's so nice to be ringing for a joyous event after the sombre tone during November.