July2021

13 Buckden Roundabout July 2021 Village News Bookings At first we just had three of our regular hirers return to the Hall from 17 th May. We have since had more return which is fantastic, including Slimming World which is back on Wednesdays. We have a new hirer which started on 15 th June called Ti- nyTalk – a mum and baby group. This runs on Tuesday mornings in term time in the Millard Suite. TinyTalk Baby Signing classes are fun, interactive and designed to teach you how to communicate with your baby before they can talk. The sessions introduce British Sign Language (BSL) signs through singing popular nursery rhymes and songs. The classes incorporate sensory activities each week to de- velop all - round communication skills as well as encouraging hand - eye coordination and fine motor skills. Classes are suitable from birth - 18 months/2 years. Website: www.tinytalk.co.uk/clairep Facebook: www.facebook.com/TinyTalkHuntingdonshire Treasurer and Chair vacancies in the Trust Thank you to the residents who have submitted their inter- est in filling the vacancies. It ’ s an exciting time to be joining the Trust! Temporary caretaker appeal We are looking for a local person to temporarily cover the caretaker role for several weeks while our current caretaker is convalescing. The job will involve locking and unlocking the Hall for hirers and setting up and putting away tables and chairs. If you are interested, please email me your de- tails to admin@buckdenvillagehall.co.uk. Valley improvement update We are very pleased to report that we have finalised the terms of our grant from Huntingdon District Council for work on the Valley. We have retained contractors who are very experienced in restoration of waterways so we are in very good hands. They will have approximately two months of preliminary survey works and budget planning to do be- fore work actually starts in September. The main part of the works will be the dredging of the lake to remove many tons of silt and re - establish a viable habitat for wildlife. Monies left over will be spent on improving the surrounding paths. The contractors are very keen on community involvement and would like to host a meeting for residents to show their design ideas, equipment that will be used and how habitats will be restored. Details of date and time will be announced at a later date. We will also be contacting the local schools to ask if they would like to be involved. If you would like to see some of the contractors ’ other pro- jects, their website is www.ebsford.co.uk. How you can help Buckden Village Hall when buying online 1. Go to www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/ buckdenvillagehall 2. Sign up for free 3. Get shopping! It doesn ’ t cost you anything more the online shops make the donations and are collected by easy- fundraising and automatically sent to us. There are no catches or hidden charges, and Buckden Vil- lage Hall Trust will be extremely grateful for your donations, especially at this difficult time. If you shop using Amazon You can shop and donate to the Village Hall by using www.smile.amazon.co.uk . Just follow the instructions and then Amazon will make a small donation to the trust for everything you buy. Shopping using the smile URL is just the same as using the normal Amazon website. Don ’ t forget to select Buckden Recreation Ground and Village Hall Trust as your nominated charity. J o Harvey, Hall Manager Email: admin@buckdenvillagehall.co.uk Tel: 01480 811101 Burberry Road, Buckden, Cambridgeshire, PE19 5UY Tel: 01480 811101 www. buckdenvillagehall.co.uk email: admin@buckdenvillagehall.co.uk LOCAL ARTISTS SURVIVE LOCKDOWN One of the positive things to come out of the Covid pandemic was the idea of a group of artist friends to form a ‘ Plein Air ’ group, in order for them to continue to meet up and paint together safely … at a distance and outside. We bought ‘ fishing tents and fingerless gloves to use when the weather was poor and call ourselves the ‘ POD PAINTERS ’. The chance to meet, talk and share ideas and thoughts has helped us all personally and professionally get through the last diffi- cult months. We have been able to produce many different styles and me- diums of paintings of multiple subjects including local scenes, portraits and townscapes. We now need to top up the paint fund and make more storage space to continue, so we are exhibiting some work to sell at the ‘ Art & Soul ’ Café in St Neots during July, and have an exhi- bition planned at Grafham Village Hall on Sunday 26 th Septem- ber 2021. We would love you to see and maybe even buy our work.