Maggie

Meetings, meetings more bloody meetings.... Read this. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/shortcuts/2012/feb/28/warning-meetings-iq

I am going to do this properly in a 'considered' way, but a few quick comments to keep the discussion going. Heritage/Tourism is THE main business and economic potential for our area. Over many years our area has been ignored, but the latest North Shrops draft Tourism strategy http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/business.nsf/viewAttachments/MJOS-8YSEQJ/$file/Summary%20NSO%20Visitor%20Economy%20Strategy.pdf suggests huge potential for increasing income to this part of Shropshire simply by readdressing the balance between N and S Shropshire, figures bandied about are (2005) 2.2 m visitors in n shrops and Oswestry earning £115m; whereas S Shrops had 4.2 m visitors spending £205m. That is one hell of a lot of money Tourist money in our area is presently being spent in bigger organisations, a bit like 3rd world tourism where all the spend goes out of the country via hotel and attractions owners! By supporting small enterprises, such as LJC grant to Chirk Bank methodist Hall to do teas to tourists on the canal, (or small bed and breakfasts) money is attracted in and stays here. Social Enterprises could be supported e.g. how about the old plans to have visitor info in St Martins Centre about miners linked to the 'Colliers Way'? So emphasizes that the topics on the list actually cross into one another, Improving the area's landscape and villages brings people in and supports jobs and businesses IN the community. One theme I noticed in the original questionnaire answers that came in, was about 'brightening' up the villages (hanging baskets sort of thing) and tidying up unloved scrubby areas, and if we wanted to attract visitors into the villages (which is only place really they would have spending opportunities) then this would be important. Films for young people? I thought that there was at one time a subsidized bus to the cinema in Wrexham but it failed because of lack of support. Unless there is something more (3D) young people are happy watching downloads for free. Don't think this would work for young people, however older people might like a free bus to the new matinees on Wednesday in Oswestry (I would). 'Gifted and Talented'! Isn't this elitist. They will usually find their way, its the ordinary and bored need help. The whole issue of struggling community buildings throws up why Big Local came here in the first place.... there is little capacity to go after external funding within this community, people don't know about funds or are able to fill in forms... a more sustainable answer maybe is to provide funding training and surgeries? Right Oh, will now give this thing some greater attention!

... and Knit and Natter are making craft and fashion things for sale.

If any of you out there are interested in supporting Old Oswestry, and helping English heritage by keeping your eyes open to damaging activities on the hillfort and monitoring the flora and fauna there then you can join Old Oswestry Landscape and Archaeology project. There is a facebook page here , http://www.facebook.com/OldOswestryLandscapeandArchaeologyProject?ref=hl and we should hear tonight at LJC meeting whether we got any LJC funding!

I am going after an Unltd grant to develop an 'Incredible Edible' movement in the 3 parishes. This is a community action to plant food plants into unused areas of the villages (e.g. like Aqueducks and CRT planting fruit trees along the canal for all to use) This can be anything from herbs in planters to fruit trees and vegetables in spare plots of land. They are then for the use of the people who live there, Part of the project is about linking us back to where our food comes from, and teaching children about how food grows, and what is safe to forage. It should reduce food costs and of course food miles for us all and every little helps the planet. It will enlarge the varieties available to those of us who already forage for blackberries and damsons in the autumn. If you want to know more have a look at this wonderful video from Incredible Edible Todmorden where it all started. http://www.ted.com/talks/pam_warhurst_how_we_can_eat_our_landscapes.html There is a facebook page for Incredible Edible in Shropshire http://www.facebook.com/IncredibleEdibleShropshire I need to get a group together, so can you respond here if you are interested or have ideas. I won't be contacting anyone officially for permissions until the money comes through for obvious reasons, but we can all make a start now, thinking about what would be possible. Lets Make this another successful project from Community Online

There's an idea...maybe the Hall committee could do teas and biscuits when the hall is open for e.g. computers?

Not me, first Living along the Cut walk, around Horseshoe Falls, 11 a.m. Llantysilio Church! Enjoy your cakes and tea and think of me out in the cold snowy fields.

Thank you, This is a really comprehensive description of the problems the hall has and I am sure it will open up the discussion a bit. I wasn't aware of a lot of this so am sure many other people who read this will now realize the seriousness of this situation.

hey up Suenick...It was my idea when I was CRO for the area and trying to combine resources in lots of areas, and I can remember clearly mooting it to Lee Barnfield first to see if it could work before I went any further, it was based on talks I had with Shrops youth assoc about how they could not afford to come up and offer training to just a few workers, but needed a bigger organisation to justify it. (Don't think the bigger organisation did any better though!) I worked the idea up and then arranged the first meeting in St Martins I think, with the support of LJC committee. As I saw it it would have shared resources between the 3 villages and allowed 3 youth clubs to operate. Hasn't worked out that way!

I cannot attend this meeting because I am away, but, like most people in Weston Rhyn, I would dearly like to see the village Institute running on an even keel again. Questions to ask are 1. Why does there seem to be one crisis after another? 2. Why is there a deficit between running expenses and income? 3. Would any of the choices, such as new building, fundamentally change anything and how? 4. How do other village halls appear to manage their finance better than Weston Rhyn? Hope the results of the meeting are posted here for those of us who cannot attend.

That sounds good to me...what does anyone else think?

OK, a project to collect and digitize old photographs, and link them up with present day views, using community online as the 'group' sounds like it would work. There is quite a lot of work involved because Neville used other collections of photos, and doesn't reference this and copyright would need to be assured. Suggest you link/store the digital archive to Peoples Collection in Aberystwyth and Shropshire Archives. Maybe end result to be a small book about the changing face of Weston Rhyn? Sound like a project? HLF have kept their system of preapplication for this small grant scheme, so you save some time by doing a quick preapplication first, rather than with the similar Awards for All where you have to fill in the big form at the beginning. NB this grant can also be used for biodiversity.

I had good day yesterday representing Aqueducks at launch of new HLF grant scheme, called Sharing Heritage and about empowering communities to run projects on their heritage. Easy to apply for up to £10,000. There is money in there specifically for the development of a heritage group. Was interviewed by Michael Wood (Cor..) in front of lots of important people and got to bang on about my pet ideas about community capacity (to go for funding) and whose heritage? (i.e. something like the canal WHS has a life and a story after being built at the start of the Industrial revolution). A lot of this, and what this new grant scheme is part of, is related to what Big Local is trying to do. Ideas anyone? e.g. Rose queens, Mining stories, Weston Rhyn paper mills, Bronygarth kilns... Anyone in this area who has a good heritagey idea get in touch with me if they want my help. Another of the 3 featured projects was about the history and stories from Salford pubs for example and I'm sure lots of people would be up for a pub based project. http://www.hlf.org.uk/HowToApply/programmes/Pages/SharingHeritage.aspx#.USTx6B3QA1M

Living along the Cut The Friends of Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Llangollen Canal World Heritage Site (‘Aqueducks’) have been awarded a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to collect memories and images from the local communities along the 11 miles of the World Heritage Site. We will be holding a series of events including Walks and ‘Show and Tells’, where people will be encouraged to bring along their photos, objects and stories about the canal and the local industries. Starting in early summer we will then record and scan these stories, memories or 'things' depending what comes out from the 'Show and Tells' For volunteers on the project there will be training in using and editing digital media recordings. EVENTS FOR SPRING 2013 Saturday 23rd February. 11am – 1 pm Walk Llantisilio/Horseshoe Falls/Chain Bridge Saturday March 16th 12am tbc, Trevor Basin Walk with canal historian Peter Brown Saturday 6th April Chirk Bank Show and Tell all day Fri/Sat 12/13th April Chirk Bank Walk and Gledrid car park event Saturday May 4th 10-4 pm Show and Tell Llangollen Museum Please come along to events, meet people, find out about the local heritage, share your stories and have fun (and tea and cakes)! If you would like to volunteer for the project and learn how to produce audio recordings of people, then I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks very much Simple for this report. I couldn't go, I'm very busy with the Aqueducks project, so am very grateful to be kept informed.

Whose going? Bout time we had an official representative from Community online as a partner on a par with the other partners.

Can I also thank you for putting the Wren online? It means that I can now use a link in emails to people when I want to refer to articles.

and lets not forget that this was an LJC initiative, driven by the need to consolidate into a large enough group to be able to tap into Youth Service support, resources and grants!

I've been keeping the Big Local Facebook page going and have also been trying to contact the tweeter, suggesting he might like to contribute to the Facebook page... but have had no response over the last couple of weeks. If you are interested it is here: http://www.facebook.com/BigLocal3Parishes?ref=hl and has links to useful Big Local information, mostly interesting things going on around England. (...shameless plug!)

After a bit of a long wait we are finally starting the Knit and Natter Group. Come along to the Institute on Thursday 7th February at 1.30 pm, bring your knitting, and we will discuss what we are wanting to do in the future. To start with we thought to meet every fortnight. Do we want talks? Do we want classes? Here is the poster Knit and Natter pdf.pdf I'll attach a copy to the photo gallery too If you cannot make this first meeting and want to comment, you can phone me on 773197.

Our computer genius who runs this site also has other strings to his bow. Watch this video to find out what he was doing last week in Sweden. http://www.mdcstockholm.com/news/media/article/15

Congratulations to Rhosweil couple who have won £1 million in Eurolottery today. Well done! http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2013/01/07/shropshire-couple-land-euromillions-1m-jackpot/

Happy New Year Keith and everyone else. I look forward to lots of new ideas on CO in 2013.