The Village of Wark

Archive for January, 2011

You may have noticed that two vans from My Energysation.com spent most of last week in the village.  This was the first ‘fitting’ of PV Solar panels on a number of houses after the open meeting last year. You’ll remember that the Mid Tyne Community Trust organized a meeting with Anthony Middleton from the company to talk about the possibility of having free photovoltaic panels on your roof.  Originally the panels fitted last week were supposed to have arrived before Christmas but snow and ice prevented that.  Fortunately they have now been done and it will be very interesting to hear from the owners how much energy they generate.

I understand from the school newsletter that fund-raising activities of the PTA over the next few months will go towards providing the children with new equipment in the school playground. The children themselves have put together a range of ideas and will be presenting their ‘wish list’ this Friday, 28 January, to parents. The first of the PTA fund-raising activities is a jumble sale in the Town Hall on Saturday 12 February 2011 between 2 and 4 p.m.  You can send any jumble, books, bric-a-brac etc. to the school to be sorted out, by the 10^th of February, please.

Last week’s Courant gave a potted history of ‘Further Along the Wall’, the Highlights Event at the Town Hall on Saturday.  You should still be able to get a ticket for this show, the first of two Highlights events that the Committee has managed secure between now and Easter.  ‘Further Along the Wall’ plots a musical path along Hadrian’s Wall in includes performances from singers Julie Matthew and Ruth Notman and writer and poet Kate Fox. Tickets are £6.50 and £4.50 for concessions. Tickets are available from Judith Weir on (01434) 230250 and the show starts at 7.30 p.m.

If you thought that computer consoles have no place in schools, I have some surprising news for you.  Wark School has been selected to take part in a pilot project to improve the standards in metal calculations through the daily use of a maths programme on the Nintendo DS.  You can perhaps understand that this is proving very popular with the children.  I must say, I’m quite intrigued by this, and any innovative way to try and get children excited about maths, is worth a try.  The pilot will last for six weeks.

With the internet becoming ever more important, it’s no wonder that parents worry about what their kids access on the web and to help manage this situation there will be an e-Safety meeting at the school on the evening of Wednesday 9 February 2011 between 6.30 and 7.30 p.m. The informal evening session, led by Steve Robson from the Northumberland e-Learning team, will look at some of the sites that a child might come across and how to keep them safe while using the internet. This will then be followed up with lessons on e-Safety lessons for the children in school.

Having the bridge over the North Tyne closed on Saturday night and the early part of Sunday morning was, perhaps, a taste of things to come over the next few weeks and months.  The river level was so close to the scaffolding that it seemed sensible to stop people going across as any debris caught in the scaffold might have put quite a considerable amount of extra stress on the structure of the bridge.  It will be interesting to see how we all cope with the restricted access across the bridge, once they start the repair work, but I suppose that is the price we’ll have to pay to get the bridge back in reasonable state.

I’ve been asked to give you a reminder of the weekly coffee morning in the Town Hall on Friday mornings.  Starting at 10 a.m. every Friday, the coffee mornings are an ideal way of meeting people in the village and catching up on the village stories.  The coffee mornings are entirely run by volunteers and although coffee and biscuits are very reasonably priced, they raise a substantial amount of money for the Town Hall over the course of every year.  You’d be very welcome.

It’s not yet too late to book a ticket for ‘Further along the Wall’ in the Town Hall on Saturday 29 January.  As you know, Highlights events are always coming to and we trust this one will be no different.  You’ll have a chance to see and hear musician Julie Matthew and Ruth Notman and poet Kate Fox. Tickets are £6.50 and £4.50 for concessions. They are available from Judith Weir on (01434) 230250 and the show starts at 7.30 p.m.

Last week I promised you some more information about the next Highlights event at the Town Hall on Saturday 29 January 2011. Well, ‘Further along the Wall’ is a show inspired by Hadrian’s Wall, its people and the landscape, past and present. The show features three artists: musicians Julie Matthews and Ruth Notman and poet Kate Fox. They will perform their own individual songs and poems and will feature new work from the 2010 project ‘Along the Wall’. ‘Along the Wall’ plots a journey in words, music and song from East to West along the Roman Wall. All stars in their own right, we’re in for another evening of fabulous entertainment inspired by our own area. Tickets are £6.50 and £4.50 for concessions, they are available from Judith Weir on (01434) 230250, the show starts at 7.30 and you can expect a bar, of course.

Also this week, and early warning of an event Northumberland National Park Authority will be holding at the Hall towards the end of February. The event, on Saturday 26 February, will be facilitated by the ‘Green Energy Doctor’ company which will take you through an interactive and informal session looking at all the key components to help save money and energy.? There will be give aways (and not just light bulbs!) for everyone who attends. There will be other organisations to offer advice on anything from combating fuel poverty to insulation, potential grants etc. ?The National Park staff hope it will be a one stop shop aimed at everyone whether you are a home owner or a tenants. ??The event takes place in the afternoon.

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And so we get to 2011, another new year with fresh challenges and opportunities. Looking back at the Notes for 2010, I realize that a year ago we were in the grip of an icy blast and struggling with snow underfoot. I wonder what the rest of this winter will bring us.

Thanks to Nigel Wright, some major flooding in the Town Hall was avoided at the very end of last week. When he walked back from his mother’s one night, he could hear water running in the Hall and alerted one of the Committee members. It was soon established that a pipe had burst inside the wall of what some people will know as Edie’s kitchen, the little kitchen on the east side of the hall, in the part that had just been damp-proofed and re-plastered. The pipe had been blown straight out of the wall and the water was merrily running down the floor. Fortunately did didn’t look like it had been running long and once the stopcock had been located any further trouble was prevented. I dare say, the damage will be repaired soon enough.

With the Christmas break now over, we can look forward to some exciting events in the village with the first of the Highlights gigs coming to the Town hall on January 29^{th. The show “Further Along the Wall” will feature three musicians: Julie Mathews, Kate Fox and Ruth Norman. Tickets are already available from Judith Weir and further details of the show itself will follow next week.}