The Village of Wark

Archive for May, 2011

This weekend there will be two interesting events in the parish. Tonight there’s the Acoustic Music Night at Stonehaugh Vilage Hall. The event is being organised by Miss Coulthard of Wark School, and is to raise money to support a school in Tanzania. The night will feature a range of artists from the North East and starts at 7.30 p.m. There will be home-made curry and a licensed bar. Then, tomorrow, Saturday 21 May Wark Town Hall is holding a Quiz Nights to raise funds, also starting at 7.30 p.m. You can enter team of up to 6 people in team and tickets are £4 per person. There will be a shared supper and a bar. You can get tickets from Judith Weir on (01434) 230250.

For next weekend, Saturday 28 May to be precise, you might want to make a note of the fact that the WI will be having a cake stall on the Green. It will start at 10 a.m. which really means that you need to be there about 15 minutes early so that you get in the queue. The WI cake stalls are always very popular so if you leave it too late, you’re likely to find it sold out.

You’ll remember that a few weeks ago I told you about the Bingo in aid of Wark Methodist-United Reformed Church. Well, I have now been told that that event raised a magnificent £360 for the church.  The organisers have asked me to extend a special thanks to all of you who supported the Bingo.

Many of you will have been involved, either as organiser or as participant in the Charity Lunch this week.  I didn’t have to give this annual event any great publicity this year as both sittings seems to have been booked up almost immediately.  As you know, this column is being written before the Lunch so I have to trust that everything has gone according to plan. 

This weekend, on Sunday 15 May, the Birtley & District Gardening Group will have its Plant Sale on at 2.00pm at Birtley Village Hall.  There are some great gardeners in Birtley and their plant sale is always worth a visit. Those of you living in Wark will know all about the bridge closure and the organisers of the plant sale will try to arrange lifts from the bridge car park. If you want to make use of this service, please ring (01434) 230204 the let them know.  For those of you coming from further afield,  please use the Barrasford/ Chipchase road or the A68.

Next weekend there will be two events in the parish which might tickle your fancy. First there’s the Acoustic Music Night at Stonehaugh Vilage Hall on Friday 20 May 2011.  The event is being organised by Emily Coulthard, one of teachers at Wark School, and is to raise money to build a school garden at in a partner school in Mae Juu in Tanzania. The night will feature a range of artists from the North East and starts at 7.30 p.m.  There will be home-made curry and a licensed bar.

Then on Saturday 21 May Wark Town Hall is holding one of its popular Quiz Nights, also starting at 7.30 p.m. You can enter team of up to 6 people in team and tickets are £4 per person. There will be a shared supper and a bar.  You can get tickets from Judith Weir on (01434) 230250.

Finally a mention for the weekly raffles at the Westacres coffee mornings.  They have raised no less than £300 for the Chrysalis at Tynedale.  This is a local group for active people with dementia. They do lots of activities with expert tuition and great volunteer support, so this is a very worthwhile cause.

Many people will have been glued to the television on the day of the Royal Wedding but at least two people chose to come to the Friday coffee morning as usual.  Later on the Friday, about 50 people braved the strong wind to have tea on the Green.  As usual the village did itself proud with both quality and quantity of the baking and it was a lovely occasion to have a bit of a chat with people about the big event or just to catch up, even if you needed a coat.

St Michael’s Church held it’s book sale over the whole of the weekend and when I called in on Sunday afternoon, people were still calling by to have a look round.  I’m not sure how many of these electronic reading devices we’ll have in the village now, but books continue to do well.  There’s always something interesting to pick up and I suppose many of them eventually make it back to a fete or a special event like this one.

With Wark School being back this week, I’ve been asked to encourage all gardeners to help provide vegetable plants to set the school garden.  Please remember that ideally those plants should provide their yield before the summer holidays or in September, as there is no one to harvest them over the summer break.  Any seedlings can be brought into school in the next week or so.  The second item is about a school garden a bit further afield.  Teacher Emily Coulthard is doing a fundraising trek on the Massai Way this August to raise money for a school vegetable garden in our partner school Mae Juu in Tanzania. You can show your support by attending the first fundraising event, which is a Live Music Night featuring a range of artists from the North East.  It takes place at Stonehaugh Village Hall on Friday 20 May 2011 starting at 7.30 p.m. and there will be home-made curry and a licensed bar.

Finally I would like to give a mention to the person or people who empty the dog bins which must be one of the most unglamorous things you can do. Before Easter someone had put a barbeque tray in the dog bin at Blindburn which had clearly been too hot and had melted all the plastic.  Emptying that bin must be pretty difficult anyway as is it so misshapen and it must have been even more difficult with half the plastic melted. So here’s a thank you to the person who empties the dog bins!