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News from Cheltenham Connect
Cheltenham Connect is a new community initiative that aims to strengthen and empower the residential and trading areas of South Cheltenham i.e. Naunton Park, Leckhampton,
The Bath Road (south), Tivoli, The Suffolks and The Park. It is currently run by a small group of dedicated residents (all of whom have other daytime jobs!). If successful we hope that it could be replicated in other areas of Cheltenham.
See our website

exmouth

We meet informally every Wednesday evening at The Exmouth Arms
7pm to 9pm.
Come and join us!
Who are we?
Wendy - Chair
Clare - Secretary
Angeline - Treasurer
Karen - Buy Local
Becky - Go Green
Belinda- Skillspace
Wendy - Community

plus all the other members of the CC Steering Groups and Networks


Visit the Group Pages

CC BUY LOCAL
CC GO GREEN
CC SKILLSPACE
CC COMMUNITY


Email us

CC Buy Local (Karen)
CC Go Green (Becky)
CC Skillspace (Belinda)
CC Community (Wendy)



Meeting Dates

Skills & Livelihoods

Networking Meeting
7pm Tues 10th Nov
The Beehive

Christmas Dinner
7pm Tuesday 8th Dec
The Exmouth
(Ticketed event)

email Belinda


Are you a choir, musician or entertainer?
xmastree
Come and bring some festive cheer to our Christmas Craft Fair!
Become a Sponsor of Cheltenham Connect
We are actively looking for people to help us grow. If you can help in any way let us know

NOVEMBER 2009

Having talked to a number of local creative agencies we have decided to take on Razor Communications to help us as we develop Cheltenham Connect. Razor are part of the Target Group that work out of Brandon House in Painswick Road. They were set up as a separate agency last year to provide support to smaller and more local businesses, but they bring with them all the expertise and resources of the larger group.

We have asked them to develop our logo so that it will work for other areas of Cheltenham, to sort out the issues that we currently have with the website and to help us develop all our promotional materials.

The newsletters are now archived and you can access then through the first page of the website.

Cheltenham Connect Activities

CC Buy Local

Christmas Craft Fair

The Craft Fair development is now well underway and we have a number of choirs and musicians who have come forward to help. We are currently still looking for people to fill the Friday music
slots.

The Fair is included in the council's 'Christmas in Cheltenham' Leaflet (that has a distribution of 70,000 throughout the Cotswolds) and the posters are about to go up around the town. Mobenn marquees have walked around the site with us and we are really excited about how it is all going to look.

We may have a few craft spaces still available in the upstairs room at The Exmouth. Please let as know as soon as possible if you are interested.

We are planning a Children's Christmas Grotto as part of the event and are currently looking for someone (ideally already CRB checked) to play Santa for 3 hours on Saturday and Sunday.  We are also looking for three full-size wooden barrels for a 'Children's Christmas 'Dip'. Enthusiastic/experienced creatives who would like to help us with the grotto design please contact us!

We also still need to work out how we provide music throughout the day and are looking for anyone with experience of such things to help us.

Please contact karen@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk if you would like to be involved or can help with any of the above.

The Fair will run from 10am to 8pm on Friday 4th and Saturday 5th and from 11am to 4pm on Sunday 6th.

Local Trading History Project

A number of local historians are coming together to form a working group on the 12th November. They will be able to advise us on how best to analyse and record the information sent in by local residents so that we can ensure that everything is done properly. Once we have the procedures in place we will let the whole community know that we are looking for their photos, stories and memories of our local trading area and can start collecting!

We will also be signing up local traders who want to be involved. Please contact Karen if you would like to be added to the list.

We are currently looking for a suitable venue for the launch exhibition in July and are bringing together a working group to plan a two day local music festival to accompany the launch. Please let Wendy know if you can help with either of these.

CC Go Green

The Go Green Group is about to launch its Street Pilot which will enable a whole street to have free energy audits and advice with the assistance of The Energy Saving Trust.

It had a very successful day partnering with Friends of the Earth and Bethesda Methodist Church for a showing of the film 'The Age of Stupid' at the Church on Saturday 24th October. It took the occasion to launch Cheltenham Connect's 10:10 Initiative as the first step in a campaign to significantly raise awareness of the issues and to encourage local community action.

We are hoping to soon be working with all the churches and schools in the area to help us spread the word about 10:10. We will then start to develop a series of workshops and talks to help everyone with the process. Please encourage as many people as possible to sign up!


tenten

CC Skills & Livelihoods

The group is still recovering from the amount of time and effort that went into the very successful Auction of Promises! It is continuing with the monthly meetings at The Beehive and anyone representing a local business, who lives or works within the Cheltenham Connect area is very welcome to attend. The next meeting is on Tuesday 10th at 7pm (late arrivals are welcome).

It is also holding a MOKA Tuesday on November 24th at 10am in Moka, Suffolk Parade. If you would like to come along for a coffee and chat, while working on your laptop with free wifi access, please join them.

The Skillspace Christmas Dinner is being planned for Tuesday 8th of December 7pm at The Exmouth Arms. Numbers are limited for this so please email Belinda if you would like to attend.

CC Community

The Brown Jug is now running the regular Wednesday Lunch Club for older residents and it looks as though this is going to be very popular. You can see the poster here. A massive thank you to Matt for all his hard work..

The Cheltenham Connect Christmas Party will be held in the marquee on the 12 December. There will be a discounted cash bar available and everyone is asked to bring a dish to share (finger food only). Due to numbers we are having to restrict this to online members and sponsors only and everyone will be asked to produce printed membership tickets at the door.

CC member Richard Walter (local engineer, project manager, green guru and amazing Salsa dancer!) has agreed to DJ for the evening and may bring a friend who can help run a Salsa session. We are also hoping to find a live band for some of the evening.
All in all it should be a lot of fun and will give everyone the opportunity to celebrate what we have all achieved so far.

If you can help with the evening in any way please contact Wendy
General Meeting

We held our first General Meeting at 7pm on Wednesday 14th of October. A big thank you to Allen at Cheltenham Bowling Club for the use of their clubroom.

You can see the powerpoint that Wendy put together for the meeting here (you may need to rotate the view first).

During the meeting it was agreed that we should now include Leckhampton within the Cheltenham Connect area.

You can also read the full minutes.
Robert Young

robertyoungs

The professional working group has held its first meeting and we continue to hope that we can find a solution that preserves the site as something that is both economically viable and a celebration of our local community.

None of us should underestimate just how important the site is to the whole road and the residential area that surrounds it. It is one of the gateways into Cheltenham and was the reason why many people were attracted to the area in the first place.

We will come back to everyone once we have a realistic plan.
Times gone by

We were sent this poem by The Rev'd Canon Ian Pulford who saw Mike Preston's beautiful Bugatti in the Echo item about the Auction of Promises. As we all enter a low carbon future such memories will become increasingly rare!

Vintage Car
 
Oh how I long for those motoring days,
The days that I wish would last.
Remember the pains of shovels and chains
- Things of the distant past.
 
The smell of hot oil, the squeal of brakes,
Those memories - it's all too much,
Stalling the engine and crashing the gears
(Remember to double de-clutch).
 
The joy of the open road, wind in the hair,
Songs of the lark and the thrush,
But breakdowns and punctures in winter
Oh dear: mud, the snow and the slush.
 
I forget all theses things in a modern car,
Cocooned in comfort at least,
But oh for the challenges of the past
In a loveable vintage beast!
Our Sponsors
The list grows ever longer! We are immensely grateful for everyone's help.

The Exmouth Arms for the use of their meeting room and providing our launch venue

The Beehive for offering their upper room for our monthly CC Skillspace business network meetings

Graham Boston (from Gloucestershire Connections) for designing the logo

Belinda at GlosOffers.co.uk for our noticeboard on The Bath Road

Clare at Cheltenham Directories for providing a page of editorial about Cheltenham Connect each month.

The Sign Studio for the banner that we used at The Suffolks Fair

Karen at Colourmatters for helping us with the printing costs of our first T shirts

Matt at The Brown Jug for helping with our launch preparations and storing the tombola prizes

Mike and Louise Preston at Independent Eye Carefor providing two beautiful Bugattis for our launch

adVANce+MAN (01242 517 886) for supplying a man with a van to pick up the exhibition stands for the launch

ILEC for the loan of their van for the launch

.St Philips and St James' Church - for the loan of tables for the launch event and the Big Picnic Lunch.

Bethesda Church - for the loan of tables for the launch event

St James' Primary School PTA for lending us their pergolas for the launch and the Big Picnic Lunch.

The University of Gloucestershire for loaning us their exhibition panels and providing the Park Campus for The Big Picnic Lunch

Simone Williams (freelance artworker) simone@hockeyhouse.co.uk - for designing The Big Picnic Lunch poster

Angeline Fuller from Entire Credit - for giving us a large cash box!

Mobenn Marquees for helping us plan the Christmas Craft Fair and offering to provide a marquee at cost.

Cheltenham Bowling Club for the use of their clubroom as a meeting venue. 

Duncan at Paperbox for providing the Trader Invitations and the sample history board.

St James' Primary School for the use of their hall for the Auction of Promises.

In2digital & Mailing Ltd for printing the Auction of Promises catalogue 

Cotswold Linen Care for the tablecloths for the Auction of Promises.



Please feel free to send a copy of this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested in Cheltenham Connect.

If you are an editor please help us to let people know about Cheltenham Connect by asking for articles/editorial.

It really is all about people power.
 
The Cheltenham Connect Team
By supporting Cheltenham Connect you are helping to protect and preserve your local community

www.cheltenhamconnect.co.uk