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 (most of whom have other daytime jobs!). If successful we hope that it could be replicated in other areas of Cheltenham.

See our website

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We normally meet very informally every Wednesday evening at The Exmouth Arms
7pm to 9pm.

Come and join us!

Who are we?

Wendy - Chair
Clare - Secretary
Dave - Treasurer
Scarlett - Buy Local
Becky - Go Green
Belinda- Skillspace
Angela - Community

plus all the other members of the CC Networks

Visit the Group Pages

CC BUY LOCAL
CC GO GREEN
CC SKILLSPACE
CC COMMUNITY

Email us

CC Buy Local (Scarlett)
CC Go Green (Becky)
CC Skillspace (Belinda)
CC Community (Angela)

Leglag Petition

We are supporting LEGLAG in their call to protect a designated area to the South of Cheltenham as 'Leckhampton Country Park'

Please click here to read and sign their online petition

Find out about local history!

Our new Local Trading History Website will be launched on the 26th of November!

Leckhampton Local History Society's new booklet is now available from the Bath Road Post Office for £3 and includes items on:

'Beneath the Devil's Chimney'
· Robert Cary Barnard · A link with Sherlock Holmes
· Eminent Cheltonians buried at Leckhampton
· Leckhampton's Manors · Ornamental Woodwork on Local Houses

Wednesday 17th Nov

Enterprising Women Make a Difference Conference - Kingsholm Rugby Ground

This year's celebration of women's enterprise will take place at Gloucester Rugby Club and will cater for up to 200 local business owners.

SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE SkillSpace Group Leader Belinda from www.GlosJobs.co.uk and SkillSpace Member Pia Cato.

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

Cheltenham Connect is the proud recipient of a second Cheltenham Borough Council Community Pride Grant

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OCTOBER 2010

October was a busy month with all the preparations for the Murder Mystery Evening at Morans, the launch of the Local Trading History Project and the Christmas Fair. You can read about all these below.

Volunteers
We are now looking for volunteers to help at events and to assist at the Christmas fair on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of December (especially anyone who is happy to come in Regency/Victorian costume!) Please email wendy@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk if you would like to help.

Christmas Raffle
We are looking for a few really good raffle prizes to help us raise money as match funding for our DIY Streets Project. The Greenway Hotel have donated the top prize of 2 Day Spa passes for their brand new Élan spa, to include a 2-course lunch with a complimentary glass of bubbly for 2 in their new Brasserie. If you are a local trader we are also looking for labelled local products to go into the fabulous Cheltenham Connect Hamper of local goodies!

Please let belinda@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk know if you can help.

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Cheltenham Connect's 'Christmas Meal with Magic!'
Our Christmas dinner this year is being held upstairs at the Beehive and tickets are £20.35 for a 3 course meal including tip. They are going fast so please contact belinda@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk if you would like to come.

New Treasurer
Dave Savell has now been formally elected as our new treasurer and we are delighted that he has agreed to take on this very important role.

DIY Streets Project
Although this project won't be commencing until next year Wendy has been in preliminary discussions with some of the stakeholders about how we can ensure that the whole community can be involved in the process. At the moment we are looking at developing a very interactive community website that will be linked to both Cheltenham Connect and Leckhampton Online and we hope to be able to provide more information soon.

Our Eco Churches!
Our congratulations go to Bethesda Methodist Church in Great Norwood Street which has been granted its third national Eco-award - one of only three churches in England to receive this honour.

On Thursday Nov 11th they are holding a "Becoming an EcoCongregation" evening for South Cheltenham Churches at St Philips and St James 80 Painswick Road at 8.00 pm. All are welcome to attend.
Read the Press Release here

Think Locally Project
thinklocally

If you are a trader in the Cheltenham Connect area that would like to be involved in the Think Locally book please contact wendy@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk. Jonathon Porritt has now provided his own page about the importance of supporting our local businesses.

You can read more about Think Locally here

See some sample pages from the new Bristol book
Martin Horwood's introduction
Testimonials from the Bristol book

Find 'Cheltindies' on Twitter and Facebook!

Cheltenham Connect Activities

CC Buy Local

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CHRISTMAS CRAFT FAIR
3rd, 4th and 5th December

With more than 40 craftspeople now taking stands we only have a few Sunday tables left available. If you are a local craftsperson who would like to be involved please contact Scarlett as soon as you can for an application form. We only accept craftspeople working within a 20 mile radius of Cheltenham and everything has to be locally made. This year to add to the fun the whole fair will have a Regency/Victorian theme. Cheltenham Town Crier Ken Brightwell will be with us on Friday to help open the fair and it is rumoured that Santa may be popping into the Children's Grotto on Saturday and Sunday!

The BARTA Christmas Lights event is now being held on Thursday 2nd and we will be helping to steward the event and promote the craft fair during the evening. Painswick-based lighting contractor Event Power Services EPS has offered to sponsor both the BARTA event and our Christmas Fair which should really help to bring some Christmas magic.

We have a few slots left for singers/musicians/bands/street performers who would like to entertain people and are particularly interested in finding more choirs to sing carols during the event.
Please contact Wendy for more information. We would also like to find more children's entertainers.

We have Santa's Grotto and a very large tent to light and decorate and Scarlett would also love to hear from anyone (especially local traders or businesses with decorations left over from last year) who can lend us items for the duration of the fair.

LOCAL TRADING HISTORY PROJECT

We are holding an invitation only event on the 26th of November to launch the project and to thank everyone that has been involved so far. The history website will then be made publically available. We have already been given some wonderful material by local residents whose families have been traders in the area and we hope that the launch will encourge more people to come forward with their own records and memories.

We are still looking for people who are interested in history and would like to help collect and organise the materials that are sent in. We are also looking for local residents who would be interested in acting as guides talking visitors around the waking trail.

In the longterm we would like to start digitally recording the stories of local residents who have lived in the area a long time and then make these available on the website. We also hope to create active links to local school history projects.

THE BEST SMALLS SHOPS IN BRITAIN
One of our local shops - The Natural Grocery Store in the Bath Road - has just been nominated as one of the best small shops in Britain. We love what they do and hope that they succeed.

You can read about the competition and nominate your own favourites here

See The Natural Grocery Store website

To join the Buy Local group click here

CC Go Green

The Go Green group held a very well attended planning meeting and a number of ideas were put forward. These included re-visiting the residents that were involved in the initial Street Energy Project (and possibly extending this idea), running a Permaculture and Wildlife Gardening Event and organizing a Green Quiz Night early next year.

It was agreed that they should now become more involved in the activities of the other Cheltenham Connect groups and should work with the group co-ordinators to find ways that the principles of the Green Charter could be extended into each area. We are currently thinking how we could apply this to the Buy Local group's Christmas Craft Fair.

Green Ideas Register
We have now started a Green Ideas Register so that we can keep track of all the ideas that people have and they can then be developed by those members that have the time and interest. You can see the current register here. Let us know if you have any ideas of your own.

Street Lighting
The group is also interested in the possible energy reductions that could be achieved through reducing street lighting in South Cheltenham and will be investigating this further.

Jonathon Porritt's Transition Town talk "A hopeful future for Cheltenham: How communities can contribute to sustainable living? at the Town Hall was a great success and Transition Town training is coming to Cheltenham in November. For more details contact Alison Crane at acrane@vision21.org.uk

To join the Go Green group click here

CC Skillspace

In the October Business & Freelancers Networking Evening Catriona Murray explored 'How can the Job Centre help small businesses?' and local trader and craftsperson Richard Jackson shared his very fascinating personal story.

At the November meeting on Tuesday 9th Adrian Malpass of The Experience Group will talk about Business Mentoring followed by a group discussion on how we can develop the idea further as we have already had one meeting about the subject and several members volunteered to act as mentors to local businesses. If you have experience of mentoring or would like to get involved please let us know.

Networking mornings are now held at Maison Chaplais in Tivoli from 10am on the 4th Tuesday of each month and from 9am to 12am every Friday. This is an opportunity for anyone who normally works alone to bring their laptop and enjoy coffee and company!

Skills Directory
Our skills directory page is now up and running http://www.cheltenhamdirectory.com/. If you are a South Cheltenham business

please email Belinda 100 words about your business together with logo, web address and contact details and Skillspace member Jonathan Pollinger of www.intranetfuture.com will upload them for you.

Craft Workshops

We are currently trying to get a "Craft" group up and running and have had interest from a couple of people in running workshops to pass their skills on to others. If you are interested in being involved, please contact belinda@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk

To join the SkillSpace group click here

CC Community

The Community group has been very busy this month! Bafta award- winning comedy writer Maurice Gran gave a highly entertaining talk at the Exmouth book sale about his transition from creator of hit sitcoms (including Birds of a Feather, Goodnight Sweetheart and The New Statesman) to maker of serious stage plays and the West End Musical 'Dreamboats and Petticoats"

and the Murder Mystery Evening at Morans was a great success with 65 local residents attending and more than £400 raised towards our ongoing running costs. You can see a photo gallery of the event here.
A massive thank you to Lyn and everyone at Morans for giving up their Sunday evening!

To join the Community group click here

	Fundraising
With the increase in our ongoing costs we are now looking for people with the time and experience to help us develop our fundraising activities. It would be especially helpful to find someone who is knwoledgeable about writing grant applications. Please contact Wendy if you would like to be involved.

	Sponsors
It's hard to keep up with our list of sponsors! We are immensely grateful for everyone's help. Please let us know if we have missed you off the list. See our 2010 Sponsors list

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