News from Cheltenham Connect

Cheltenham Connect is a new and rapidly growing local 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 run as a membership association and is overseen by a small group of dedicated residents, most of whom have other daytime jobs! It is open to anyone who either lives or works in the area.

Local People

Local Pride!

See our website

exmouth

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
Barbara - Media and PR

plus all the other members of the CC Networks

Email us

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

Visit the Group Pages

CC BUY LOCAL
CC GO GREEN
CC SKILLSPACE
CC COMMUNITY

Have your say on our new Connect Streets website
www.connectmystreet.org

We want to help make the Bath Road a greener and more attractive place to spend time and shop. Visit the website and see how you can help.

Our new History Website has now been launched!

historywebhome

Find out about the fascinating history of all the shops in our local area.

www.cheltenhamsouthtown.org

Transition Town Cheltenham

Transition Town Cheltenham have lots of events planned for 2011 that you can see

here

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

ageofstupid

MAY UPDATE 2011

What a lovely couple of months it has been and how beautiful Cheltenham has looked with all the trees in blossom. We hope everyone has been enjoying the sunshine!

OUR SECOND AGM
We held our second AGM in April and it was amazing to see just how much we have achieved over the last year. We now have 460 online group members and 1500 on the newsletter list (we've grown even more since the AGM). We also have more than 85 local sponsors who have helped us. You can read the minutes here.

streetparty3

ROYAL WEDDING STREET PARTY
The street party that we organised with the help of the Bath Road Traders Association (BARTA) and the St Philips and St James Area Residents Association (SPJARA) was a great success with more than 330 local residents sharing their picnics with friends and neighbours. We want to say a massive thank you to member Jennifer Lazenby for all her time and hard work overseeing the bookings. We also want to say thank you to Mobenn Marquees for keeping the table costs as low as they could, Kier Moss Construction for not only supplying the road signs and barriers but also helping us transport the tables, Cotswold Linen Care for loaning us the tablebloths, St James Primary School PTA for loaning us their gazebos and cool box, Matt from the Brown Jug for organising the bar, Emmanuel Church for supplying us with extra tables and chairs, Peter at The Norwood Arms for storing the tables for us over the week-end, Andrew Lansley for solving our PA problem, Jo and Mike Smith-Wood for storing the wine for us, Jill Maryszczak for lending us extra tablecloths and all the other businesses and local residents that helped to make it happen on the day! You can see the photographs here.

WHAT"S COMING IUP
We are now starting to concentrate on the Summer Festival which will be held on the 25th and 26th of June at the Exmouth and Norwood Arms on the Bath Road. Please let us know as soon as possible if you are an artist, craftsperson or local trader who would like a stall, a South Cheltenham non-profit organisation who would like a table or a choir, band, dance group or entertainer who would like to perform (see the Buy Local section for contact details).

The Connect Streets Project is now well underway with some exciting developments that you can read about in the Buy Local section of the newsletter.

And we have now done a presentation to all four primary schools so that they can help us develop our Oral History Project. The media department from the University has now joined us a partner to help record the children's interviews with older residents so that they can then be shared with everyone via the website.

And last but not least we are starting to be more actively involved in the South Cheltenham Parking Consultation and will ensure that we not only help keep the process as open as possible, with everyone's views and ideas heard, but that we explore the issues around more sustainable transport. This would include the concept of shared highway space, the encouragement of walking and cycling, the creation of car pools and shares, and the improvement and enhancement of current public transport systems.

Buy Local Group

2011 SUMMER COMMUNITY, CRAFT AND MUSIC FESTIVAL (CCMFEST) - 25th and 26th June

We already have lots of craftspeople, singers and bands signed up for our next festival but have room for more so please email scarlett@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk if you would like to be involved or to receive an application form. We also welcome South Cheltenham based traders who would like stalls or local non profit organisations who would like to let people know about their activities.

We are also starting to look for raffle prizes so please let us know if you would like to offer anything.

BATH ROAD CONNECT STREETS PROJECT

connectstreets

We are delighted that the local architecture practice The Stanley Partnership has now offered to advise the project and will be helping us to devise a modular plan for the Bath Road. They really know and love the area and have been actively involved in a number of projects close by. This will mean that we can not only allocate the grant money to two key seating and planting areas, but can also develop a modular planting scheme for the whole road that will enable local businesses and residents to sponsor planters and trees. You will be able to watch our progress, share your own ideas or offer to be a sponsor via the website on www.connectmystreet.org.

As part of the project we thought that it would be a good idea to create a 'Friends of the Bath Road' group and you can join this through the website or by emailing lizzie@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

We have now made history presentations to all four local primary schools and invited the children to help us find older residents who can share their memories of the area and how shopping and food production has changed over the last 80 years. All the respondents will then be invited to attend history mornings at the schools and the media department of the University has agreed to help us make professional recordings of the mornings which will then be made available on our new history website www.cheltenhamsouthtown.org

If you are a local trader or resident (or have someone in your family) who would like to be involved in this please contact wendy@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk

Don't forget that you can also download the new Southtown Walking Trail Leaflet from the site.

historyleaflet

HELP FIGHT CLONE TOWNS

thinklocally

The Think Locally book that Wendy was involved in had a very successful launch party at The Tivoli on the 31st of March and we hope that it will bring many more people over to visit the wonderful indies that we have in South Cheltenham. Copies of the book are available for £4.99 at all the businesses that contributed to the book, the Cheltenham Festival booking office, The Tourist Information Office or through Cheltenham Connect (to be picked up at ATC Floors and Doors in Tivoli). All the income goes to help our local indies and support Think Locally's fight against Clone Towns.

thinklocallycover

To join the Buy Local Group click here

Go Green Group

A TALK ON THE WILD SIDE

For this year's Climate Week on 21-27 March, we teamed up with The SPJARA Residents' Association and the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to organise and promote a very well attended evening about Gardening for Wildlife. Both Jo Worthy-Jones, Community Wildlife Officer at the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and permaculture expert Mike Bush shared their own thoughts on the subject with the audience.

ECO-OPEN HOME INITIATIVE

We are currently developing our Eco Homes initiative that will be held in September and are putting out a call for anyone who has already invested in eco aspects for their home and who would like to be considered as one of the open homes. It will be supported with an exhibition run by the Severn Wye Energy Agency.

In total we're aiming to demonstrate aspects of:

· Energy conservation - e.g. low energy lighting

· Insulation - e.g. internal and external insulation, retro-fitted double/triple glazing

· Micro-generation - e.g. solar panels (photovoltaic and thermal), ground source heating, bio-mass boilers/stoves

· Sustainable use of water - e.g. in the garden or as grey water systems in the house.

Please contact adrian.phillips@gmx.com if you are interested in being involved.

To join the Go Green group click here

Skillspace Group

BUSINESS & FREELANCERS MEETINGS

beehive
We just want to say a big thank you to Matt and Caitlin from The Beehive who, for the last year, have generously let us host our SkillSpace and Green group meetings there free of charge.

On Tuesday 8th March we had a talk "How not to waste money on Solar Energy systems - real life experiences of going green at home" with member Richard Walter. As Richard has put solar panels and heat pumps into his house, it was very interesting to hear of his first hand experiences. And on Tuesday 12th April we had a talk on "Taking our tablets: The Mobile Web and beyond" with Sheldon Witney, where we learnt lots about mobile phone technology and what uses there are up and coming.

BUSINESS MENTORING

At the beginning of April we held our first "Meet the Mentor"

evening. At the evening, we had 4 mentors and 4 potential mentees along with Mike Reed, who is coordinating the Mentoring group and Adrian Malpass, who is "Mentor to the Mentors". Each potential mentee spent 7 minutes with each mentor outlining their areas of need. After the event, each mentee chose a mentor to work with. Each mentee will then have three one hour sessions with the mentor of their choice for the total cost of £45. A big thank you to all the mentors and Mike who are giving their time for free!

COMING UP

Tuesday 10th May 7.30pm The Beehive, Montpellier Villas

"Passwords and all that"

- a short talk on things you may not realise with internet security expert Robert Wright. This talk is open to anyone in Cheltenham Connect and is important for anybody using the internet and passwords. Please see

http://cheltenhamconnectskillspace.ning.com/events/skillspace-event-business-and-4

Thursday May 12th - 6.30pm Upstairs at The Tivoli

The second "Meet the Mentor 2" evening is being held, with 5 new mentees lined up to meet the mentoring team and work out who they would like to work with and one new mentor on bard! Many thanks to the Tivoli for becoming one of our new venues!

Thursday June 14th- 7.30pm The Beehive, Montpellier Villas

John Hepworth from www.hepworthhr.com will be talking to the SkillSpace groups about his recent experiences working in Kazakhstan and cultural stereotyping.

LAPTOP FRIDAYS - MAISON CHAPLAIS

We meet between 9'ish and 12'ish every Friday upstairs at Maison Chaplais, Tivoli for coffee, chat and co-working. (I-Pads and fountain pens can be used :) Anyone is welcome to come along and say hello, or join us for the whole morning.

To join the Skillspace group click here

Community Group

SWISHING EVENING - The Beehive - 28th March

What a fun night it was! We had a two page spread in the Echo with some great photos of people trying on different outfits. The evening included a 'Trendwatch' talk by Berith of Limelight Image Consultancy. The evening was such a success that we are already planning the next one! A big thank you to Cheltenham Connect member Karen Wilson who organised the evening and her team of helpers.

The RAMBLE AND ROAST in April was also very successful with everyone enjoying a 2 hour walk around the fields of Leckhampton followed by a roast lunch at The Brown Jug. It was held in association with LEGLAG and we fully support them in their fight to preserve our green spaces.

countryside

SWAP, SHARE AND SAVE

Get to know your neighbours and support your local community with Swap, Share & Save!
Local residents can now swap, lend, or give away their unwanted items for free - if you live near Naunton Park by contacting Alison and Morgan on swapshareandsave@gmail.com and elsewhere by using the online facility on Leckhampton Online

1) Post your swap, share and save items on Leckhampton Online

2) No money is exchanged

3) Items are just a walk away

4) Like freecycle (uses same message etiquette of Offers and Wanteds)

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 knowledgeable 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 current 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