See our website

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

Come and join us!

As there was a delay to the printing of the cash draw leaflets we decided, in order to be able to offer a bigger prize, to do the first draw after the Christmas Fair in December. Anyone who signed up and paid in advance will now have their name entered twice so that they have a better chance of winning. Leaflets will soon be going out to all the schools and churches and we hope that the draw will help us to cover our annual running costs. You can see the leaflet here and print out a standing order form here.    

 Website

The new website has been working really well and lots of new members have joined over the last few weeks. Don't forget that you can email us any ideas that you have about other things that we could do. And just let us know if you want to be more actively involved. 

Parking Consultation
A consultation drop-in session is being held on 18th November from 12-7pm at at Bethesda Church Hall in Great Norwood Street. This is a chance to see what is being discussed and to have your own say so, if you care about the issue, PLEASE ATTEND!! You can see our previous update here and the Gloucestershire County Council website now has the details for the proposed parking scheme for the Suffolks area  

Oral History Project
 

Over the last year we have been working with all four of our local primary schools exploring, with the help of older residents, how shopping and food production has changed over the last century. The project has been recorded in a book that we have created, and through film recordings that will soon be made available on our history website  www.cheltenhamsouthtown.org. 

The project was funded through a National Lottery sustainability grant given to the local SPJARA residents association with whom we have partnered. It was an outreach project for the original Norwood Triangle renovation so we were asked to focus on the route of the Tramway and the Bath Road.  We are really grateful to Blue Sky Event and Media and The University's media department for their help with the project.

You can now see a preview of the book here (it takes a while to load!). It is possible to order individual copies but, as we have created it ourselves and the print run is so small, it is quite expensive. As there is currently so much else going on we have decided to delay the celebratory history event until the spring of next year. 

Connect Street Project 

There has been understandable trader concern expressed at the impact of the combined parking and road safety initiatives and how these might impact on people's ability to visit the Bath Road. As many deliveries have to be made to the front of the shops there was also concern expressed about how planters might interfere with their supplier's ability to load/unload. The working group is now re-visiting the ideas for the larger street scheme in light of this feedback and the possible road changes. 

We all want the area to be an increasingly successful and thriving destination for people to visit and we are looking at ways to ensure this. We also want to make it easy for local people to walk and cycle to the shops - and to encourage them to realise, especially in such tough trading times, how important their support is to ensure the survival of our local businesses.

One of the options now being considered for phase one of the project is the introduction of 'Welcome to South Cheltenham' street noticeboards (showing a map of the area together with general information) at each end of the street, together with new cycle racks. We hope to have this agreed and completed within the next couple of months.

Through the recent Gloucestershire environmental grant the Cheltenham urban design team has also been allocated a further £12,200 to spend on the larger scheme and the working group will be looking at how this could best be used. 

Christmas Craft Fair - the '2011 Crimblefest!"     

The Christmas Craft Fair will take place under a tented village in the garden of the Exmouth Arms on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd December 10-6 and Sunday 4th December 11-4.

More than 45 local craftspeople will be taking stands, there will be a variety of musical entertainment and Santa will be in his grotto from 2-4pm on both Saturday and Sunday. We are currently looking for volunteers to help us over the weekend so let us know if you would like to be involved. 

The event is great fun for all ages and really helps to support our very talented local craftspeople, so we hope that you will come.

Health and Wellbeing Group

• A regular meditation group
• A support circle (for people going through tough times)
• Monthly health and wellbeing talks on different subjects
• A walking group
• A Fitness Buddy Scheme (to encourage us to share our pain!)
• Laughter Yoga(!) and happiness workshops

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