Mar 2014 - Affetside Link Newsletter

Thank you to everyone who turned up to the Affetside Society AGM.  We now have an outline of most of the events that will be taking place during 2014.  Everyone is welcome to these events, so please bring friends and family too.  The more the merrier!

Furhter down in this issue of The Link, you will find a summary of the events, so please make a note of them in your diary.  More information will be available about the later events nearer the time. 

If you are new to the village, please look at our website www.affetside.org.uk.  

You will find a calendar of all the events and other useful information about the village, including the much visited weather information.  

If you are interested in seeing what we got up to at previous years’ events, check out the gallery! 

MOVING INTO THE 21^st CENTURY   

We would like to start distributing the Affetside Link by email where possible.  If you do not have email, or just wish to continue receiving a paper copy, that is fine, but we can speed up the distribution and save print costs if we can email as many as possible.  If you have not already been contacted and you are happy to receive your copy electronically, please send an email to affetsidevillage@gmail.com

SPRING TIDY

Last year’s bonfire event was successful and everyone appeared to have a great time, but the bonfire site now needs a tidy up.  If you can spare an hour, please come along to the bonfire site on Saturday 22^nd March at 11 a.m.  “Many hands make light work” so it should take no time at all.

WILDFLOWER SOWING   

The annual wildflower seed sowing day will take place on Saturday 12th April at 1.30 p.m. on the Village green. Each summer we get a splendid display of flowers, so please join us in sowing the seeds. All are welcome to help and it would be great to get the support of local children again.  Free refreshments.

Wildflower Garden in 2012

PALM SUNDAY   

The Palm Sunday story will be played out by children this year.  Meet at the Affetside Cross at 2.30pm prompt on Palm Sunday, 13^th April.  The procession will lead up to the Church where the service will continue. Come along to the free craft activities for children and refreshments will be available for all.  There will be a free gift for children and some palm leaf mugs which have been made by students for the occasion.

SPRING CLEANING     

If you are having a Spring clear out, please hang onto your old clothes, shoes, handbags, belts, curtains, bedding (sheets, duvets covers, but not duvets).  Keep them for our bi-annual clothes collection. Last year this raised nearly £400 which is a great help towards the  maintenance and insurance of the Green.  The next collection on Monday 12^th May, will be from 68, Watling Street (Opposite the Green).  

Please leave your bags by the garage before 10 a.m. in the morning.

ANNUAL BOULES COMPETITION   

This year’s French Boules Competition will be taking place on Sunday 8^th June at 1.30p.m.  There is a much coveted trophy for the winning adult and winning junior.  Everyone is welcome, so please bring friends and relatives.

French food and wine will be provided.  The cost of the food is included in the boules entry fee (£4 for adults and £1 for children). 

French fancy dress is optional.

Boules competition 2013

TURBINE UPDATE

The turbine application at Birches Farm was overwhelmingly defeated by 17 votes to 4 at the last Planning Committee meeting in Bolton. 

FOR YOUR DIARY…

Make a note of these dates and details will follow nearer the time. These dates are available on the online calendar.

• Saturday 22^nd March – Bonfire site tidy up.  11 a.m. at the bonfire site. 
• Saturday 12^th April  -  Wildflower seed sowing at 1.30pm on the Village Green
• Sunday 13th April – Palm Sunday procession and service.  2.30pm at the Affetside Cross.
• Monday 12th May - Clothes collection* from 68 Watling Street (Opposite the Millennium Green), please leave bags by the garage.
• Sunday 8th June – Annual Boules Tournament at 1.30pm on the Village Green.  £4 for adults, children £1. 
• Saturday 12th July - Summer BBQ at 5pm on the Village Green.   
• Saturday 8th November – Annual lighting of the Bonfire on the land behind the Village Green at 6pm
• Monday 24th November - Clothes collection* from 68 Watling Street (Opposite the Millennium Green)
• Sunday 30^th November – Santa will switch on the Christmas tree lights at 6pm prompt.
• Sunday 21^st December - Christmas Carol Concert at 3.30pm with Tottington Brass Band.

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Any comments, ideas for future events and/or contributions to affetsidevillage@gmail.com

Feb - Mar 2014 - Affetside Link Newsletter

A WARM WELCOME 

We offer very warm welcome to all the newcomers to Affetside. Amongst those new to the village are Rebecca and her team at the Pack Horse Inn. Judging by how busy our local pub has become, this has been a very successful refurbishment. So if you haven’t popped into the Pack Horse since the alterations, do take a look. It’s a massive transformation and a great place to warm you up on a cold night!

The pub has it's own website and can be accessed by clicking here


AFFETSIDE SOCIETY MEETING AT THE PACK 

The Affetside Society AGM will be held at The Pack Horse Inn on Tuesday 11th March at 7.30pm in the Pack Horse. Do come along to discuss anything concerning the village and input into the planning for all the events for the forthcoming year. EVERYONE is most welcome.


POLICE AND THE COMMUNITY 

The local police force hold regular meetings to liaise closely with the community. All local residents are welcome to attend the meeting, so if you have any concerns relating to crime or antisocial behaviour in the area, please go along to the next meeting. The next PACT (Police and Community Team) meeting will be held above the Tottington Library on Tuesday 18th March from 6.30 pm to 7.30 pm.


TURBINE UPDATE 

The applicant at Birches Farm has withdrawn from his appeal so he can focus on a new, even larger wind turbine. The application will be heard by Bolton’s Planning Committee in Bolton Town Hall on 6th March at 2 pm. If this application gets the go-ahead it will set a precedent and more applications are bound to follow. So, if you are unhappy about the prospect of turbines in and near to Affetside please go along to the meeting. Although there is not an opportunity to speak, the committee will be able to see that you are not happy with the increasing number of applications in this area.


EASYFUNDRAISING.ORG.UK 

If you shop on-line, there is a very easy way to help raise funds to help with the upkeep of our village green. Simply register on the www.easyfundraising.org.uk website and type in THE AFFETSIDE MILLENNIUM GREEN TRUST when it asks you which charity you would like to support. There are over 2,000 companies you can shop with like Amazon, M&S, Teso, holiday companies etc etc. Just log onto the Easyfundraising site first and then go from there to the on-line shop you want to purchase from. Everyone wins. It costs you nothing but we raise money for our village simply by doing what many of us do daily... shop on-line! Please will you register and help. It is very simple. So far we have raised £113 for the maintenance of the village green. If you use Google Chrome as a web-browser there is an add on to use that will automatically identify any websites you go to that are partnered with Easyfundraising - details can be found here

Thank you for reading and we will keep you updated for the next Affetside Link (Online Edition), also do remember to check out www.affetside.org.uk regularly

October 2013 - Affetside Link Newsletter

After an unusually good summer, autumn has suddenly landed on us. So if you are feeling chilly, come and warm yourself at at our forthcoming events.


MILLENNIUM GREEN TRUST AGM

All villagers are welcome to attend the annual general meeting of the Millennium Green Trust. The meeting will be held at 7.30pm on 7th November at the Chapel in Affetside. We are always looking for new people to become Trustees and if you would like to know what this entails, please call Tony Davies, the Trust chairman (Tel: 884023), or just turn up on the day. If you are new to the village, you are particularly welcome to come and hear more about the Affetside Millennium Green Trust and what is happening in the village.


HIGH SPEED BROADBAND 

As you know, over the past couple of years, we have been lobbying to get High Speed Broadband to reach Affetside. Many thanks to Falmai Binns, Chair of BRIF, who continues to fight our corner tirelessly. Whilst the campaign has felt rather like a game of snakes and ladders, we believe that we have just climbed up a rather long ladder! Many thanks to our Cllr Iain Gartside for raising a motion at the full council meeting to get their support for Affetside and part of Hawkshaw to be brought in line with the broadband speeds achieved in the rest of the borough. Thank you also to our other Cllrs, Yvonne Wright and Simon Carter who supported the motion. It was a very rare unanimous vote, so we hope that this will help put more pressure on those who are running the funding process.


ANNUAL BONFIRE

On Saturday 9th November, at 6pm, we have the annual lighting of the Bonfire on the land behind the Village Green. There is no entry charge and it is a great way to warm up on what is traditionally a chilly autumn evening.


As usual, we have arranged a drinks licence. Roseanne’s legendary pies and fabulous black peas plus hot dogs, parkin, toffee apples will be available. NEW for this year, we are turning up the heat by offering a spicy chilli con carne!! We will also hold a raffle and a cake stall, so all donations of raffle prizes or cakes will be extremely welcome. Bring them along on the evening, or if you are unable to join us, but would like to make a donation, please drop off any items to Roseanne Davies at No. 68, or Joanne Wilcock at No. 20 Watling Street.

If you have any spare wood please take it to the site any time before the event – the more the better.

We will be holding a Guy Fawkes Competition, so please put your creative thinking caps on and bring your Guy along promptly at 6pm so they can be judged before going onto the Bonfire.

Being mindful of local animals, we will not be having any fireworks and we would be grateful if you could leave your sparklers at home.


SUMMER CLEAROUT 

If you are having a clear out of your summer clothes, please hang onto your old clothes , shoes, handbags, belts, curtains, bedding (sheets, duvet covers etc., but not duvets ). Keep them for our bi-annual clothes collection. This helps raise significant funds to help with the maintenance and insurance of the Green.


The next collection on Monday 25th November, will be from 68, Watling Street (Opposite the Millennium Green). Please leave your bags before 10 a.m. in the morning. We raised an amazing £210 at our last collection in June. Please ask family and friends to donate too.


LADIES’ EVENING 

Would you like to learn how to make a stunning wreath for Christmas? Jackie Walker, qualified in floral demonstration, will be hosting a demonstration evening on Tuesday 3rd December at 7p.m to 9.30p.m. You will be able to take your own masterpiece home at the end of the evening.

The Affetside Society will provide refreshments wine, nibbles, tea, coffee and mince pies. You can co-ordinate the wreath to match your décor, just bring some baubles (3 large and 3 small) and a length of ribbon in colours of your choosing. Please also have a forage in your garden or whilst out walking and bring some holly and ivy. There will be a small charge (no more than £4) to cover the cost of the rings.


The event will be held at Five Acre Farm (opposite Peel Cottages) and due to limited space, the maximum number we can accommodate is twelve. So hurry and book your place now. The deadline for booking is 22 November. If you are interested in attending, phone Joanne on 882775 or 07724075992 or email her on joannewilcock@affetside.org.uk.


SANTA’S COMING TO AFFETSIDE

Santa will arrive on Affetside Millennium Green at 6.00p.m. prompt on Sunday 1st December. He will arrive chauffered as usual by his trusted elf! Don’t miss this magical free event as Santa switches on Affetside’s Christmas tree lights and gives presents to the children and grand children of the village. Wrap up warm for this half hour event that always raises a smile from all ages!

Previous visits can be seen here


CHRISTMAS CAROLS

Please join fellow villagers, family and friends for our annual Carols around the Christmas Tree event with Tottington Public Brass Band. 

There will be free mulled wine and warm mince pies. All warmly welcome on Sunday 22nd December at 3.30p.m. on Affetside Millennium Green. If you would like to contribute any mince pies for the event please bring them along with you on the day for all to enjoy!

Previous Carol events can be seen here

July 2013 - Affetside Link Newsletter

SUMMER BBQ 
 

As we go to print, it looks like Summer is arriving just in time for the Affetside BBQ!  Keep your fingers crossed and this time the good weather may even last a week or more. 

The price of your BBQ ticket includes a large hamburger and a hotdog, with salad and accompaniments.

Making a welcome return are Carol’s famous black peas – so come promptly as we ran out last time!  

The BBQ starts at 6pm on Saturday 13^th July and will continue with the disco well into the evening.

It’s a great evening out at just £7 for adults, and £5 for children under the age of 15.

There will be a cake stall and our infamous raffle so please bring your spare change to purchase any goodies.  All donations to the raffle and cake stalls are extremely appreciated.

TWITTER

If you use Twitter, you can now keep up-to-date with everything that is taking place in Affetside by following us on @affetsidevillag

SPRING CLEANING 

Thank you to everyone who kindly donated to the clothes collection.  It was one of the best collections to date and we raised £210.

HIGH SPEED BROADBAND

HSBB delivery for rural areas is moving slowly.  A formal consultation process has now started and it’s very important that we all take part in this consultation to get a better broadband service here.  The consultation covers the eight metropolitan borough councils of Greater Manchester.

Superfast broadband brings many economic and social benefits, as well as the potential to provide education, healthcare and interactions with local and central government in innovative and cost-effective ways.

They need to know where people live and work who want access to superfast broadband.  Although we have asked you for information before, this is now the new process so even if you have given your details to us before, only this new survey will now count.  So please log onto http://www.tfgm.com/GMBroadbandConsultation/Pages/Residential.aspx. 

However, if you run a business from your home address, please complete the following survey http://www.tfgm.com/GMBroadbandConsultation/Pages/Business.aspx

To make it easy, we have added these links to the Affetside Society website www.affestside.org.uk.  Just scroll down to the bottom of the home page.

The DEADLINE is 1^st August 2013.  A couple of minutes completing the survey may result in a lifetime of high speed broadband!

TURBINE UPDATE

The hearing for the Birches Farm turbine at the north end of Affetside will be held at Bolton Town Hall in the Lancaster Suite at 10am on Tuesday 25th July. Everyone is welcome to attend this public hearing. We need to show the inspector that local people do NOT want to see the Greenbelt harmed by inappropriate development.  Simply by turning up the inspector will be able to gauge the strength of feeling about the turbines.  Once one turbine has gone up, subsequent applicants will use it as a precedent.  So if you don’t want one in your back garden, help others to prevent it in theirs – otherwise one could be coming your way very soon. 

RECENT EVENTS

Thank you to everyone who turned up to help with the wild flower sowing.  The flowers are just about to burst into bloom and we should have a fantastic display in time for the Summer BBQ.  What great timing!

Photos here 

The weather turned out well for this year’s  French Boules competition.   Thank you to Tony and Roseanne Davies for all their hard work and enthusiasm for making this event a roaring success. 

Check out the Gallery, here, for photos of the event. 

WWW.AFFETSIDE.ORG.UK 

If you haven’t looked at the website dedicated to Affetside village before, or you haven’t been back back very recently, please do have a look.   We have redesigned and reformatted the site and have added lots of new information.  Thank you Mike!  If you don’t use Twitter, you can access Affetside’s own twitter feed on the home page.   The Gallery has been extended significantly and we now have some historic photos which show an interesting insight into village life in years gone by.  If you have any old photos of Affetside, let us know and we will scan them onto the website for everyone to enjoy.

April 2013 Edition

TURBINE UPDATE

The turbine application at Birches Farm is going to appeal. The hearing will take place at Bolton Town Hall on Tuesday 26th March at 10am. 

If you are unhappy about the prospect of turbines in Affetside it is important to turn up. If you wish to speak at the hearing, you may do so, but by simply being there, it will indicate to the Planning Inspector that you are not happy with the increasing number of applications in this area. 

If this application gets the go-ahead it will set a precedent and more applications are bound to follow.

As we go to print, the turbine application at Top Height Farm, Watling Street has been withdrawn, but we believe that a further revised application will be submitted.

SPRING FAIR 

A Spring Fair and table top sale will be held at Affetside Church on Saturday 13th April from 10am to 2pm.

There will be a free craft room for children and stalls for all the family including craft work (e.g. door stops, portraits, cushions), a card stall, a chocolate stall, beauty items and refreshments.

Any unwanted gifts, books etc will be gladly received. 

All enquiries to carol.m@virgin.net

WILDFLOWER SOWING 

Our first event of the year will be the annual wildflower seed sowing day on Sunday 14th April at 1.30 p.m. on the Village green. Each summer we get a splendid display of flowers, so please join us in sowing the seeds.

Wild Flowers

All are welcome to help and it would be great to get the support of local children and grandchildren again this year. Free refreshments will be available.

SPRING CLEANING 

If you are having a Spring clear out, please hang onto your old clothes, shoes, handbags, belts, curtains, bedding (sheets, duvet covers etc., but not duvets). 

Keep them for our bi-annual clothes collection. This helps raise significant funds to help with the maintenance and insurance of the Green. 

The next collection on Monday 13th May, will be from 68, Watling Street (Opposite the Green). 

Please leave your bags by the garage before 10 a.m. in the morning.

DOG POOP BAGS 

Yes, you read that correctly! 

If you use the footpaths behind the Green, you will have noticed the bags that are supplied for dog walkers. These were installed as the mess left behind was becoming a health hazard, particularly for those wishing to use the paths with young children. However, these bags are expensive to replace, so if any dog walkers would like help to contribute to the cost, please do not hesitate to contact Joanne or Roseanne. Details can be found here

DONATIONS BOX 

A donations box has been installed on the Green and we hope that visitors, ramblers and cyclists will drop in some loose change when they are enjoying the Green. 

All work carried out on the Green is done free by volunteers, but there are inevitable costs including petrol for the lawnmower, seeds, plants and materials for decking and patio and the dog poop bags. 

So all donations are very welcome. If you are unable to donate in cash feel free to donate via Paypal using donate@affetside.org.uk

YOUR DIARY…
Make a note of these dates and details will follow nearer the time.

• Tuesday 26th March – Inquiry into the 220 ft turbine at Birches Farm at 10am in Bolton Town Hall. Everyone welcome.
• Saturday 13th April - Spring Fair at Affetside church from 10am to 2pm. All welcome.
• Sunday 14th April - Wildflower seed sowing at 1.30pm on the Village Green
• Monday 13th May - Clothes collection from 68 Watling Street (Opposite the Millennium Green), please leave bags by the garage before 10a.m.
• Sunday 9th June – Annual French Boules Tournament at 1.30pm on the Village Green.
• Saturday 13th July - Summer BBQ at 6pm on the Village Green.
• Saturday 9th November – Annual lighting of the Bonfire on the land behind the Village Green at 6pm
• Monday 25th November - Clothes collection* from 68 Watling Street (Opposite the Millennium Green)
• Sunday 1st December – Santa will switch on the Christmas tree lights at 6pm prompt.
• Sunday 22nd December - Christmas Carol Concert at 3.30pm with Tottington Brass Band.

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Any comments, ideas for future events and/or contributions to Joanne Wilcock