Melksham Area Board - 8 August

People are being encouraged to attend the next Melksham area board so they can find out more about the exciting new community blogsite which will be launched soon.  

The meeting will take place at Bowerhill Village Hall on  August 8 from 6.30pm for tea/coffee and a 7pm start and all are welcome to attend.

A presentation will be given on the Our Community Matters blogsites, which aim to strengthen local communities in Wiltshire by making it easier for local people and groups to talk to one another through social media.

 People will be able to use these virtual noticeboards to find about local news, local debates, events, jobs, and volunteering.  Unlike more traditional websites, the blogsites will be fully interactive and local people will be able to post stories and have their say on what other people are talking about and start their own conversations. They will also be a free channel for local organisations to publicise community events.

 Home care provider, Enara, who work in the local area will also attend and be available to answer any questions.  They will update people about the services they are currently providing in Melksham and surrounding areas to help people stay at home.

 People can also find out more and take part in discussions about Neighbourhood Plans and how they can shape their local area in the future.

 The team behind Melksham ComicCon will attend to give some feedback on this successful event that took place in May 2012.

There will also be seven grant applications considered including applications from Golden Fleece Cricket Club, Bowerhill Residents Action Group and Melksham Council for Community Services.

 Area board chair Jonathon Seed said: “The community blogsite will be a really useful tool for people to communicate, have their say and find out what is happening in the local area. It will really benefit the community so I encourage people to come along and find out more.
“We also welcome Enara to the meeting to talk about the services they provide and people can also find out how they can shape their local area through the neighbourhood plans. It promises to be a really worthwhile area board for people to attend” 

The full agenda for the area board can be found at :
http://cms.wiltshire.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=166&MId=6377&Ver=4

A message from the Golden Fleece Cricket Club

While the country gears up for the Olympics and enjoys a year full of football, cricket, golf and other sports, the Golden Fleece Cricket Club has been looking ahead to 2013.

September 2012 will see the final fixture played by the club at its current ground behind the public house in Shaw. This means that a new field is required. Back in 2011 planning permission was sought and gained and the first excavation for the cricket square was made at Haines Croft, next to Whitley Golf Club. Last autumn, teams of players and supporters dug, wheel-barrowed and spread tons of stone, topsoil and loam to create the desired playing surface.

The recent bad weather slowed down preparations for the outfield but these are now gathering speed and it is beginning to look like a cricket field.

None of this would happen without the physical efforts of key personnel like Secretary John Dickens who has taken on the role of project manager. Likewise, the club has needed to financial support of groups like the Melksham Area Board who gave a generous grant to enable to project to flourish. The club has continued its own fundraising as the final stages of the whole project are close.

By next spring, the club hopes to have raised sufficient funding to build a purpose built pavilion to provide changing and storage facilities.

The final fixture at the old field, on Saturday September 22^nd, will be friendly affair between current and ex Fleece players and members of other clubs who have played against the Fleece during the past 27 years. It will start at midday and finish around 5 pm followed by a BBQ. All ex-players and supporters are welcome to join in the celebrations.

Come along and say your farewell to the old field.

Fire Safety Message

Today Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Service attended a fire in a bedroom in a property in the south of Wiltshire. 

Initial fire investigation suggests that the fire was caused by sunlight reflecting from a vanity mirror onto nearby curtains.  The alarm was raised by a working smoke detector.  The damage was contained to the one room and fortunately no-one was injured.

This incident highlights the danger from mirrors placed near windows, particularly in current weather conditions and the importance of having working smoke detectors in your home.

Wiltshire Cultural Strategy Consultation

Wiltshire Council is leading on the creation of a Cultural Strategy for the county. The purpose of the strategy is to enable every part of the cultural sector to work together to focus energy and resources upon a set of shared objectives that will transform the cultural offer and deliver real benefits for the communities of Wiltshire.

A consultation paper has been developed through a process of small group consultation led by Wiltshire Council Arts Service and through an Open Space event in November 2011 led by Creative Ecology Wiltshire. This consultation paper proposes a definition of culture as well as identifying the building blocks for a vision for culture in Wiltshire.

Read the consultation paper

Cultural strategy consultation – online submission form

If the above links don’t work then please visit http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/council/consultations/developingaculturalstrategyforwiltshire.htm

The initial consultation has brought forward a set of five priorities and proposes that it is through the sector working collaboratively that these priorities will be delivered. The five priorities are:

• Leadership and Flexibility
• The Cultural Economy
• Communication and Audience Development
• Working Together and Raising Quality
• Growing the Sector and Developing the Offer

This second phase of consultation is an opportunity to shape the vision for culture and to consider whether the priorities identified are the most important for the cultural sector in Wiltshire.

Please do take a little time to tell us what you think - deadline for responses is 30 September 2012

To find out more about the strategy or to join a mailing list for regular updates please contact: arts@wiltshire.gov.uk

Melksham Information and Networking Event - 18th September 2012

GROW is the Support Service for Voluntary and Community Groups in Wiltshire.

GROW, in partnership with Melksham Community Area Partnership, are running an information and networking event for all voluntary and community groups based in the Melksham area. These events are designed to help groups to network more effectively with each other in their local area and highlight how to find out about the support and services they can access from GROW as well as other organisations.

If you require any of the following then this FREE event is for you!

Do you need volunteers?
Do you need information about working with people who have specific support needs?
Do you need funding but don't know where to look?
Do you need new trustees or need to better support the trustees you already have?
Do you need training or help identifying training needs?
The event will also be a great opportunity to meet other groups in your area, share knowledge and experiences.

The event takes place on Tuesday 18^th September, 6-8pm at Melksham Town Hall, Market Place, Melksham, SN12 6ES.

If you know of any small community group for whom this event would be of value please pass on this information. 

Our information and networking events are proving popular and spaces are limited so BOOK NOW - email sarah@growwiltshire.org.uk or call 0845 034 5250 (local rates apply)

Change of Community Area Manager

Alison Sullivan will be taking over the role of Melksham Community Area Manager from Mon 6 August covering the maternity leave of Abbi Gutierrez.  Alison's contact details are: alison.sullivan@wiltshire.gov.uk and 07917 721371.

Melksham Tidy Town Day

Sunday 29th July

12.30 - 3pm, Meet at the Town Hall

Cleaning equipment provided but please bring gloves

Sign up at the Tourist Information Centre or by calling 01225 707424

All are welcome

Tea and cakes served afterwards

Good news for Rail Services in Melksham

Last week was an excellent one for the TransWilts railway and train services - Swindon and Chippenham via Melksham to Trowbridge and Westbury, and on to Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury.

On Tuesday, the first steam train in 50 years called at Melksham, picking up around 100 people for a day out in Canterbury. On Wednesday, the Department for Transport announced that Wiltshire Council was successful in its £4.25m funding bid; hugely significant news. On Thursday, we learned that fare anomalies that have discouraged users have been corrected (Swindon to Salisbury no longer costs £56)

The current franchise - run by First group - finishes in a year's time (April 2013, but that may slip a month or two). And as part of the process of awarding the next Franchise, the department for Transport consulted widely in the first quarter of this year.   They'll be issuing an invitation to Tender to the 4 pre-quaified bidders shortly.  We are already talking with all 4 bidders - each in their own way - about the shape of services needed with the intent of helping all of them put in the most appropriate proposal for the route covered, customers and potential customers, and businesses effected by that custom.  The Partnership strongly supported Wiltshire Council's bid, and now that funding has been granted we all have a very great deal to do.

There's so much news here that it's hard to filter it out to a few bullet points - but basically we're looking at a daily service of about 8 trains each way (that's about every 2 hours during the day, perhaps hourly at the peak) with excellent connections if not always through trains all the way from Swindon to Salisbury.  We're looking at infrastructure at stations so that they can cope with the extra traffic - foot, cycling, bus, taxi, car, and working on and with bus services to ensure that other primary points to be connected are indeed connected.  And we're looking at information and ticketing systems and structures that will market the services to people, easily provide them with time and price information when they need it, and make it easy for them to travel, giving them such a good experience when they do that they keep coming back.  More at http://www.wellho.net/mouth/3793_Excellent-Rail-News-what-it-really-means.html (my personal blog) ;  if you would like further technical information and detail please get in touch - I have mountains of it!

Finally, a big "Thank you" to everyone who has supported us thus far.   We value that support, we still need it through the implementation phase.  But I just wanted to say we wouldn't have got even this far without it.