Virtual Events at the Hall: The Art of Sourdough

On Tuesday 20th April in the afternoon there is another ‘Virtual Village Hall’ event as the Wye Valley Women invite others to join their online talk on The Art of Sourdough with Guy Stafford.

During the talk, Guy hopes to be able to demonstrate the whole process, resulting in a baked loaf, and will share lots of helpful tips along the way. That’s on Tuesday, 20th April – doors open 2.15pm, talk starts 2.30. To join, please contact the Wye Valley Women wyevalleywomen1@gmail.com. A link will be sent to you to join the event. (Members will receive the link in their normal news mail so do not need to book in advance.) There is no charge but a donation is appreciated.

If you have a question you would like to ask it helps to let them know in advance.

May’s talk will be about why solitary bees are important creatures to attract into your garden, with speaker George Pilkington showing some of his innovative solutions for attracting and keeping solitary bees happy.

Additional Bus Services for The Narth

The new 65 Bus timetable commenced on Monday 22nd March 2021. This improved the service to The Narth as, until now, the Chepstow to Monmouth services starting at 7am and 3.30pm both bypassed our village, as did the Monmouth to Chepstow service starting at 7.45am.

The Narth now has three additional services Monday to Friday at the following times from our village:

07.30 to Monmouth
08.03 to Chepstow
16.00 to Monmouth

This good news follows discussions between Friends of the 65 Bus and Monmouthshire County Council.

The full timetables are available on the Friends of the 65 Bus web site www.friendsofthe65bus.org.uk

Virtual Events at the Hall: Paradise Found, with Robin Smith

Tuesday 16th February, in the afternoon. Wye Valley Women’s online event this month features a talk by award winning wildlife cameraman and director of photography Robin Smith, who will be presenting Paradise Found, featuring pictures from his film about birds of paradise. (This was originally scheduled for a live meeting last March.)

The meeting is open to all, and there’s no charge, although donations to Wye Valley Women are appreciated from non-members (£2 is suggested).

The session will begin at 2.15pm to give time to chat and socialise before the talk begins at 2.30pm.

To book contact Wye Valley Women on wyevalleywomen1@gmail.com. A link will be sent to you to join the event. (Wye Valley members will receive the link in their normal news mail so do not need to book in advance.)

For a taster see Robin’s website – robinsmith.tv

Advice about Travel to Vaccination Centres

A message from Help on The Narth as vaccinations start to be rolled out.

Several people have asked about arrangements for getting to a vaccination clinic for those unable to drive. We have received the following advice from Trellech Surgery: –

You are allowed to travel by taxi to attend a vaccination clinic
Jock’s Journeys in Monmouth (tel 07456 808427) are offering 50% off the taxi fare to and from vaccination clinics, wherever the clinic is. This offer applies only to people attending a vaccination clinic, and they will pick up from The Narth
Neighbours are allowed to offer a lift to another neighbour who is unable to travel to the vaccination clinic independently, but you MUST observe all the advice to wear a mask, distance as much as possible (eg by asking the passenger to sit in the back of the car) and keep the car windows open. This easing of the restrictions only applies to help someone attend for vaccination – you should not ordinarily offer a lift to someone you do not live with (while Level 4 restrictions are in place)
If a patient is completely housebound and has visits from the District Nurse, they can ring the surgery and request to be put on the “housebound list”. Arrangements can then be made for the vaccination to be offered at home. They stress that this only applies to people who are definitely unable to leave the house

Virtual Events at the Hall: Tues 19 January ‘Forgotten Little Creatures’

Wye Valley Women are hosting an online talk, via the Village Hall’s Zoom account, by zoologist and wildlife photographer Victoria Hillman, who will be telling us about her ongoing long term project, Forgotten Little Creatures. Victoria brings together photography and science to celebrate plants, invertebrates, amphibians and reptiles in a fascinating and inaccessible way.

Victoria’s description of the talk: “Forgotten Little Creatures is an exciting project that celebrates all the smaller things that we have around us with creative photography, interesting scientific and historical facts, the stories behind the images and how we can help the wildlife around us. By encouraging others to find and understand the importance of these smaller species I hope that they will help protect them and their habitats for future generations to enjoy and the health of our local ecosystem.”

The meeting is open to all, and there’s no charge, although donations to Wye Valley Women are appreciated (£2 is suggested).

The session will begin at 2.15pm so that you have plenty of time to work out how to do things before the talk begins at 2.30pm, or have a quick chat with people you haven’t seen for a while.

To book contact Wye Valley Women on wyevalleywomen1@gmail.com. A link will be sent to you to join the event.

More information about Victoria and the project can be found here on her web site vikspics.com

Help on The Narth Prescription Collection Service

UPDATE: 23rd March 2021

Following discussions with our volunteers and with Trellech Surgery, Help on the Narth has decided to cease the prescription and delivery service after Easter. The last collection will be on Thursday 1st April. We will continue to collect prescriptions in an emergency where the patient or carer is unable to get to the surgery in person. In this case, please get in touch via helponthenarth@gmail.com or ring 861974.

Like everyone else, we hope the service won’t be required again but be assured that we will leave all the systems in place so we can pick it up again quickly, should the need arise.

Thank you to everyone for working with us and the surgery to make things as easy as possible during this last lockdown. We all appreciate the support you’ve given us.

To assist the surgery while we are in Level 4 lockdown, Help on The Narth is resuming the prescription collection service. The practice staff prefer people to use this service as it reduces the number of people visiting the surgery – which helps to protect us, to protect our wonderful NHS staff and to protect the wider community. So even if you are not isolating, please allow our volunteers to collect your prescriptions for you.

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Photo Competition 2021: Celebration

Following the success of last year’s competition and the resulting calendar, we are once again holding a competition to find 12 pictures suitable for a 2022 calendar. This time the theme is:

You can interpret this as widely as you wish: a photograph of your Christmas tree, a birthday party, celebrating the dawn, the winter solstice or the first day of spring. As long as the picture is taken locally, and it has a celebratory theme.

If your talent lies in pencil, charcoal, or oils, you can photograph your masterpieces and submit an entry.

Note that the pictures should be jpegs, landscape to fit the calendar format and should be a reasonable resolution for printing (around 300 dpi or more). Other points are given in the competition rules (below).

It will also help if your picture fits appropriately into a season, to match the months of the calendar. The deadline for Winter photos is Friday 19th March 2021 but you can submit Spring photos up to the end of June.

The overall winner will be chosen from the final 12 images and voted by residents at the Village Hall AGM in October.

Rules

1. Photographs must be taken on or around The Narth – a reasonably wide area – or include activities like the Raft Race with which the village is involved.

2. Give a title and name the area in which the image was taken.

3. No photos of children will be accepted unless accompanied by confirmation of permission from their parents or guardians.

4. Maximum number of entries for each person is 2 per season (a total of 8 overall).

5. Only landscape JPEGs will be accepted, to fit the calendar format.

6. Photos must be high enough resolution to print, ideally 300 dpi. If in doubt check the file size – if it is less than 2 MB it may not be suitable.

7. There will be 3 deadlines through the year. Details will appear in the newsletter, village emails and on this website.

8. Finalists will be chosen by a group of judges selected by the Hall Committee, except for the cover photograph which will be voted on by attendees at the Hall Annual General Meeting in October.

9. By submitting an entry you are confirming the following:

That the photographs were taken by yourself (or state the name and age if you are submitting them for someone under 16)
Your permission for the images (or image owner) to be used in the calendar and any associated publicity, including the village web site and Facebook page (if you don’t want your picture on the internet please let us know, or we can arrange for it to appear as low resolution only)
That the parents/guardians of any children in the pictures have given permission for the inclusion of their images
You are happy for your name to appear in the calendar – if you are not willing to do this please state in the accompanying email
You understand that by entering this competition, you are agreeing to all the terms and conditions stated above

Submitting an Entry

Send photos as landscape JPEGs to: mariarick10@gmail.com

Your covering message must state the following:

Name
Address
Telephone no.
Title of each image
Where each image was taken
What the picture is celebrating and in which season
Confirmation of permission for any children’s images to be used, and that you agree to the other rules as above

Have fun and get snapping!

The Virtual Village Hall Christmas Quiz

**Join the Christmas Quiz Saturday 12th December**

Join us on Saturday 12th December for our online Christmas Quiz over Zoom! The quiz will start at 7pm and end at 9pm.

Helen King (who usually runs the hall’s Quiz and Curry Nights) will be setting the question and will be master of ceremonies. Questions will be provided online.

Teams from the same household can join in together sharing one device (laptop/tablet/phone), but to keep things simple, if anyone in your house is logging in on a separate device, please book in as a separate team.

There is no charge to join in, but please book to receive a link to the session by filling in the form below.

Good Luck!

The Narth Village Hall

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