After nearly 40 years…

The local WEA was formed 40 years ago this year

A group of locals formed the WEA West Bergholt Branch nearly 40 years ago on Tuesday 20th October 1981. They launched their first ‘season’ of lectures in spring 1982 on the topic of “The Citizen and the Law – criminal, family, and consumer”; local lawyers presented the course.

Imperial China might be the last course after nearly 40 years

They started their most recent series on “Imperial China: Land and People” in spring 2021 was curtailed because of the Covid 19 lockdown 1; they did manage to complete nine of the ten weeks of this excellently presented subject though.

Continue reading “After nearly 40 years…”

Day 63 of (un?) Lockdown – the Old Church edition

Old Church circa 1880

Tower of JewelsDay 63 of (un?) Lockdown

The main news item for day 63 is an update on the Old Church renovations followed by a few updates from our government, and some fun at the end.  But first, we have a tall story from Annie Neish.

For those of you who are unable to cruise the village she thought you would like to see the Echium Pininana Tower of Jewels flowering beside the fence of the allotment on New Church Road.  Several years ago John had one on the plot next to her so she knew it might be possible.

A quick search on Wikipedia reveals this plant is native to La Palma in the Canaries where it is endangered due to habitat loss (Laurel forests).  Fortunately, it is being cultivated quite widely in the British Isles and Northern California so should have some resilience.

St Mary’s Old Church

Agreement about the best way forward following the discovery of the wall paintings was reached just as the Coronavirus put us all into lockdown. The work can now continue. Continue reading “Day 63 of (un?) Lockdown – the Old Church edition”

Keeping Up To Date on COVID-19

Keeping Up To Date on COVID-19

If you want to keep up to date on COVID-19 with a local slant then it is worth tracking Essex County Council’s information page.  ECC update this daily with news specific to Essex but it also gives highlights of recent national government announcements.  Some of the biggest items addressed most recently are:

Appeal from Council Leader and Director of Public Health

Cllr David Finch and Dr Mike Gogarty express their dismay about the Continue reading “Keeping Up To Date on COVID-19”

Yoga 4 Life – One Step at a Time for kids

Yoga Tree

Yoga PoseYoga 4 Life – One Step at a Time

Starting 19th September, Meg Lyon, a long time village resident, is offering a course of Yoga for 7-12 year-olds.  Running between 6:15 – 7pm for 5 weeks in the John Lampon Hall the course will cost £30 per child.  To book please contact Meg at [antibot mailto=”[email protected]”].  If this course goes down well, Meg hopes Continue reading “Yoga 4 Life – One Step at a Time for kids”

Shakespeare’s Villains

Shakespeare’s Villains – A WEA Short Course

Not “done” Shakespeare since you left school? Do you think his works are not for you? This autumn in West Bergholt we are looking forward to welcoming Ron Marks who will be our tutor on “Shakespeare’s Villains”.  This will be an exploration of Shakespeare’s insights into how “one may smile, and smile and be a villain, a scheming ‘machiavel’”, “bloody, bawdy” and eternally fascinating to audiences.

This course promises to make Shakespeare’s interesting and accessible to all.

So why not come along and try it? You can sample the first evening for free!  The course starts at the Methodist Hall at 8pm on 15th September and lasts for 10 weeks.

10 evenings cost £48, those on income under £15,276 net per annum or income based benefits/JSA free.

For further information please contact Gill on 01206 240512.

No Prior Research Needed – but:

… if you wanted somebody else’s take on the top 5 Shakespeare villains then here they are:

1. Iago

Driven by an overpowering lust for evil rivaled only by Satan, Iago grabs the title as worst Shakespeare villain hands down. As the critic William Robertson Turnbull once pointed out, “Iago is an unbeliever in, and denier of, all things spiritual, who only acknowledges God, like Satan, to defy him”

2. Richard III

The tyrannical, morally vacuous Richard III orders his own brother’s execution and the murder of two innocent children because they are obstacles to his kingly ambition. Luckily, Richard’s horrific acts come to an end when he is slain by Richmond at the battle of Bosworth Field.

3. Cornwall

In King Lear, a play rife with heinous evildoers, Cornwall towers over them all. Infinitely greedy and exceptionally cruel, Cornwall schemes with his wife, Regan, and sister-in-law, Goneril, to torture Lear and Gloucester. Cornwall delights in gouging out Gloucester’s eyes, exclaiming “Out, vile jelly!/Where is thy lustre now?”

4. Aaron the Moor

Among other vile crimes, Aaron the Moor, servant and lover to Tamora, masterminds the brutal rape of Titus Andronicus’s daughter, Lavinia. When, at the end of the play, Titus’s son Lucius decides that Aaron should be buried to the neck in sand and starved, Aaron, defiant to the end, tells Lucius that “If one good deed in all my life I did/I do repent it from my very soul.”

5. Edmund

Resentful of his illegitimacy, the Earl of Gloucester’s bastard son strives to destroy his brother and father to gain Gloucester’s title and possessions. Successful in his evil plot to ruin Gloucester, he next plans to kill Cordelia and Lear so that he can rule Britain. Edmund’s henchmen strangle Cordelia and Lear dies broken-hearted as a result of his daughter’s murder.

(Read more at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/shakespearevillains.html).

Appeal for SN Support Volunteers

Appeal for Special Needs Support Volunteers

ecdpDo you want to have the opportunity to support children with Special Education needs, then why not become a volunteer Independent Supporter (IS) with ECDP?  The purpose of the role is:

To provide appropriate support to young people with special educational needs (SEN) and their parents/carers through the transition from a traditional Special Educational Needs Statement system to  the new Education, Health & Care (EHC) assessment and planning process.

  •  Full training will be provided
  • All reasonable expenses will be provided
  • Volunteers will be working either alongside other volunteers and staff or independently
  • Working hours are flexible
  • Volunteers would usually need to commit to around 6 hours per month
  • To support group-based and individually focused support, workshops/events which will empower young people and parents/carers to make informed choices/decisions

Successful applicants will be required to complete two days face to face training, two days on-line training plus some supplementary training.

Training is available throughout Essex.  If you would like to work with us to support disabled children and their parents/carers in Essex, please contact Cindy Peacock by email [antibot mailto=”[email protected]”] or call her on 01245 392 319.

More about ECDP

ecdp (Essex Coalition of Disabled People) is a pioneering charitable organisation (no. 1091293), run by disabled people, for disabled people.   They deliver a range of services and award winning programmes which enhance the everyday lives of disabled people across the UK.  Involving and engaging disabled people in all that they do, ensuring that their voice continues to be heard.

Our values

Our values underpin everything we do and shape our behaviour, both as an organisation and as individuals working within ecdp. We are:

Inclusive

We include anyone who has rights under the Equality Act 2010 within our definition of ‘disabled people’. This includes anyone with a physical and/or sensory impairment, mental health condition, learning disability or long-term health condition (such as HIV/AIDS or cancer). We also recognise anyone who declares themselves to be a disabled person.

Expert

As an organisation run by and for disabled people, we have a unique and insightful perspective. Our history and work provides us with a depth of knowledge on the issues faced by disabled people in Essex. We use this knowledge to add value to our own work and that of the public, private and voluntary sectors in order to effect change for disabled people.

Innovative

We are adaptable, embrace change and try new ways of doing things. We work in an imaginative and flexible way, seeking feedback to help us innovate.

Responsive

We listen to the needs of and work in partnership with disabled people and our stakeholders. We respond in a timely manner and in a way that is enabling, supportive and professional.

The Great War: Fact, Myth & Memory

British soldiers in a captured German trench
British soldiers in a captured German trench
A German trench occupied by British Soldiers near the Albert-Bapaume road at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. The men are from A Company, 11th Battalion, The Cheshire Regiment.
Source : Wikipedia

How appropriate that in the centenary year of the beginning of the Great War, acclaimed at the time as the war to end all wars (or was it?), that the WEA have provided details of their next course:

The WEA (Workers Education Association) runs 2 courses each year the first beginning in September and the other in January. Our next course is The Great War: Fact, Myth and Memory by Roger Beckett and starts on 23rd September 2014 at 8 pm. This course attempts to consider the Great War as an historical event, to separate fact from myth and to place the events of 1914-1918 in the context of Europe in the 20th century. All are welcome and if in doubt to sample the first evening for free. It will take place at the Methodist Hall, Chapel Lane at a cost of £48 for 10 weeks (income based benefits/JSA free). For more details contact Gill on 240512 or email [antibot mailto=”[email protected]”]

Outstanding Bluebells Pre-School

That was the conclusion of Ofsted recently when they made their first inspection visit of the ‘Early Years’ provider.  Ofsted awarded the highest accolade of “outstanding” quoting “the quality of teaching is exemplary”,  “the practitioners use their expertise to provide children with an educational programme that is extremely challenging, exciting and worthy of disseminating to others”.   One excerpt from the report tells a story all of itself:

Clip art spiderPractitioners are exceptionally skilful at following children’s interests and use well-considered questions to extend children’s thinking.  For example, children see a spider crawling across the pre-school floor.  They draw a practitioner’s attention to the spider, who quickly and efficiently uses this spontaneous incident as a learning aide.  She confidently finds a small pot to contain the spider and asks a child if they would like to find a magnifying glass to explore the spider in more detail.  The child quickly returns with a magnifying glass.  The practitioner enables the now, larger group of children who have come to see what is happening to view the spider in more detail.  This creates a lively discussion about how many legs the spider has, what colour it is and where children think it might live.  The discussion concludes with children telling the practitioner that they think the spider should be taken outside and placed on a tree so that it won’t be trodden on.  The practitioner helps children take it outside and settles it into its new environment.  Children excitedly rush back into the room to find the plastic spider living in one of the story/rhyme sacks. They each take it in turns to look at the plastic one and break out into songs about spiders.  Throughout this activity, the practitioner’s input superbly guides children’s thoughts and challenges their thinking, while allowing them ample time to consider their own knowledge.

Well done to Jackie Leach & all her team.  Details of Bluebells, and other Education Providers supporting West Bergholt, are available on this website.

Click this link to download the full Ofsted report which is in PDF format.

Simon of Sudbury – the French Connection

Simon of Sudbury
Simon of Sudbury gets a face

Simon of Sudbury will be the subject of a talk by Roger Green to the West Bergholt History Group   on Wednesday 11th September 2013.  Being held at the Orpen Memorial Hall, West Bergholt the meeting starts at 8pm; the cost to members is £1 with non-members £3, and includes refreshments.

Simon of Sudbury makes a fascinating subject to learn about. Well travelled and educated, a confidant of royalty & pope alike, and yet beheaded by commoners, why, how?

Simon Sudbury, also called Simon Theobald of Sudbury and Simon of Sudbury was Bishop of London from 1361 to 1375, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1375 until his death, and in the last year of his life Lord Chancellor of England. Wikipedia

Drawing & Learning How to “See”

A line & perspective drawing by Anna BoonNew Drawing Classes in West Bergholt

Do you want to learn to draw or improve on your ability?

If so, a new class is starting in St Mary’s Church Hall, West Bergholt on 17th September and running for 6 weeks (although if there is enough demand will continue to run on thereafter).  In this six-week course you will learn all about line, tone, negative spaces and perspective.  All tools to help you translate what you actually “see” to paper and help build confidence in your skills and achieve great results.

Anna promises small, friendly classes with an experienced tutor who will give encouragement and advice.  This short course will cost just £45.

For more information and register your place please contact Anna Boon BA (Hons) Fine Art on 01206 262780 or by email [antibot mailto=”[email protected]”].  If you would like to see some of Anna’s work you can also visit her website at http://www.annaboon.co.uk/.

More about Anna

Anna grew up in Cornwall, moved briefly to Glasgow and has since settled in Suffolk.  After a career in the travel industry, and bringing up two children, she fulfilled a long held ambition to study art and gained a BA (Hons) degree in Fine Art from Colchester School of Art and Design.

At present Anna is building a portfolio of work to exhibit and teaching adults the joys of drawing and painting.

Anna is also a founder member of “Quartz” a group of artists who meet regularly to exhibit and to help and encourage each other in their individual practice.

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