Community, Parish Council & Village
St Mary’s Church update for 7th July provides listings of services, bible readings and other events and news such as Senior Citizen’s lunch, Treasure Hunt and a Course in Christian Studies.
Don’t forget, the church is now open on weekdays if you would like a quiet space to reflect or say a prayer for someone.
Family Treasure HuntThis takes place on Saturday Continue reading “St Mary’s Update – 7th July 2017”
French for Fun ExpandingTwo years ago Rachel Brown introduced French for Fun classes for adults to the village. These have been going so well that Rachel is now expanding and is offering 3 new sessions each week starting from 19th September; subject to demand she may also be able to offer an Advanced Class.
Were you put off at school but wonder if you could still manage to speak French, wanting to go to France and not need to keep referring to a phrase book (or Google translate), perhaps you want to do business with a French company or just want to see if you can – well local resident Rachel Brown is expanding her French for Fun language classes for adults in September so you can now put dates in your diary.
Rachel fell in love with French aged 11 and is passionate about the language. She took a degree in French and Business and has had a 30 year international banking career. This has seen her working with businesses of all types in the UK, France and Belgium. She promises that the classes will be fun and informal with no homework or exams. They will be structured to make sure progress is made, using tried and tested “Language for Fun” methods and materials.
The classes, which cost £130 per person per 10-week term (including all materials & refreshments), will all be held in the village.
To find out more you can call Rachel on 07772 918097, contact contact her by email, [antibot mailto=”[email protected]”] or visit the Language for Fun website.
The first meeting of the New Year took place in the Orpen Hall on January 10th. The guest speaker was Alan Skinner, former Principal of Grey Friars Adult Education College.
Alan’s talk was about the history of Grey Friars, or more precisely the area where it is located in the northeast corner of the old Roman town. It is difficult to ascertain exactly what was there during the Roman and Norman periods but between the 13th and the 16th century the site was occupied by Franciscan Monks, the Grey Friars, until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538.
The buildings remained in a poor state of repair. They were much damaged one hundred years later in the Civil War and Royalist prisoners of war were detained there after the siege. In Georgian times the area became very desirable and several large houses were built close by – Hollytrees, East Hill House, The Minories. The building which is now the centre part of Grey Friars was built around 1750.
The building changed hands several times and in 1829 the area where Roman and Castle Roads are now was leased to the Colchester Botanical Society to make into a Botanical Garden. This initially proved popular with the rich and fashionable although by the 1850s the garden had fallen from favour and was sold off for housing and would eventually become Castle Road and Roman Road.
The Grey Friars house, much extended, continued as a private residence until 1903 when it was purchased by a group of French Nuns. They converted it into a boarding school for gentlemen’s daughters. The Nuns sold Grey Friars to Essex County Council in 1920 when it was used to house part of the County High School for Girls. They stayed there until the 1950s when they moved to their current premises in Norman Way. Grey Friars was then used at different times as temporary accommodation for Monkwick and Phillip Morant Schools, and the Technical College, now Colchester Institute. In 1965 the building became an Adult Education College until being sold in 2008 for conversion into a luxury hotel, which opened in 2014.
Alan Skinner’s talk was very well received and many of the members of the audience had their own fond memories of Grey Friars.
From time to time the Secretary receives enquiries from people studying their family history. A recent enquiry from Kiern Pettican, who lives in Kent, is seeking to trace the graves of her great-great-grandparents William Pettican 1848-1912 and Sarah Rebecca Pettican 1853-1921. They married in the old church in 1869 and were living in Old Church Lane in 1881. Searches of the churchyards have been unsuccessful. She would also be interested in copies of any photographs of Old Church Lane from the period.
If any reader can help please get in touch with Gill Poole 01206 240512.
Meetings start at 7.30. Members £1 – Visitors welcome £3. Find out more here.
Industrial Archaeology
The next WEA course is entitled “Industrial Archaeology” and it starts on Tuesday 10th January 2017 at 8pm.
Whilst the Industrial Revolution shaped Tyneside, the Black Country and the south Pennines, it also changed East Anglia’s landscape. Learn how the traditional crafts became mechanised, factory-based, industries, and discover their legacy. Our tutor is Steven Worsley.
This course will explain the importance of the industrialisation of Britain and will assist students in interpreting and recognising the surviving remains and artefacts. Eastern Counties industries discussed:
The course is taking place at the Methodist Hall Chapel Lane, West Bergholt. CO6 3EF and costs £47.25 over 9 weeks. You can pay in one of 3 ways:
If you decide the course is not for you, you can ask for a refund. There may be a fee waiver for those on low income/benefits.
ALL ARE VERY WELCOME
Contact Gill on 01206 240512 if you would like more details.
Films & LiteratureFilms & Literature is the topic of the upcoming WEA course starting at 8pm on 13th September. The course will investigate the way books & cinema have influenced the other as David Read, the tutor, says:
From the early days of cinema to the present day film has shared with the novel a passion for storytelling. Early pioneer of the Silent Film D W Griffiths, cited the novels of Dickens as an influence on his technique and to this day film makers continue to use literature as an inspiration.
Films/books that we will consider in the study are “The Great Gatsby” and “Pride & Prejudice”.
WEA classes are friendly and supportive. You will work in groups and with the whole class, sharing ideas and views and giving and receiving feedback. The WEA tutor uses a range of different teaching and learning methods and will encourage you to be actively involved in your learning. You will get the texts for the following week each session and might find it it useful to supplement them with some internet research or background reading.
Find out moreThe course will run for 9 evenings at the Methodist Hall, Chapel lane, and will cost £47.25. (If you are on low income and benefits, let the organiser know, the fee may be waived). If you would like to find out more contact Gill on 01206 240512, you are also most welcome to try the first evening for free.
French for FunWere you put off at school but wonder if you could still manage to speak French, wanting to go to France and not need to keep referring to a phrase book (or Google translate), perhaps you want to do business with a French company or just want to see if you can – well local resident Rachel Brown is starting up French for Fun language classes for adults in January so you can now put a date in your diary.
Rachel fell in love with French aged 11 and is passionate about the language. She took a degree in French and Business and has had a 30 year international banking career working with businesses of all types in the UK, France and Belgium.
She promises that the classes will be fun and informal with no homework or exams, but still structured to make sure progress is made, using tried and tested “Language for Fun” methods and materials. Classes will be for all levels according to demand – beginners, improvers, intermediate and advanced. To start with, she will probably only be offering beginners and improvers but this could change subject to demand.
Starting on 20th January (until 26th March), classes will run every Wednesday in terms/blocks of 10 weeks (roughly in line with the school year), provisionally (depending on demand) they will be:
The classes, which will cost £120 per person per term (including all materials & refreshments) will be held at 23 Lexden Road where there is ample off- and on-road parking available.
To find out more you can attend Rachel’s Free Launch Event on Wednesday 6 January 2016 – 7pm-9pm at St Mary’s Church Hall, New Church Road, West Bergholt – come along for wine, soft drinks and nibbles and find out more about our stress free, fun French language classes for adults. Or, if you can’t wait, call her on 01206 241555 or 07772918097, contact by email, [antibot mailto=”[email protected]”] or visit the Language for Fun website.
Shakespeare’s Villains – A WEA Short CourseNot “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.
… if you wanted somebody else’s take on the top 5 Shakespeare villains then here they are:
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”
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.
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?”
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.”
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).
With the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation not that far away we have a real local model to add context and flavour to the WEA’s next course. Inland Waterways, starting on January 13th at 8pm in the Methodist Church Hal, is described by the WEA as follows:
Our next subject is Inland Waterways by Steven Worsley who will cover, over 10 weeks, the increasing leisure use of our inland waterways contrasting with their past as a transport medium during the industrial revolution. The legacy of this past will be studied on this course.
Ten interesting evenings cost £48 or for those on income under £15.276 net per annum or income based benefits/JSA free.
In doubt, then sample first evening for free
For further information please contact Gill on 01206 240512
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]”]
The local branch of the WEA welcome all who would like to join this course in the Methodist Hall. Graham Platts, who has lived in Oman and will lead the course “An introduction to the Sultanate of Oman”, says:
The Sultanate is a rapidly progressing country in the Arabian Peninsular but still not widely known. The combination of cherished traditions and modern development provides a fascinating basis for study.
This is a shorter course than usual in the hope that it will avoid the worst of the winter weather and cost less. The classes start on Tuesday 18th February 2014 at 8.00 pm and cost £27.18 for six weeks with a coffee break thrown in. There is no need to book ahead, just turn up on the first evening without obligation, before deciding whether to enrol.
Further information is available from the WEA Secretary on 01206 240791 or e-mail [antibot mailto=”[email protected]”].