Great Gidding Figure Skater is Special Olympics Champion

By on April 23, 2014   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
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Great Gidding Figure Skater is Special Olympics Champion

Calum Titmus (20) from Great Gidding has just come back to the UK having competed last weekend in the Austrian Special Olympics Figure Skating Championships. He competed alongside competitors from Germany, Russia, Finland, Great Britain and Austria. After two days of intensive competition, he successfully defended his title as Austrian National Special Olympics Figure Skating champion. 

This is all the more remarkable when you realise that Calum is Autistic with severe learning difficulties. 

Figure Skating as a Special Olympics sport was brought to Britain for the first time in 2012, and this year Speed Skating was added to the event. Calum entered the Speed Skating event at three distances, winning Gold in each race, and is now the first British Special Olympics Speed Skating Champion.

Great Gidding skater Calum TitmusCalum Titmus

Inclusive Skating Charity
Calum is also heavily involved with Inclusive Skating. This is a charity that is trying to set up a family orientated group at each ice rink in the UK. This group will be for anyone with any visual, hearing, bio-mechanical or learning difficulty, along with family and carers who want to learn to skate. Please look out for local fundraising events for Calum and Inclusive Skating.

Heading off to Iceland
Calum will also be one of the senior British Inclusive skaters, that is any figure skater with an impairment, heading to Reykjavik, Iceland at the end of May 2014. He will also be competing as a Special Olympian.

Calum attends Huntingdon Regional College and trains twice a week at Planet Ice in Peterborough. He also trains at the gyms in the One Leisure group and with the Piranhas Swimming Club in Huntingdon as well as the Peterborough Special Olympics Swimming Club. He represented the Eastern Region region in the National Special Olympics Games in Bath last August as a swimmer, winning a gold and silver medal.

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Gains Lane closure

By on April 11, 2014   /   Forthcoming events, Great Gidding, Home page upcoming events, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
Gains Lane closure

Gains Lane

The lane will be closed for a short period as Anglian Water have some work to progress. Please see quoted text below.

“We are the project management company for the new build taking place in Gains Lane, Great Gidding for Mr Jack Bolton.

We are currently in the process of applying for a short  term temporary partial road closure of Gains Lane through Cambridgeshire County Council’s Street Works Department during the construction works and they have informed us that it is our responsibility to inform local residents/businesses that may be affected by the closure. As your website covers all the local news and information of the area I felt you would be the best point of contact to convey this information.  Could we possibly ask that you publish the dates of the Road Closure( see below for details) on your website to allow a good period of notice of the works?

We will of course be personally notifying all residents of Gains Lane separately to this notice coming to you.

The dates of the proposed closure are 02/06/2014 until 26/06/2014 however the road will not be closed at weekends and alternative access for residents and emergency vehicles will be available as per the terms set out by the Council.  In fact other than a few short days when Anglian Water will be digging a trench right across the road  to  supply the site with water there will be reasonable access for all residents.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have questions or concerns regarding this matter.

Many thanks.

 

Kind regards

Lucy O’Regan ”

 

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Great Gidding ice skater leads British Team to Vienna

By on April 8, 2014   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
Great Gidding ice skater leads British Team to Vienna

Great Gidding skater Calum Titmus has been selected to represent Great Britain and to lead the British Special Olympics Figure Skating team to Vienna to compete in the Austrian Winter Games at the beginning of April. He will be looking to win back the title that he won as the first British Special Olympics figure skater two years ago.

Calum, age 20, will also be one of the senior British Inclusive skaters, that is any figure skater with an impairment, heading to Reykjavik, Iceland at the end of May 2014.

Gold and silver medal success
Great Gidding skater Calum TitmusCalum, who is autistic with severe learning difficulties, has been the British Special Olympics Figure Skating Champion since 2012 and in 2013 became the first  British Special Olympics Speed Skating Champion. He has also represented the East of England at swimming at the Bath 2013  British Special Olympics Summer Games, from which he brought home a gold and silver medal.

Calum is also heavily involved with Inclusive Skating. This is a charity that is trying to set up a family orientated group at each ice rink in the UK. This group will be for anyone with any visual, hearing, bio-mechanical or learning difficulty, along with family and carers who want to learn to skate. Please look out for local fundraising events for Calum and Inclusive Skating.

Calum attends Huntingdon Regional College and trains twice a week at Planet Ice in Peterborough. He also trains at the gyms in the One Leisure group and with the Piranhas Swimming Club in Huntingdon as well as the Peterborough Special Olympics Swimmimg Club.

A young man of many talents
His most recent successes are learning to dive, jumping off the 7.5 metre board and coming 1st  in the Huntingdon Flipathon!

Well done Calum!

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Terry Neal

By on February 7, 2014   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
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Terry Neal

Terry passed away peacefully at home on Wednesday 5th February after a long illness.

His funeral ceremony will be held on Tuesday, 18th February at Peterborough Crematorium from 3.30pm. All are welcome to attend in order to commemorate and to celebrate Terry’s life.

Our thoughts are with Pat, Terry’s son, Andrew and all his wider family at this sad and difficult time.

Directions to Peterborough Crematorium.

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Swing Night is a huge success

By on January 26, 2014   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports, Village Hall   /   Leave a comment
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Swing Night is a huge success

Giddings teamwork is a marvellous thing and on Saturday night the ‘swing team’ had risen to the not undaunting challenge of transforming GG Village Hall into a spectacular night club redolent of the popular and vibrant era of big band swingtime. What a success! The room was transformed with swathes of translucent fabric delicately lit from behind with hundreds of tiny bulbs, with large circular tables adding to the nightclub feel.

Fortissimo played ‘BIG BAND’

But what’s a nightclub without music? And wowee – the 16 piece Fortissimo played ‘BIG BAND’ with such exhuberence that most folks took to the floor at some point during the evening. The beautiful voice of singer Lyn Jones – known to some of us through her GG pantomime days – took us through all of our swing favourites until sadly the evening was over far too quickly.

A big thanks to the organisers

So many people helped with decorating the hall, preparing a lovely meal and manning the bar but special thanks must go to the core organisers Mary Read, Sue Shepherd, Jane Edwards and Anthea Keck for helping to raise funds for St Michael’s Church. You all did a great job!

Photos of the ‘swingers’!

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Footpaths and Bridleways

By on January 24, 2014   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports, The Environment   /   Leave a comment
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Footpaths and Bridleways

Taking care on foot, horse or in the car

Well, we’re into a very wet start to the year. So most footpaths, Bridleways & verges are sodden. Think ahead before you choose to walk, cycle or ride. It may save you some difficulty & save these surfaces from becoming completely poached up. Choose routes that are less likely to cut up. This is particularly important for riders as tracks & Bridleways take a while to recover. It also saves your horse losing shoes & walkers boots from becoming blocks of clay!

A little more care from drivers would also help our verges & gateways from becoming ruined. Narrower roads need drivers to slow down & wait as other drivers approach, rather than simply maintaining the same speed & mounting the verges. You are also less likely to get stuck & your vehicle less likely to get so dirty & your brakes to collect so much grit & dirt.

Anyway there are still plenty of lovely walks & rides to enjoy & of course places to cycle.

Last words. . . Don’t forget hi vis jackets if it’s dull or misty & of course lights. . .& you drivers!

Have Fun,
Rachel

Access points to footpaths and bridleways in Great Gidding Parish

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Parish Footpaths and Bridleways

By on December 9, 2013   /   Great Gidding, Home page latest news, News stories and reports, The Environment   /   Leave a comment
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Parish Footpaths and Bridleways

What a lovely autumn we’ve had and a gentle ease into winter

What better time than now to get out into the countryside & explore.
We are so lucky here in the Giddings to have access to so many paths & bridleways. What better way to unwind, take exercise, either alone or with company & enjoy what nature has to offer.

For both riders & walkers the bridle way start, off the Luddington road, leading to the bridge, has been resurfaced. So access along this route will now be easier through the wet months.

Click here for info on the Countryside Code

Click here to view a definitive footpath and bridleway map for Cambridgeshire

You can also report any problems along footpaths or bridle ways on this portal.

For those of you who are really keen, you could take secateurs with you & trim any overhanging brambles on route. This is extremely helpful as these grow rapidly, during the growing months.

Well enjoy the outdoors, whatever the weather!


Merry walking, cycling & riding,
Rachel

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Superfast broadband begins to rollout – but Gidding has to wait TWO more years!!

By on December 1, 2013   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
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Superfast broadband begins to rollout - but Gidding has to wait TWO more years!!

Dear Broadband Champions,

We are delighted to inform you to that we will be celebrating the first Connecting Cambridgeshire programme green cabinets going live with superfast (fibre) broadband on Monday 25 November.

We will mark this milestone with the unveiling of a new cabinet in the rural village of Grafham. This is one of ten new cabinets going live across the county at the same time, with many more to follow in the coming months.

More details will be announced on Monday 25 November on the Connecting Cambridgeshire website, where people can see when local cabinets go live on the ‘my area’ pages and how to upgrade to superfast broadband.

We have had fantastic support from all over Cambridgeshire for the broadband programme, which has brought together local councils and our partners, working closely with our broadband champion, businesses, communities to make it happen.

We know many people have been eagerly anticipating the first phase of delivery since the signing of the contract in March – when we set the expectation that BT would start delivering fibre broadband for homes and businesses by the end of this year.

This marks the start of the roll-out. We are on track for fibre based broadband to be available to 98% of premises by the end of December 2015, which will make Cambridgeshire one of the best connected counties in the country.

We wanted you to be among the first to know and will follow this up with a Connecting Cambridgeshire Brief at the end of November.

Kind regards

Connecting Cambridgeshire team

This is taken from their website:

Great Gidding
Premises in Great Gidding are included in the Connecting Cambridgeshire programme. This means that, by the end of 2015, there will be improvements to the broadband infrastructure that will enable many homes and businesses to receive superfast broadband speeds (minimum 24Mbps)* while others will be able to receive fibre broadband speeds of between 2Mbps and 24 Mbps.

Superfast broadband is forecast to be available in your area between September and December 2015.

The scheduling for each phase depends upon the outcome of surveys and more detailed planning so we cannot be more precise until these are completed. We will be updating the website regularly as the information becomes available.
The broadband speed you will get depends on a number of factors including the length of your line from the telephone exchange or green roadside cabinet, the line quality, and the equipment and internal wiring within your premises.
Connecting Cambridgeshire is working to ensure that everyone in the Connecting Cambridgeshire programme gets as fast a speed as possible given their geographical location. Some premises may be particularly hard to reach meaning that a connection to the fibre network may not be possible. Where appropriate, alternative technology may be used to provide broadband connectivity (minimum 2Mbps). These technologies are likely to be delivered later in the roll-out – but still before the end of 2015.

Your area has a Broadband Champion, who has been helping us raise awareness of the programme and encouraging people to register their demand for superfast broadband.

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Mencap – Can you help to make a difference?

By on November 19, 2013   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
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Mencap – Can you help to make a difference?

Cambridgeshire Mencap is a local charity. We support children, young people and adults with learning disabilities in lots of different ways. Our services include supported living, access to enjoyable community activities and training. We also support parents and carers, providing them with information, advice on relevant issues and backup when they need a rest.

Urgently seeking new volunteers

We rely on volunteers to help deliver our services and welcome those who want to make a positive difference and we are urgently seeking new volunteers at the moment.

Please contact Volunteers Support Co-Ordinator, Marika Newman if you can help. Telephone 01223 883141 or email: marika@cambridgeshiremencap.co.uk

For more information visit www.cambridgeshiremencap.co.uk

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