We’re on our way to better broadband!

By on February 17, 2013   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
Tags: , ,
We’re on our way to better broadband!

Latest news from thw Connecting Cambridgeshire campaign

We are delighted to announce that the winning bidder has been chosen to roll-out better broadband across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough over the next three years.

Cambridgeshire County Council Cabinet approved the contract award http://www.connectingcambridgeshire.co.uk/2013/02/connecting-cambridgeshire-lands-super-broadband-deal/ to BT today (4 February 2013) – taking us a step nearer to beginning the roll-out in 2013.

At the Cabinet meeting your support for the campaign was acknowledged as key to its success.

New FAQs have been posted on the website and we will be posting regular updates.

You’ve probably got lots more questions and we will try and answer them but we won’t be able to give much more detail until the contract is signed.

As always we want you to be well informed and therefore we will be arranging a meeting involving BT to discuss the way forward. We anticipate this will be towards the end of March but we will let you know as soon as we have a firm date.

Best Regards

The Connecting Cambridgeshire project team

Back to Top

“AY CARAMBA!” Chilli Night raises over £2000!

By on February 1, 2013   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
Tags: , ,
"AY CARAMBA!" Chilli Night raises over £2000!

“AY CARAMBA!”  If you were passing down Main Street on the rainy Saturday night of 26 January, you may have noticed the odd sombrero wearing stranger approaching the village hall. You may have heard the strumming of Mexican music, the faint waft of chilli. This was the spectacular ‘Chilli Night and Auction of Promises’ put on on behalf of St Michael’s Church to boost much needed funds.

It was difficult to tell if the occasional tear in people’s eyes were caused by the extra helping of the jalepino sauce, by awe and wonder at the superb Photoshop Mexican montage of images of Gidding scenes (plus occasional residents) or indeed the eye watering generosity of guests bidding for trailer loads of manure or sacks of local potatoes through to cakes and wine or a ride on a train.

Delicious food

The gifts and ‘promises’ were varied and wondrous. The food was generously donated and delicious – the auctioneer was both focused and funny.

Over £2000 raised for St Michael’s Church

The organisers would like to thank everybody who took such an active part and made it such a fun evening. Special thanks to the odd strangers from Winwick who ventured over the border and dug deep into their pockets to help us all raise over £2000 for our Church. We could not have done it without you, whether as guests or helping with contributions towards the food and promises. So Muchas Gracias and Adios Amigos!

Report by Mary Read

Photos from the Chilli Night

Some silly photos from the Chilli Night slideshow

Back to Top

Where’s José competition – win a bottle of ‘bubbly’*

By on January 26, 2013   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
Tags: , ,
Where's José competition - win a bottle of ‘bubbly’*

Can you find Giddings newest resident – José?

As part of the Gidding Church Chilli Night we have decided to launch a simple competition to blatantly get Gidding residents to look at our all new website and pass on their email addresses (so that we can keep you updated with latest news and events in the Giddings).

Hidden around the Gidding’s website are 5 José’s numbered 1–5!. Find all 5 (some are easier to find then others), then email their locations to: wheresjose@thegiddings.org.uk. NB. Email addresses will only be used to keep you informed of Giddings website updates. Please state when you enter the competition if you do NOT want to be added to our mailing list.

Win a bottle of ‘bubbly’*

The winner will be the first correct entry to be drawn out of a sombrero on 15th February 2013 (at the next Beer and Skittles event) and will have a bottle of ‘bubbly’* personally delivered to their door.

Hint 1. Don’t get distracted by other José’s. The competition José’s are numbered 1 to 5. So get searching, and good luck.

Hint 2. One is hidden in a photograph.

*Probably not Champagne! Entrants must be over 18 years old and reside within 5 miles of the Giddings.

Back to Top

The Giddings in the snow, January 2013

By on January 20, 2013   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
Tags: ,
The Giddings in the snow, January 2013

The recent cold snap has added an extra photogenic element to our villages.

View the Photos section for more images of the January snows.

View the Photos section for more images.

Back to Top

Wassail and Wiff Waff evening – January 9th

By on January 15, 2013   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
Tags: , ,
Wassail and Wiff Waff evening - January 9th

Due to the recent continuous deluge, it was decided that this year the Giddings Wassail celebrations would be run in a slightly different format.

Avoiding the mud

This not only prevented participants from being sucked into the cold and unwelcoming mud of the Jubilee Wood and the allotments, but also meant we could all keep relatively upright in the warmth of the village hall. It all depended on how much mulled cider you had of course.

A car park wassail

Refreshments including homemade nibbles, and beer and cider went down very well and we finally remembered to berate one of the crab apple trees in the car park which should bring us all a plentiful supply of jam next year even if we don’t get any eating apples.

The Giddings Bard

The highlights of the evening included another very eloquent poem from the Giddings Bard, our very own Paul Burgess, who was able to make us smile and nod our heads at the memories of 2012 and that took some doing!
It was amazing to see how quickly recipients of a table tennis bat took to the challenge and almost as quickly remembered the excesses of Christmas as they staggered back to their seats for some light refreshments and bottled oxygen.

Could the Wassail evening encourage the return of the table tennis club we wonder????

Sue Jarvis, January 2013

Back to Top

Connecting Cambridgeshire campaign success – thanks to you

By on January 9, 2013   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
Tags: , ,
Connecting Cambridgeshire campaign success – thanks to you

2013 Report from the Connecting Cambridgeshire campaign

Thanks to everyone who has supported the Connecting Cambridgeshire campaign to bring superfast broadband to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

Close to 24,000 people across the county have registered their demand for better broadband since May 2012 making it one of the fastest growing and biggest broadband campaigns in the country. Every registration counts to show suppliers the level of demand for better broadband across the county.

This campaign success has been achieved with the fantastic support of 100 Broadband Champions, local Councillors and organisations such as Cambridgeshire ACRE, who have encouraged their communities to register.

A range of local case studies showing how households and home-based businesses will benefit from better broadband have been posted on the Connecting Cambridgeshire website at www.connectingcambridgeshire.co.uk

What happens next?

The next stage of the Connecting Cambridgeshire programme will be to award the contract to a supplier in February 2013 to roll-out better broadband for all over the next three years.

Connecting Cambridgeshire is one of several UK broadband delivery projects in the ‘pipeline’ and will be seeking State Aid exemption during the final stages of the complex procurement process before finalising the contract award, with the sign-off and roll-out plan to follow.

Cambridgeshire County Council has already committed up to £20 million with £3 million from Peterborough City Council together with £6.75 million from the Government funding body BDUK for the roll-out of superfast broadband by 2015.

Cambridge’s share of the £50 million Super Connected Cities Government funding will be in addition to this investment in superfast broadband to stimulate growth and help communities and businesses to thrive, particularly in rural areas.

Regular updates will be posted on the Connecting Cambridgeshire website to keep you informed and Cambridgeshire ACRE will provide links to these via its regular monthly e-News Digest.

Back to Top

Townsend Pond

By on January 3, 2013   /   Community, Great Gidding, Home page latest news, News stories and reports, Newt articles, The Environment   /   1 Comment
Tags: , , , ,

The big clean out

Townsend Pond or the Horse Pond as it is known in the village had reached crisis point. Almost completely silted up and giving off a foul smell when the water was low, it was becoming a bit of an environmental hazard. Long gone are the days when you could just get a gang organised and clear it out. Forms have to be filled in,notifications given and other ponderous red tape hurdles jumped.

Pond cleaning comes way down the list on priorities for any level of local government or agency so step in the Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire  Wild life Trust along with some determined  Parish councillor activity and you get a result courtesy of a Lottery Environmental Grant for £10,000.  Certain criteria had to be met and managed but the result is a clean deep pond with a vibrant wildlife habitat and a viewing platform for serious pond dippers.

The work was carried out by Lattenbury Services who did a first class job.

 

A couple of thing of particular note were the benign weather conditions in January 2011 when the project started. No rain, the pond already low because of previous dry weather and the sunny days whilst the work was undertaken.

The second point was the remarkable cobble base that had been laid in previous times. When it was done, nobody’s quite sure but it was a sturdy piece of work and the lads carrying out the work this time were careful not to break this surface.

Another fact about Townsend Pond is that it used to stretch right to the road edge with a modest single rail wooden fence as the barrier. The pond was partially filled by using excavated soil when Great Gidding was put on to Mains Sewage in the late 1960’s.

 

 

 

 

Back to Top

Poachers, Dobbers and Crack

By on December 18, 2012   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   Leave a comment
Tags: ,
Poachers, Dobbers and Crack

Another splendid evening at the Village Hall for the monthly Beer and Skittles with superb provender provided (of particular note – Andrew’s potatoes, Dick’s game pie and Michael’s beer infused Yorkshire’s and bread).

Great beer selection – this months theme was beers over 5% – with over 30 bottles in all. Dobber (complex bitter brew, bitter/fruity and slightly woody/malty, balanced, hazy, rocky head – from Manchester) was well recieved likewise the rum infused Innis & Gunn. Opinions were sharply divided over badgers fruity Poachers Choice from exquisite to ugh! like liquorice Allsorts.

Reindeer p…

Christmas Crack had the novelty label but was more akin to reindeer p…. The heavy weight top end beers all had their unique tastes and we probably didn’t find the subtleties within them, concentrating on getting to the end of the line but then thats the point of our brand of beer tasting – if its good enough on the taste buds you will remember it.

Skittles

Ohh… and the skittles was quite entertaining too! Thanks to everyone for taking part. This months trophy winner was Rob Alexander for his dedication to skittle scoring and statistics.

Back to Top

Ash Dieback Disease

By on December 11, 2012   /   Community, Great Gidding, Home page latest news, Jubilee Wood news, News stories and reports, Uncategorized   /   3 Comments
Tags:
Ash Dieback Disease

Ash trees are under serious threat from a fungal disease that has spread to the UK from Continental Europe.

Chalara  Fraxinea or Ash Die-back Disease has been noted in East Anglia and Scotland. If the disease takes hold  as expert’s predict it will then it will be particularly devastating  for our area as every third tree is an Ash.

It is important however to identify the disease accurately as many Ash trees are suffering the effect of last years drought and signs of dead branches can sometimes be attributed to natural die back or age.

Ash tree disease

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To help you identify the disease correctly here is a direct link to the Forestry Commission 

An  interactive app called Ashtag is available free for both Android and iphone users to help you identify and report suspected Ash Dieback disease.

These are available for download at Google Play and the app store.

Update 1

Further information can be found at the Ash Tag website  which includes an interactive map to show current  geo photo reports.

Update 2

A picture of this diseased tree has been sent to the Forestry Commission via the University of East Anglia Ashtag app.

We are awaiting official confirmation that this tree has Chalara Fraxinea.

Update 3

Part of the trunk of this tree has been sent for analysis

Early December 2012 and a visit from fera (The Food and Environment  Research Agency)to gain samples of potentially infected Ash trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sticky tape left on an Ash tree to show which ones might be infected or sampled

Back to Top

Penguins win at Beer and Skittles

By on November 16, 2012   /   Home page latest news, News stories and reports   /   1 Comment
Tags: ,
Penguins win at Beer and Skittles

The theme that Michael Trolove had organised for the 14th November was Stouts and Porters and as the bottles arrived it soon became clear that this was going to be a ‘hardcore’ evening. 13 different brews were on offer (plus a couple of already emptied bottles – no names) including some more obscure (read expensive) stouts, one kindly supplied by Andrew Underwood and one by Michael.

Strong beers, weak skittles

As the skittles got under way the beers were cracked open in strength order and each was carefully tasted and savoured. As the night drew on the beers got stronger, the skittles got weaker – eventually won by the person that could hold his beer the best!

For the record: Steve Garner won the skittles (and the trophy) and ‘March of the Penguins’ by Williams Bros. Brewing Co won the taste contest (a 5% creamy dark stout, deep chocolate in colour has a nose of roast malts, coffee, licourice & orange peel).

Cake and cheese

Special thanks to Julie Trolove for baking a beautifully rich fruit cake to accompany the beers and also to Andrew for supplying a tasty Lincolnshire Poacher cheese. And to Michael, as always, for organising the event.

Back to Top