The Solar Panels Prize won by the children in last year’s “Recharging the Earth” project has been installed. We will be carefully monitoring the amount of power generated, hopefully the sun will shine enough to reduce our energy bills!

The children visited the Knitted Bible exhibition at Wolsingham Methodist Church. They greatly enjoyed looking at the exhibits and discussing Bible stories. The children’s exemplary behaviour and knowledge of Bible stories was praised in a letter from one of the organisers.

The Accelerated Reading Scheme is now up and running following re-organisation of the school library. This scheme encourages the children to develop their reading skills.

Jack Drum Arts have been visiting the school and working with the children and volunteer parents and adults on a project relating to the history of Lead Mining in the area. The project will go “live” in the near future and the schools contribution will then be available to access via “You Tube”.

Class 2 children took part in a Hockey Tournament at Barnard Castle School. They enjoyed participating with the other schools at this friendly event which followed on from the Tag Rugby Tournament they attended last October.

Thanks to all our volunteers – if you would like to volunteer in school or would like any more information about any items mentioned above please call the school on 01388 488 279.

The Village Hall is hosting an open meeting on Monday 27th February at 7.30pm to discuss ideas for marking and celebrating the Diamond Jubilee.  Everyone welcome!  If you have any queries, please contact the Secretary, Jaquie, on 01388-488323.

Friday 16th March. Village Hall.

An embittered couple undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories only to discover what it was they had to begin with. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet escape their typecasting and excel in thsi sometimes sureal, but brilliant and thought-provoking film.

See more about the film on the IMDB web page, and find out more about Hamsterley Cinema on the Hamsterley Cinema page.

For sale: white Ford Ka Hatchback. 1.3 litre manual. Full service record. MOT until September 1st 2012. O.I.R. £2,000.

Please reply via the Contact page.

(Click on the photo to enlarge.)

Will be held in the Churches Together Centre at 7:30pm on Thursday 29th March 2012. This meeting is the occasion on which Churchwardens and Parochial Church Council Members and Officers are elected and reports presented.

New PCC members are needed. Will you volunteer?
All parishoners are welcome. Please come.

2 Salters Gate, Hamsterley

See details on the Nick & Gordon Carver and Rightmove websites.

A deceptively large family home situated on the outskirts of the village of Hamsterley which is located within Teesdale and set within beautiful countryside  yet within easy reach of Durham, Newcastle, Teesside and Darlington with its mainline railway station.

Hamsterley is a thriving village with an active community, primary school, pond, pub, tennis courts and village hall.

Caroline Peacock writes:
“Vicky (Chilcott) has asked me to forward this message, which has already been sent to all members of Trailblazers, also to all on the local email list – and some of you will, I think, have seen this very unpleasant incident featured on the local news this evening.”

To:  All Members of Hamsterley Trailblazers

Forestry Commission officers have advised us that an extremely serious and dangerous health and safety incident took place last weekend at Hamsterley Forest when a rope was deliberately tied between two trees at cycle wheel height, across one of the Descend Downhill cycle tracks causing a cyclist to crash off his bike.  Fortunately the cyclist was wearing full body armour and was not seriously hurt – but he could have been very seriously injured or even killed by this action.  The police are involved in investigating the matter.  See the webcam the cyclist was running at the time:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTvcv6HQZoU

I have been asked to block email all members to draw attention to the incident and to ask you to be extremely vigilant in the forest and look out for anything like this or other trail vandalism.  If you do come across incidents of trail sabotage, please do your best to make the trail immediately safe for other users – eg remove any obstacles, rope etc.   Please then report the incident to the police and if possible, see one of the Forest rangers or other Forestry Commission staff, letting them know where it has happened and the time you found it.  If you can take a photograph of the sabotage area before touching it, that would also be very useful.  Please also let me know of any incidents so that as a club we have an idea of what we are facing.

Some of you will remember that when we first built the Grove Link trail we experienced a series of serious trail sabotage incidents – at that time we worked with the police and forest staff to catch the person involved (several members camped out overnight and caught the person red-handed.)  I hope we can be as equally successful in catching this person or people.

Whilst we are keen to catch the culprit, we are also keen not to scare people from visiting the lovely woodlands, so the Forestry Commission have asked that we consider the impact of wider scaremongering by accident. Please do consider the message when telling people, the woods are safe, sadly there has been one incident in Hamsterley and we all hope that it is just a one off.

Many thanks
Vicky Chilcott
Secretary, Hamsterley Trailblazers

Sue Sweeney and Barry Lort in Cabaret.

On 6th April at 7:30pm.

Tickets: £5.

Calling all ladies!
An invitation to our April meeting. This is an open meeting.
Hamsterley WI has invited the well know underwear specialist, “Sadie” to give us a talk at our April meeting.
Tuesday 10th April, 7.30pm, Small Hall at Village Hall.

I’m sure there are a number of ladies out there who would love the opportunity to hear her talk and demonstration. Entrance fee is £2.00 with light refreshments, if your are interested please contact either Ann Walshaw 488318 or Sue Davies 488524 so we can arrange seating  for you all.

Looking forward to see you.

Caroline Peacock writes:

“Conservation Officer with the AONB, Andy Lees, is coming to talk to Monday Club on Monday 20th February in the Village Hall at 7.30pm.

“The North Pennines AONB is in the process of launching a new scheme called WildWatch, to which all of us who have any interest in wildlife can contribute.  The AONB already works closely with several wildlife and conservation groups in the area – but they are aware that there are many individuals who could help them build up the records as well, either from existing knowledge or with some training.

Andy will give an illustrated talk to introduce this new project, and he will also bring us an update on the Water Vole surveys that he has been conducting for some time, which are producing really interesting results.

It is always pleasing to have a good attendance when we have a visiting speaker, so we do hope to have a large audience to welcome him on Monday week.  The event is free, and there will be free refreshments, as always.

If, meanwhile, you would like to find out a little more, please have a look at the following pages:

http://www.northpennines.org.uk/Pages/WildWatch.aspx“