Events 2011

Phase one of the makeover at the Triangle

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On Saturday 19th November a group of Tilehurst Globe volunteers helped remove the bamboo from the central flower border at the Triangle. This is part of a longer term plan to plant out the Triangle with three new trees and more bulbs.

We are working with Reading Borough Council, who, in the Spring, will plant two commemorative trees: a Wellingtonia to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee of her accession to the throne and an Olympic Flame Sorbus to celebrate the London Olympics - two occasions that should be memorable.

In addition they will plant a Sweet Chestnut to overcome our sad loss that the Horse Chestnut had to be removed.

So our efforts were to make room in the border ready for the Wellingtonia.

Yes, it was hard work

Planting daffodils along the verge by Upcroft School

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On Saturday 15th October some eager volunteers planted about 13 bags of assorted daffodils. We hope that in the spring you will see a large swathe of daffodils nodding and dancing in the breeze, giving a welcome to Tilehurst Village.

Our Stall at the Traca Fete 2011

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This year the main themes we had on display at the stall were

Such was the rage of most people about the last item, the other matters were somewhat overlooked. But we were overwhelmed by the strength of feeling about the loss of free parking. Many were upset for the shopkeepers and how it would affect them at this difficult time. So a large number people added their signatures to the petition asking for the council to reconsider their new charging structure and for them to reinstate the one hour free parking policy in our local car parks.

And it didn't rain.

Our walk round Arthur Newbery Park

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Well, we said "Come rain or shine" and it rained! But we still went on the walk and considering the weather most people had the sense to bring an umbrella.

We met at the Butcher's Arms in Lower Armour Road and then followed a route round Arthur Newbury Park. This walk is well documented in our sister website www.walkontheweb.org.uk

Although we were a bit damp at the end, we nevertheless had a good time and learnt more about our local surroundings, admired the grasses and meadow flowers, just about made out the distant views of the Mapledurham hills, and walked along both the avenues in the park. However, perhaps justifiably, we declined to go as far as the special postbox and opted for a squelchy return to the Butcher's Arms.

When we got back there, of course the rain stopped! But we were welcomed with a super sunset.

Our stall at the Hospital Fete 2011

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Despite the rain during the week, on Saturday it held off until 4.30pm - luckily for everyone involved in the show.

We had two main themes to our stand.

Queen's Diamond Jubilee - Celebration Tree in the Triangle

We have been thinking that we would like to plant a specimen tree in the Triangle to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012. Those who take note of our activities will already be aware that a few years ago we planted two new trees in the Triangle - one on each side. These are doing very nicely and are being cared for by staff from Village Butchers and Village Florists. We have liaised with the council about the Jubilee tree and we hope to make an application for a grant to cover the cost of planting a large tree (almost certainly a Wellingtonia) in the centre.

At the stand, we sounded out people's views on this idea. We received overwhelming enthusiasm for this project and many of the views were substantiated by people filling out forms with their views. This should help support the application for the funding. In addition, many, many people told us that they would also like to see lights on the tree over the Christmas period.

We will now have to see what we can do to make this possible. And if we can - won't it be nice.

The Quiz

We also had a quiz. This year it was "A pub crawl through Tilehurst". We had lots of entries. Many got the answers right (unaccountably some people didn't - and it was a really easy quiz!) so we had to resort to the tie breaker to select the winners. We hope you had some fun doing the quiz even if you didn't win.

Rescue 2011

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Over the last few years the Tilehurst Globe Group has organised an annual Tilehurst Rescue event. A concentrated effort involving group members, volunteers and local businesses is directed towards cleaning up one or more local eyesores over a single Rescue weekend.

In 2011 the event took place on March 12th and 13th.

Each Rescue weekend is preceded by a poster campaign during which local businesses are asked to display posters in their windows, and also asked to sponsor the activities by providing prizes for the volunteers.

Many thanks to all the people who came and helped us tidy Tilehurst! And a big thank you also to the many sponsors who supported us for the 2011 event.

The weather was good and an excellent number of people came out to help tidy up. We will produce a report about the event in time, but briefly we cleared the central Tilehurst area on Saturday morning, Blundells Copse on Saturday afternoon (many thanks to all the children from Teviot Road who came and helped). On Sunday morning we were in McIlroys and Sunday afternoon we cleared Gypsy Lane.

In short, we thought there was less litter and dumping that in previous years, but we still managed to clear 75 big bags of litter and more in the way of heavy litter and dumped electrical items.

This year Reading Council did not provide us with skips and the dustcarts worked for shorter hours in an effort to cut down on the expense of the Rescue event, which is laudible, and despite our fears about how it would work, on the whole we managed ok.

See the pictures

If anyone is interested in organizing small local clearup events thoughout the year, please get in touch with us - we have just got a grant to help us get the scheme up and running.


Planting snowdrops and aconites in front of the Library 2011

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We had a real drama!

Tilehurst Globe has been planting bulbs in and around Tilehurst for some years now. The Triangle, for example, is now looking radiant with snowdrops that were planted last year by volunteers and helped by the Tilehurst Brownies and Guides.

This year we had planned to plant snowdrops and aconites outside Tilehurst Library. All the arrangements seemed to be going well….

Tilehurst Globe does not usually go in for dramatics but their plans seemed to be falling into total disarray on the day before the event. We were promised lots of help by volunteers, but the bulbs had not arrived.

Orchard Nurseries, in Wisbech, were contacted late in the day before the planting was to be done. Mike at the nursery couldn't understand why they hadn't arrived. He contacted Fedex the courier and they remembered collecting the bulbs from Orchard Nurseries, but - disaster – they didn't know what they had done with them! They seemed to have couriered them into a black hole.

Mike, of Orchard Nurseries, was distraught. He managed to persuade his staff to work late and dig up some more, and as we all know aconites are a bit tricky, so that was all amazing in itself. Fedex were now not trusted to get the bulbs to us in time for the planting session. So Mike put his children to bed and read them a story, then jumped in his car – with the bulbs – and drove from Wisbech in Cambridgeshire all the way to Tilehurst to make sure that our planting program was successful.

This is such a heart warming story. Mike deserves special praise for such a generous gesture.

Let's hope that when local people walk past the library in years to come they remember the heroic action taken by Mike and his staff at Orchard Nurseries to help us and all the volunteers brighten our community.

And here we are all planting them.

Very many thanks to everyone who helped, especially Mike and his staff and the Tilehurst Guides and Brownies.

If you want to know more about the projects we are involved in contact us.

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