We have a new kid on the block, in the shape of our sparkly new intranet, called the Angle.
Don’t worry, Community Link-Up isn’t going away, indeed it’s right at the heart of the Angle‘s content.
Our contact details remain the same and we’ll continue to donate £20 to your nominated charity for any Community Link-Up story featured 🙂
Our final review of 2015 takes us from September through to December. Thanks for all your contributions to Community Link-Up, it was a terrific year!
There were also special slideshows made for:
In the second part of our annual review, here’s May through to August’s slice of your stories from 2015…
And here’s the link to the full Trans Pennine Hike slideshow for this flagship event.
Come back on Friday for our final look back at 2015.
2015 was full of your achievements with plenty of new events and good causes supported. Therefore it seems fitting to put together a few slideshow reviews in celebration. First up is a look at January through to April…
NB Attack the Track also had its own slideshow to celebrate this flagship event 🙂
Look out for May through to August’s review on Wednesday…
Welcome to 2016! We hope you all had a good break and are ready for lots more community based activities this year.
We’re looking forward to featuring lots more of your news, both on here and on the new intranet. We’ve been totting up the amount raised since Community Link-Up started reporting on your activities and see it stands at over £400,000!
Can we reach a fantastic half a million pounds in 2016? Watch this space…
Crikey, doesn’t it look awfully dark?!
The Consortium‘s Paul Flurry updates us on his Movember With a Twist challenge…
“On Saturday I performed my challenge of a minimum 10k run and 50 mile cycle ride.
I set off at 05:15 on the 1st leg of 26 miles cycling from Trowbridge to Swindon, arriving in Swindon at 07:50. After a quick change and with my running shoes on off I went to do the 1st 5k run, finishing in time to line up with the rest of the very festively dressed Swindon park-runners and off I went again for the 2nd 5k.
With the full 10 kilometres in the bag there was just time for quick coffee and bacon butty (well refuelling is important!) and with another quick change, off on my bike I went again for the 2nd leg of cycling back to Trowbridge.
Paul looks remarkably fresh in view of the tale which ensues below…
The route to Swindon was fairly good and I made reasonable time but it was only now on the way back when I fully realised why. I was now facing a strong headwind and after several hills and open ground I was feeling the pain. As I hit 40 miles my body and my wife who was kindly roadside waiting for me said enough.
But my challenge was a minimum of 50 miles and I don’t like failure so on I went and I even took a detour which pushed the total miles covered to 65. I gracefully stopped at that point as my knees were very painful and I didn’t want to risk injury.
I would like to thank everyone who sponsored me, brought cakes or entered the moustache sweepstake. Your donations are what matter to both the Movember and Wiltshire Air Ambulance charities and ultimately are what drove me on to complete this challenge.
The total raised so far has now passed the £300 mark so thank you to you all and Merry Xmas.”
Wow, what more can we say Paul after your fab report, except take up your good wishes and say “Merry Christmas” to all Community Link-Up readers. See you in the New Year!
What an amazing response we had to this year’s Christmas Jumper Day! A record number of locations took part and the pictures of all your S’Elfies just kept on coming!
We’ve gathered them all up into the slideshow below, so you have the chance to relax and enjoy everyone’s contributions. There are 58 slides and over 200 of you featured. Look out for plenty of elves, the odd Santa, jolly hats, lots of ho ho ho, a fresh take on the Nativity scene, and the Grinch!
And just for fun – can you spot how many times Justin Adams appears in the photos from Connect Books… 😉
Emma Broom has been tempting her Rowan House colleagues with an extra yummy treat for Christmas…
“We were asked by RNIB to raffle off a delicious chocolate Santa following a successful chocolate egg completion at Easter.
We raised £52.00 in total and the winner of the raffle was announced yesterday and this went to Jan Cannings!”
Fundraising at Tesco’s last weekend, with an intriguing Olympic relay torch on display…
Giselle Fitzsimmons of Tuffnells in Plymouth is set for an exciting 2016…
“I sing in the Military Wives Choir in Plymouth and we have been invited to sing at Carnegie Hall. As you can imagine this is a huge honour and we are so very excited to have this invitation.”
Plymouth Military Wives Choir, one of 75 such choirs in the Military Wives Choir Foundation now established around the world
From the official Military Wives Choir press release:
We are thrilled to be reuniting with Royal Composer, Professor Paul Mealor. Letters to and from loved ones, inspired Paul to write our 2011 Christmas number one, Wherever You Are, which raised over £650,000 for SSAFA and The Royal British Legion. Paul also went onto write In My Dreams for the Military Wives Choirs, which we performed at the 2012 Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall.
Being a member of a Military Wives Choir provides us with all sorts of support and friendship and we think that a musical challenge to sing on the stage at Carnegie Hall will be an exciting and rewarding experience.
Each singer is responsible for raising their own money to go on this trip and we are currently raising funds from various events to help us on our way to cover our costs which include meeting the performance fees, travel and accommodation.
Festive fundraising
Giselle has news of hers and Plymouth’s fundraising efforts so far:
“Last weekend we raised £778.08 at our local Tesco Extra store for singing Christmas songs, and again on Sunday we sang at a big Christmas Fayre and raised £352.62, so not a bad weekend for fundraising. We are selling our dresses and items on eBay to raise money. We have our charity pots out at the gigs we are singing at, and so far have raised approx £1800 for the Plymouth choir.
Can you please help us get across the water to take part in this once in a lifetime trip?! We have a gofundme page to help raise money for the 125 girls from all the choirs around the country. It would be fabulous if people could help with our fundraising by putting some pennies in our virtual collecting tin 🙂
Any funds raised above the amount to meet our expenses will be donated to the Military Wives Choirs Foundation.
The Plymouth choir in their formal attire
The rehearsals for New York start next month in a central location where we can all get together to rehearse and make sure that we are absolutely tip-top. These will be recorded, and from there the production team that film for the BBC will be involved if they decide it will make for good viewing!!
As you can imagine, it is unbelievably exciting to be involved in such an amazing experience. I have been in the choir for 3 and a half years (just missed the Christmas no.1 …gutted), but the places I have sung and people I have met are phenomenal. I am just a normal wife [and mother] of my wonderful sailor and I would certainly never have had these opportunities had I not been with my exceptional choir. ”
The very best of luck Giselle and be sure to let us know how you get on!
Borehamwood got into some early Christmas Jumper Day action this year by holding theirs on Wednesday! Thanks to Warren Winstone for sending us the first of your S’Elfies, with Team Metro proudly sporting their festive knitwear.
We look forward to seeing more S’Elfies from you today 🙂
Click on the pic for more info
sncommunityweek.wordpress.com 