Fairford community news with Chris Roberts

The funeral service for former town councillor, Rob Winney, is scheduled for Monday at 12.30pm at St Mary’s Church, Fairford.

Due to current restrictions, only 30 people are allowed at the funeral service, but if anyone wants to pay their respects, they can do so socially distanced in the churchyard or in the street outside the church.

There will be a cremation after the service. If anyone wants to make a donation, which will be for two Fairford charities, please send your donation to Slade & Son in Cirencester.

The Kempsford Jumble Trail that was due to take place on October 3 was postponed due to severe weather warnings.

The event will now take place on Saturday from 10am - 2pm. Maps are available at 14 Holford Crescent, GL7 4EP.

Many stalls and refreshments available at The George. Suggested donation to take part is £1.

The next meeting of Fairford & Lechlade Business Club will be the virtual FLBC Business Club Awards Launch on Thursday, October 22, at 7.30pm.

The format will be slightly different to usual and the event will be interesting, fun and useful to potential judges and entrants of the awards.

Find out about the award categories, how to enter, how to write a winning entry, what winning an award has meant to previous winners, what our previous sponsors and judges got out of being involved with last year’s awards and what the new format will be for the Business Awards 2021.

In addition, we will have a wonderful guest speaker: Tim Carson of Alton Barnes Farm, who will be talking about crop circles.

We have had Tim as a guest speaker at the FLBC before and many of the members, who heard his previous magical and fascinating talk, have said he was the best speaker the club has ever had!

Crop circles – aliens or hoax? No one seems to know for certain how crop circles are made.

But Tim did manage to turn the nuisance of having his fields damaged by hoaxers or aliens to his advantage.

He not only charged sightseers who wanted to go along, see the crop circles and take photographs, but also had one photograph displayed on the front cover of a Led Zeppelin LP record.

If you would like an invite and log in to the virtual FLBC Business Awards Launch or if you would like more information about the club or would like to join, please contact Chris Roberts on 01285 712150 or email admin@flbc.org.uk.

Last week was Baby Loss Awareness Week and Fairford, once again, turned pink and blue.

The week is an annual event offering the opportunity to remember babies who have been lost and to bring baby loss into the national conversation, reducing stigma and isolation for those who have experienced it.

Since this time last year, the horrid truth is that many more people will have lost babies and, tragically, some of those people will have had to go through the experience alone due to the Covid-19 restrictions.

People experiencing infertility will also have had treatments agonizingly delayed.

As a local support group for baby loss and infertility, Embrace is aware that, while the circumstances for baby loss are even tougher than usual, the support available is almost certainly reduced.

We really want to offer friendship and support to anyone who has been touched by baby loss or infertility and who would like to walk that journey with others.

If you, or anyone you know, has been touched by baby loss, whether recently or long ago, or if you grieve a pregnancy never even taken place, and would like more details on the work of Embrace, please contact Kate on 01285 712565 or embracefairford@gmail.com.

The Friends of Fairford and Lechlade Communities wish to thank Fairford WI for its donation of £502, which was raised by its members by making and selling face masks within the community.

The cheque was handed to Graham Hewitt by Jean Moulden, Beth Dennis and Judith Butler.

If you would like to make a donation to the Friends, you can do so online through the website friendsoffairford.org.uk or by sending cheques made out to ‘Friends of Fairford’ and posting to Ms Andrena Miles, AMM Bookkeeping and Accountancy, 2nd Floor, 11 High Street, Fairford GL7 4AD.

A spotlight is being shone on Fairford and Lechlade by the Maybe team who are working with Cotswold District Council to help local businesses increase their use of social media.

As part of the programme, every business in the Cotswolds is invited to join the weekly webinars.

Each week the Maybe team do a virtual ‘visit’ to two towns to reveal how independent businesses are winning at social media and reveal the steps that other businesses can replicate across the Cotswolds.

It’s 45 minutes of expert insight with clear actionable guidance that any business can take away to improve their performance as well as access tools that help them see what’s working.

It was the turn of Lechlade earlier this month and Fairford will be ‘visited’ on Wednesday at 10am.

To register for the webinars or to find out more, please visit: bit.ly/3lMZDax.

Due to Covid-19, the Friends of Fairford & Lechlade Communities will be organising a ‘virtual AGM’ using the Zoom video conferencing facility.

They accept that this is not ideal as not all members will be able to access this, but they consider it important that they hold the AGM for the financial year 2019.

They will also look at how they can get the annual report and accounts and the AGM minutes out to all members including those who do not use or have access to electronic media.

They are planning to hold the AGM during the month of November and, once the date has been finalised, this will be published in the normal way.

The Patient Participation Groups of the GP surgeries in and around Cirencester (including Hilary Cottage, Fairford) would like to establish how many patients are still waiting for hospital treatment for conditions diagnosed either before March this year or since during lockdown.

If you are in this situation, we would appreciate you completing this short 10 question survey (approximately 2-3 minutes): bit.ly/34R6zwh.