Fairford community news with Chris Roberts

Into The Woods Forest School is offering a six week course of subsidised forest school sessions in Macaroni Woods near Fairford every Friday from 10.30am - 12 noon starting tomorrow (Friday, October 23) until Friday, November 27.

The six week forest school is designed for children of mixed ages to enjoy Macaroni Woods – a beautiful biodiverse 13-acre woodland subsidised by The National Lottery Community Fund and Noah’s Ark Children’s Venture with the aim of engaging more young people in nature and enhancing mental wellbeing.

Activities will include exploring the woodland, cooking on an open fire, nature investigating, shelter building, crafts, mud kitchen, story-telling, safe use of tools and more!

A small fee of £6 for all six sessions is charged to ensure attendance and booking is essential on: https://bookthatin.com/BookingWidget?id=109.

There has been some recent activity at Site 16, RAF Fairford, which is located on the Kempsford - Whelford road opposite the airfield.

The activity is related to a forthcoming NATO exercise led by the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) headquartered at Imjin Barracks in Gloucester.

The exercise will be controlled and assessed by NATO’s Joint Force Training Centre in Poland.

The exercise’s main training audience is HQ ARRC, which is comprised of staff from 21 of NATO’s 30 member countries and is the UK’s main contribution to NATO.

Other national elements supporting the exercise include Bulgaria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Romania and USA.

The main exercise will take place between November 1 and 20 and there are likely to be in the region of 1,500 personnel involved across the two sites (South Cerney and Fairford).

There are unlikely to be many people outside the exercise area as personnel will be living and working on site, operating in small teams.

The site should be cleared again by early-mid December.

The ARRC exercise is not part of the USAF activity at RAF Fairford and will not include aircraft participation.

Due to the on-going Covid-19 situation, the decision could still be taken to significantly change the exercise or scale of deployment.

More information on the ARRC can be found at: https://arrc.nato.int and any press enquiries can be directed to HQ ARRC at contact@arrc.nato.int.

The Royal British Legion (RBL) has been presented with huge challenges this year due to the impact that Covid-19.

The pandemic has left some in the Armed Forces community, as in many others, in dire need of urgent help and support.

This year’s Poppy Appeal will officially launch on Thursday, October 22.

There will be no door-to-door sales of poppies, but you can purchase your poppy and support the RBL at the following Fairford outlets: 7a Coffee Shop, Boots the Chemist, Andrew Butler Butchers, Fairford Post Office, Fairford Town Football Club/Spike’s Diner in Cinder Lane, Londis, Lynwood’s Café, The Bull Hotel, The Co-Op, The Eight Bells, The Marlborough Arms, The Plough and The Railway Inn.

In addition, the Fairford Branch of the RBL will set up a stall in the forecourt outside the Palmer Hall from 9am till early afternoon on Saturday October 31, which is the week prior to Remembrance weekend.

Poppies will also be available from 7,500 Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Morrison’s and Tesco stores around the country.

Please give generously to this appeal that helps ex-servicemen and their families.

The next meeting of Fairford & Lechlade Business Club will be the virtual FLBC Business Club Awards Launch on Thursday, October 22, at 7pm.

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? Tim managed 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.

Fairford Town Academy Trials are starting on Wednesday, October 28, during half term and are open to Under 13s, 14s, 15s and 16s.

The U13s and U14s should sign in at 6pm with trials starting at 6.15pm till 7.30pm; the U15s and U16s should sign in at 7.30pm with trials starting at 7.45pm till 9pm.

Please complete a trials booking form available from jmathews@fairfordtownfc.co.uk.

Contact Chris with your Fairford community news on email: chrisrobertsmbe@gmail.com