****LANTERN PROJECT NEWSFLASH*** The wait is finally over…the theme for this year’s ‘Stony Stratford Lockdown Lantern Project’ is Christmas at Home!
Due to Covid-19 restrictions there will be no Switch-On Day this year, so we are teaming up with the Stony Community Advent Calendar project to bring your family a special artistic opportunity. We will be selling lantern kits (on-line sales only) for you to create a lantern or a window scene to decorate your front window – you could even do both!
The streets of Stony Stratford, Galley Hill and Fullers Slade will be allocated a number to represent each day of Advent, but this year we will be asking you to have all your lanterns and window displays lit up from 1st December for everyone to enjoy throughout the festive month. Look out for a Lantern Leaflet through your door at the beginning of October, Lantern Kits will be available to buy on-line from Monday 12 October. There will be 2 sessions for you to collect your kit/s from York House on 14 & 15 November. More details and on-line link to follow. Please share this post, let’s bring some Christmas cheer after a difficult year. Join the Stony Stratford Lantern Project Facebook Group for latest updates.
Looking back over the past few weeks, we have been busy here in Galley Hill and we haven’t had much time to update you all. Hopefully this will help make amends as we report on the events which have been and will be keeping us all busy.
We will start with the recent visit to the GHRA meeting by Stony in Bloom’s Judy Deveson. Judy told us about the history and work of the Stony In Bloom team, in Stony Stratford and the surrounding areas including Galley Hill. You may not know their work, but you will most likely have admired the beautiful flower beds they take responsibility for in our area including the one by the Caterpillar park and the lovely displays at the entrances to Galley Hill which burst forth in red roses every year.
Stony In Bloom are currently looking for volunteers to help them keep the flower beds looking splendid all year round, so if you are interested in helping out then you can contact them via Judy
Phones: 01908 562876 or 07985671379
Please consider helping out the SIB team if you can spare a little time.
On a related note several Galley Hill and Fullers Slade residents were out and about on a Sunday morning helping to start a nature reserve on the area between Galley Hill and Fullers Slade. We had the treasurer of the GHRA (and local councillor), Roy Adams, up in the trees putting up bat boxes and bird houses.
The hedgehog boxes have been hidden along fences and have a sheet of paper and some harmless ink inside to capture the footprints of the hedgehogs passing through.
Thanks to all the people from Fullers Slade and Galley Hill who turned up to help.
As we roll into December (the first of December already as I write this) our thoughts turn to Christmas, and the GHRA have a total of three Christmas themed events planned.
Firstly, on the 11th of December we are going to be carol singing around the courts of Galley Hill. If you would like to get involved then the singers will be meeting at the SMSG School in Galley Hill from 6pm. Rumours of mince pies and hot drinks afterwards are being confirmed by our events team as true.
On the 15th December the GHRA events team are organising a Christmas event at SMSG school. This will start at 12:00 and finish at 15:00, we will have craft activities for children, a SANTA hunt, free entry into a raffle and a free gift for each child who attends. The whole event is free thanks to GHRA funding gained from the various Councils. It would be great to see you at this event which is open to all of our neighbouring estates too!
It has also been decided that the final GHRA meeting of the year, on the 20th December, is going to be a less formal affair and will be more like a coffee evening. There will be hot drinks, biscuits and Mince pies, a chance to meet and greet others from the neighbourhood for a chat.
As if all that wasn’t enough, we also have our bi-monthly GHRA Litter pick 9th December 10:45. Volunteers welcome, litter picking equipment and extra volunteers are kindly provided by the Stony Stratford Community Church.
Hope to see you all at the events listed above, and volunteering to help in the Stony In Bloom efforts and the litter pick.
Hello residents of Galley Hill, once again we have one of our infrequent updates for you. As usual we have a mixture of good and bad things to report, so we will start with the bad.
It seems that once again Galley Hill is being targeted by the less savoury elements of society. We will start with the reports of some antisocial behaviour from the younger members of the community during the end of the summer holidays. The police were made aware during one of our GHRA meetings and also by some of the victims of the behaviour. You may have had a leaflet from Thames Valley Police about this, a little late but the police are busy and understaffed.
More recently people on Galley Hill have been reporting someone hanging around the cars in the neighbourhood and trying the door handles during the early hours of the mornings. There are some CCTV videos and posts online on the Friends Of Galley Hill Facebook group to see if anyone can help identify the person(s) involved. There have also been reports of thefts from gardens and sheds of bicycles and other items.
Please remember to report all suspicious activity, thefts and antisocial behaviour to the police, as it helps them to build a profile and alerts them if they need to deploy extra patrols in the area. Dial 101 for non emergency reports, only use 999 in emergencies or if a crime is still in progress.
Now onto the better things, following our recent quiz night organised by the GHRA events team we will be having some Christmas themed events during December.
Starting with a carol singing around Galley Hill on the 11th of December, during which some volunteers (yep, that’s a great idea for you to volunteer to join them too, well done) will be going around the courts and singing Christmas Carols. All are welcome to join in, they will be meeting at the school at 6:00 PM. Singers will be accompanied by members of the Stony Stratford Church Band. It is being rumoured that afterwards there may be Mince pies and a hot beverage back at the SMSG school.
Thanks again to St. Mary St. Giles School our events team have been granted permission to use the school grounds to host a Christmas event for Galley Hill and the surrounding areas. This will be along similar lines to the successful Easter event earlier this year. The event will be free, paid for from the GHRA funds, and will include Christmas craft making for children, refreshments for children and adults, prizes and gifts and more to be announced as the events team are still busy organising things and gently persuading our treasurer to part with more funds along the way.
The Christmas event will be on the 15th December from 12:00 to 3:00 PM. All are welcome, from Galley Hill, and our neighbours at Fullers Slade and Stony Stratford and beyond.
Hope we will see you at some of our events, stay alert to unusual behaviour and stay safe.
From the Committee of the Galley Hill Residents Association
The Galley Hill Residents Association are planning a coach trip to Wicksteed Park on 23rd August 2018, all families welcome. The GHRA will be heavily subsidising the cost of the coach so it will cost just £1 per person (adult or child) to get to Wicksteed Park.
There are plenty of free things to do as well as paid rides (you will have to pay for these yourselves) and a large picnic area available. If you would like to come along then contact us by Email – just Click Here.
Hope to see some of you there
The GHRA Events Team
Starting this Sunday we have a busy few days for Galley Hill. It would be great to see some more residents getting involved in these events, so free up your diaries for these.
Firstly we will be organising our second Galley Hill Litter pick starting at 10:45 on Sunday 10th June. We will be meeting at the St. Mary St. Giles school (South Site on Galley Hill) and once again supported by the Stony Stratford Community Church.
Later on Sunday, as part of Stony Live there will be live music at St. Mary St. Giles school in Galley Hill. The band are called Fadin ‘ Shoes, and they aim to get you toe tapping and singing along, whilst playing instrumental and vocal arrangements of great tunes from across the years. It starts at 3pm and goes on till 5 pm, the entrance is free.
And on Friday 15th June at 6:30pm there will be a quiz night. Once again the school will be the venue, and our very own Roy Adams will be the quizmaster. He will be presiding over 3 rounds of 10 questions per round, a coffee break (refreshments will be included in the £2 per team entry fee for teams of up to 6 members) during which there will be a picture question round. Finally there will be prizes for first and second highest scoring teams (One For All shopping vouchers).
We would love to see a good turnout for all the events, so please show your support and come along to as many as you can.
Our events team have been working hard on recent events and have managed to organise 3 fantastic events for the residents of Galley Hill. We take a quick look back at each of them here, while looking forward to more to come this year.
Easter Egg Hunt
The first major event of the year for the GHRA events team was a huge undertaking, as they organised an Easter Egg Hunt. The event was part funded by the Galley Hill Residents Association using funds from the grants given by the local Council. A small fee was asked to secure a place on the day, and we expected a modest turnout of 20-30 children and eggs were purchased to cover that amount.
As time went on the numbers grew, and soon we had over 40 children booked in for the Egg Hunt and crafting, more eggs had to be bought. And it continued to grow until we eventually had 68 children pre-booked for the event, and had some eggs in reserve for those who had promised to turn up on the day.
On the morning of the day, there were still last minute preparations to be done, as the decision had been made to make it a Peter Rabbit themed hunt. To win an egg the children would need to find several characters from the books around the St. Mary St. Giles School playground which the Headmaster had kindly agreed to let us use for the event. So characters were printed and wipe clean laminated hunt tick sheets made.
Finally the time was upon us to set up, and our team of eager volunteers (nobody was press-ganged, honestly) arrived at the school and set up craft tables, hid the characters and put on the display of eggs and the special fluffy bunny prizes for the Golden Egg Draw.
Our Treasurer, Roy, togerther with Flitton Court Rep Paul, found their usual places behind the counter serving refreshments: free tea, coffee and biscuits for the adults and fruit squash drinks for the children.
And the Galley Hill Residents Association Easter Egg Hunt 2018 began in earnest. With children and adults alike enjoying the Egg Hunt and Crafts which had been laid on, where the children got to make a paper plate into a rabbit face, and add cress seeds inside a cup with rabbit ears to grow hair (or hare maybe?)
Sue helps a one of the many children to make a cress haired rabbit
Finding the characters and marking them off, some of those creatures were hiding very well!
I found a golden egg 🙂 A golden egg got a childs name in a hat to win one of the six fluffy bunnies bought using a kind donation from a Galley Hill Resident
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The craft activities were going down a storm with the young children
A couple of hours and 70 odd Easter Eggs handed out later, it was all over -for the families who attended anyway. Our volunteers had the unenviable task of clearing away and putting the school back to how they’d found it before their day was done. A big thank you to Sue Titchmarsh and Kate Nicholls for organising the GHRA Easter Egg Hunt, but equally huge thanks to the backroom guys and gals, Roy, Joy, and Sue (another one) who were there helping to organise the event before the day and on the day, they are all stars.
Finally, thank you to all the families who attended the event and made it a successful day. We received some very positive feedback from so many people who said they had enjoyed the day. We also wish to give a special thanks to those who allowed us to use their childrens’ pictures to make this post.
Coffee Evening
As soon as the Easter Egg Hunt was over the preparations started for the first ever GHRA Coffee evening. This event was planned to complement the popular coffee mornings, to give those who work a chance to socialise with their neighbours. Free tea, coffee, biscuits and cakes were on offer at the Small Meeting place and attracted a few of the residents to attend.
Roy once again acted as our barista and was ably assisted by Paul who is his regular helper on the weekly Tuesday Coffee Mornings.
Thank you to all who attended and to our dynamic duo for making the beverages for everyone.
Litter Pick
Our latest organised event was the Litter Pick around Galley Hill on the 8th of April. This event was given an extra boost by the volunteers from the Stony Stratford Community Church, who helped organise and run the event, which will be a bi-monthly event going forward. On the day all the volunteers gathered at the parking bay outside St. Mary St. Giles School at 10:45 ready for an hour’s litter pick.
Galley Hill Residents and members of the Stony Stratford Community Church assemble to start litter picking.
Once Kate had organised the teams, we all set off and started litter picking in our designated courts and areas around Galley Hill. An hour later we all dropped off our litter bags in the agreed area for MK Council to collect for disposal.
A lot of rubbish was collected during the GHRA organised litter pick
All the volunteers gathered to show a job well done and were invited back to Sue and Doug’s for tea, coffee and biscuits
A good job, well done to the GHRA and Stony Stratford Community Church volunteer litter pickers.
A huge thank you to Stony Stratford Community Church for bringing along their helpers and their equipment to help the residents of Galley Hill clean up the area we live in.
Thank You to everyone who has volunteered, helped, and supported our recent events, we have more planned for this year so keep coming back for information on our events, and subscribe to our newsletter here.
Thank you all, from the Galley Hill Residents Association Committee.
The Galley Hill Residents Carol Singing evening was successfully delivered on Tueday 19th December by the Residents Association and some volunteers. Headed by Roy and Joy from the Galley Hill Residents Association, assisted by Mr. Salter the St. Mary St. Giles School headmaster, and supported by Sue Titchmarsh, Phoebe Titchmarsh, Bianca Titchmarsh and others along the way. Thanks to Dave, our Vice Chair for the pictures and video.
A big thank you to all who attended and all who supported them around the courts. A special thanks to Sue Fitch who helped organise the event but had to work and missed the actual singing.
Merry Christmas from all at Galley Hill Residents Association and we hope to see more of you getting involved in 2018.
The usual crew will be opening the Small Meeting Place for the Coffee Mornings as usual (10:00 till 12:00 noon)on Tuesday December 12th, and December 19th but they will be taking a rest over the Xmas week. The 2nd of January will see the first Coffee Morning of 2018.
The GHRA Coffee Mornings are still growing, as you can see from the pictures below.
It would be great to see more of those who are usually working attend if you can on any of these Tuesdays.
The head teacher of St Mary and St Giles School has asked the GHRA to help spread the word about an event that’s open to all to attend. A Christmas concert will be held at the school on Sunday 17th December at 3pm. Free to attend.
It would be great to see the residents of Galley Hill support the school, and even better if we could all spread the word verbally too.
Website for the Galley Hill Residents Association, Milton Keynes
****LANTERN PROJECT NEWSFLASH***
The hedgehog boxes have been hidden along fences and have a sheet of paper and some harmless ink inside to capture the footprints of the hedgehogs passing through.
