Galley Hill Residents Association along with the Stony Stratford Community Church have resumed the bi-monthly litter pick on Galley Hill. The rubbish collecting session on 14th November attracted several of the estates residents who helped collect several bags of litter to tidy our area.
Thanks to those who attended and helped make our part of Milton Keynes a little tidier.
At 10:45 am members of GHRA, residents from Galley Hill and the volunteers from Stony Stratford Community Church met outside St. Mary St. Giles School to start our bi-monthly litter pick. We each went off in teams or pairs and set about picking up the litter. The whole thing is scheduled as just an hour out of everybody’s time and makes a difference around our area.
The Stony Stratford Community Church do a lot around the local area, and have several events planned over the Christmas period. Here is a list of their planned events.
A big thank you to all who turned up to help with the litter pick today.
Hope to see some of you at our GHRA events too – the GHRA Committee
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.
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?)
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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.
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.
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 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.
Website for the Galley Hill Residents Association, Milton Keynes