Old Dalby News 2001 Archive

2001

January

On 10th January there was an eclipse of the moon
 which was captured on camera by David Knott. 

Thanks David for e mailing the image of the moon 
over to Old Dalby.org.uk

On 16th January The Rev. John Hooley was licensed in church as our team vicar, by the Rt Revd. Bill Down, assistant bishop of Leicester. Congratulations and welcome to Old Dalby John. (Photos on church pages)

Congratulations to David Ayres and friends (commonly known as 'answers.com') after winning the village 'clever cloggs' quiz held in the village hall.

February

Test Track......
The construction work is near to completion. The track will be energized from Asfordby to Old Dalby by 9th March. By this time the signs will be in place and members of the British Transport Police will be visiting the schools to talk to the children about dangers they face if they go onto the track. Trains will not travel at high speed initially, but they will obviously build up to this over the summer. Vegetation has to be kept three metres from the wires and so parts of the track at Old Dalby look very bare, but we are assured that there is a programme of re-planting and that the whole project is under the watchful eye of H.M. Railway Inspectorate. A viewing platform is to be established at Widmerpool.
(Published with permission of Bob Hyslop - Parish Council)

March

Brilliant.......a great big well done and thanks to everyone who was involved in the music hall...it was a great success....here a a few photos taken and e mailed to us by David Knott...Do you recognise anyone??

April
17th A sad day for the village as Brenda Dennison passed away in the Queens Medical Centre Nottingham, after a short illness. Her funeral was a celebration of her life and showed what a tremendously popular person she was as over 300 people packed the church. She will leave a huge gap in our village life. God bless her.

May
Another sad month for the village as the Methodist chapel held its final service. The chapel has over  200 years of history in Old Dalby as the first chapel was situated in Clappergate until it transferred to its present position in 1902. Have a look at the chapels page on the main index and read an article about the history of the chapel by Eric Lott.

June
Thursday the 14th brought radio Leicesters gardening programme 'Down to Earth' to the village. Sixty people came along and tested the experts with a variety of questions.

The panel answer questions from the village hall audience
From left to right Radio Leicester Sound engineer, Derek Cox, Dave Andrews, Jim McIntosh

Thanks to Joe Orson for allowing the church to hold its annual summer garden fete in the grounds of the old rectory. The sun shone and the event was well supported raising £660. Here are a few photos: 

The Parish Council have had the millennium stone engraved with the year 2000. Here's Bob Hyslop and Tony Tomlinson from the Parish Council keeping an eye on the stone mason whilst he completes the job. 

July

We have a new postman. His name is Phil (Blythe). 

The new advanced passenger train can regularly be seen up and down the test track. It even attracted a visit from Virgin boss Richard Branson whose timely visit coincided with his birthday...(Happy birthday Richard - I wonder if he reads this!!) The celebrations included a terrific display by two red arrows jets and and culminated with a firework display.  (We've been promised some pictures which we will publish when they are received)

August

The month of August's highlight in Old Dalby is usually Old Dalby Day which is our annual village fete and this year proved no exception. The weather was glorious with temperatures in the mid 70s F. and a clear blue sky. The car park filled to capacity which is always a sign of an estimated five thousand people. The pictures and full story about Old Dalby Day 2001 is accessed through the Old Dalby Day main index page. On the Sunday evening prior to the Bank Holiday Monday we held our evensong 'songs of praise' on the village green, about 50 people attended and sung some traditional hymns which were linked by readings of scripture. Thanks go to the nine people who volunteered to read.....and to our new trumpeter Jim Sallis whose velvet tones added depth to the music. Here are a few photos of the evening. Although the clouds were gathering the breeze was taking them away and the evening developed with glorious sunshine. Click on the photo to view it.

September

At the beginning of the month we saw the first appearance of "It's a Knockout" in Old Dalby. The event was organised by Judith Mudd, James Freeman, Tina Cank and Nick Fielding (Thanks for all the effort you lot). Six  teams entered, made up of adults and children, ranging in age from 5 to 50+ years. The weather was kind to everyone on the day, and with all the effort put in by everyone the refreshments provided were very welcome; there was even a raffle run by guess who... (click on Beryl to see the prizes!) At the end of the event, everyone finished up very wet but very happy and very kna.....exhausted!

October

As the autumn evenings close in so the social calendar of the village gets busier. The 7th October saw our Harvest festival take place in church and it was great to see lots of people there, including a few children. A great big thank-you to Katie Claire and Ashleigh who spent ages writing a 'harvest rap' which they performed after John's sermon. They church looked a picture, so thanks to all the folks who spent hours arranging the flowers and fruit to give the building a harvest feel. Some of the produce was auctioned off at the end of the service by Patrick, whilst other items were donated to people in the village.

Here's Patrick doing his upmost to flog a savoy cabbage!

The weekend after harvest the Village Hall committee arranged an antiques evening when an expert 'sang for his supper', giving a passionate description of some of his favourite pieces along with some interesting stories about bargains he had acquired over the years. Jim Sallis must know a bit about antiques because he managed to win the evenings antiques quiz. The food was a highlight of the evening, which we believe was mainly down to the talents and hard work of Sue Ayres and Denise Lincoln. 

November

The Old Dalby web site is now expanding beyond all initial expectations. The Parish Council have introduced us to the pathfinder project. This is one of 25 government pathfinder initiatives to bring electronic service delivery to the population and is part of the governments e-initiative for the next five years. The scheme involves the establishment of eleven market town portals. (that means local communication windows on the web!) One of the eleven is Melton Mowbray and their site is called www.meltononline.co.uk . Each site is developed to benefit the local community it represents, and although initially it will be the responsibility of the local authority, it will eventually be self-sustainable and managed by the local community. The front page of the site will include a map of the Melton area, so when you select Old Dalby on the map you will open the villages web site. The Old Dalby and Nether Broughton Parish Council have been invited to participate by opening a page on Old Dalbys'  website, but unfortunately, at the present time, they have turned the offer down. 'Meltononline' is due to go live on 30th November 2001. So if your on the web have a look at www.meltononline.co.uk.

A committee has been set up in the village to re-introduce the Old Dalby open gardens day. It will be a joint venture between the Village Hall committee and The Church Restoration scheme. The date has been fixed for Sunday 23rd June 2002. The day will also incorporate the Churchs' annual garden fete.

Thirty four people turned out to a public meeting held in the village hall to discuss the way forward with the church restoration project. An overview of the surveyors report was presented by Patrick Calkin. After a question and answer session a church restoration project team was formed under the guidance of Mr Bob Holdsworth.

December

If you walk passed the church during on an evening during advent you will see the stained glass window lit by an uplighter. This should remind us all of the coming of the light of the world, Jesus Christ.

Was it really twelve months ago that we tootled along to the village hall for the 'celebration of Christmas' concert. Well it was!! This years do was organised by Joan Revill, Margaret Bairstow, and Pauline Freeman. Well done to all three of you. Your hard work was appreciated by the 'sell out' audience. In fact you could have probably filled the village Hall twice over with the people who wanted tickets and couldn't get them. All the proceeds this year are going to the church restoration fund so a double thank-you. Here are a few pictures to give you a flavour of what you missed if you didn't manage to get a ticket. Oh by the way ...just to rub it in...the mulled wine and mince pies were scrumptious.

Our community carol service was held on the Saturday before Christmas, and the church was lit up by candles. Seventy people turned out and eighteen people were involved in running the service. Thanks especially to the talents of Adey Bunney (who sang the solo 'When a child is born'), Christine and Teresa for sorting out the service booklets and refreshments, and to all those folks who donated the scrumptious mince pies.