Clubs and Community (Including thousands raised for charity at Mediterranean Nursery barbecue)

Brazilian language school to reach out

Escolinha do Brasil e Centro Cultural is a Brazilian community language school for children aged four to 11 years old. Our aim is to promote and teach Portuguese as an inherited language as well as disseminate Brazilian Culture among children from a Portuguese-speaking background.

It is known that there are many Brazilians living in Hemel Hempstead who have been longing for a school to pass on the Portuguese language to their children. Our classes began on Saturday, September 6 and will be run weekly during term-time from 10am to midday at Garden Fields JMI School in St Albans.

Our teachers are all Brazilians with educational qualifications. We are also looking for more teachers.

The address of the school is Townsend Drive, St Albans, AL3 5RL.

Email Claudia on [email protected] for a trial lesson or visit our website escolinhadobrasil.co.uk. After the trial lesson, if your child continues, a fee of £130 per term will be charged to cover the costs of running the school. Please help us make our school a success!

Berkhamsted & District Archaeological Society returns for new season

The Society’s new season of lectures begins on Monday, September 22, when the chairman, Peter Clayton, will give a talk on ‘Giovanni Belzoni: The Strongman Egyptologist’.

The lectures being presented for the following seven meetings cover a wide variety of interesting archaeological and historical topics.

There are talks on ‘Sensing the Iron Age and Roman Past in Hertfordshire’; ‘Archaeology and Biomechanics’; the Roman villa at Yewden; Roman London; Roman dining; the incredible hoard of 52,501 Roman coins found at Frome, and an internationally important discovery from a cuneiform tablet throwing new light on the Biblical Flood Legend.

Further details of the programme and meeting place may be had from the Secretary on 01442 875597.

Bourne End Village Association supports Pepper nurses

The Bourne End Village Association’s Spring Fayre earlier this year raised more than £3,000 for charity.

Sally, Sophie and Ian Gibbs from the society – who played a vital role in running the day for the community – recently met with Eric Pillinger from the Pepper Foundation.

Pepper specialist paediatric nurses provide a hospice at home service for children with life-limiting illnesses throughout Herts and Bucks.

Music and food raises thousands at Mediterranean Nursey in Bovingdon

A charity barbecue and music night was held at the Mediterranean Nursery in Bovingdon to raise money for two charities – the Hospice of St Francis in Berkhamsted and Myeloma UK. Myeloma UK is a charity set up to raise funds for and awareness of Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow.

Every year Stuart and Debbie Oastler hold a fundraising event for the Hospice in memory of Debbie’s late mother Eve Freeman.

This year they kindly asked if we would like to do a joint venture so we could raise money for Myeloma UK for which we were extremely grateful to be given the opportunity.

We had a fantastic evening, great food, good music and an awful lot of support from people coming from all over the Chilterns.

We contacted shops and organisations in and around Bovingdon, Hemel Hempstead, Amersham and Chesham and were amazed at just how kind and resourceful the local community is. We got some great raffle prizes from balloon rides, theatre tickets, dog grooming, beauty vouchers to chocolates and bottles of wine.

We raised over £3,000 which is great news for both charities. With ongoing support from our local community we will continue to raise awareness and fundraise and look forward to our next event.

U3A delves into town’s papermaking chapter

Our August meeting, which incorporated the AGM, was held at Boxmoor Playhouse in Hemel Hempstead.

Once the business was concluded we enjoyed a talk by Michael Stanyon, an archivist at Apsley’s Paper Trail, in which we learnt about the history of papermaking and the importance of Hertfordshire in that industry.

Paper was first made in China, but in England it wasn’t until 1488 that the first paper mill was set up near Hertford. Because of the chalk hills, the rivers Gade and Bulbourne were particularly suitable for papermaking and by the 18th century there were several mills along these banks.

The manufacturing process was slow because it involved soaking shredded rags in water for several hours, then draining the pulp and hanging the resulting sheets of paper to dry.

The world’s first papermaking machine was installed at Frogmore in 1801 and after this production everywhere became much faster.

Many of the mills and surrounding land were owned by John Dickinson, who lived at Abbots Hill.

When Thomas Telford built the Grand Union Canal it provided Dickinson and the paper mills with a convenient transport system for despatching the paper to London and also for taking delivery of the raw materials.

Our meeting on Monday, September 1 featured speaker Philip Sadler CBE who told us all about Ashridge through the ages.For further information regarding U3A, please contact our Membership Secretary, Judy Baldwin, on 01442 211289.

Ladies who lunch at Felden WI’s garden party

Balloons, bunting and banter were enjoyed by the Members of Felden WI at our annual August Garden Party held in a delightful setting of a terrace garden at Beechwood Park. Members were put to the challenge to identify quintessentially English flowers, whilst sipping pink lemonade (unfortunately not champagne).

Another delightful experience in August was indulging in afternoon tea which took place in the Peacock Room at Pendley Manor, where 15 members actually watched the real peacocks playing in their magnificent grounds. The members held their September meeting on Friday at the Blind Centre, Alston Road at 2.15pm where they had the pleasure of Janet Naylor talking to us about scandals, spectres and strange ‘goings on’.