Gavenny Gardening Club

Mr Malcolm Brinkworth Chair of the Gavenny Gardening Club wishes to inform its members and the public that the January and February meetings are cancelled due to the ongoing Covid-19 virus and restrictions.

The next meeting hopefully will be on March 15 when the speaker documentary film maker Adam Alexander will enlighten us on “The Adventures of an International Seed Hunter”.

The meeting will start at 7pm at the Mardy Community Hall, non-members are welcome.

Malcolm hopes everyone had a Happy Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year when we can meet again, following a very difficult year.

Please listen to the advice we are given, do not travel unnecessarily, keep to the social distancing rules, wear a mask and stay at home if possible. Stay safe and well.

Please contact Malcolm on 850115 for further information.

A Community is Stronger Together - Brynmawr Rotary Club

Brynmawr Rotary has served the community for more than 53 years and we were aware in March 2020 that our community would need that ‘service’ more than ever.

The community’s needs were varied, but immediately a telephone call system was put into to support anyone stuck inside their homes maybe without regular contact or just needing to hear another voice and was a way for those who were not allowed out such as our senior members to continue to undertake their ‘service’ and make a difference to someone on that day…this helped the mental health of many, as the outside world was making contact.

Whilst the younger members signed up to many ‘help’ groups and started shopping, delivering prescriptions, and examples of younger people like our Interactors walking dogs in their hour out!

And within a week, Brynmawr Rotary created the ‘Stronger Together Project’ and friends of Rotary stepped up to help, and three new younger community members, Michelle Hurter, Wayne Hodgins, and Anne Baker joined Rotary as they saw what Rotary offered to our communities, and how we had the procedures, insurances, and networks in place to help volunteers do more.

The three new members and Donna Wallbank led one of the projects, The Brynmawr Rotary Supplementary Foodbank, which was originally meant to help Brynmawr, Nantyglo and overlap into Blaina, but it quickly grew to cover the whole of Blaenau Gwent, supporting the traditional foodbanks as were our friends in Abertillery and Blaina Rotary at the Abertillery foodbank.

Whilst Brynmawr Rotary, continued to support the Trussell Trust foodbank at Tabor Church. the Brynmawr Rotary foodbank project worked directly with groups who directly made contact for support and we delivered immediately to the point of need, to supplement the offering across Blaenau Gwent daily, not just when the local traditional foodbank was open and this allowed us to give that help at the doorstep with a helping hand attitude, a friendly smile…although we soon realised, they could not see them behind our masks, so thereafter we made sure that, our voices and eyes told the story of hope and care.

Together, all the foodbanks made a difference in 2020 to many people – Brynmawr Rotary’s Supplementary Foodbank continues to be needed as we continue doing so on New Year’s Eve of 2020 - can you imagine being in need at the end of this year?

Ending a year of despair in despair!

Well, we all can - as we see and hear the stories of need and Brynmawr Rotary continues to plan to be there with this help well into 2021, so long as funds are available so we can continue this community service project.

Christmas Project - The Project group held an emergency meeting in November to discuss the Christmas need…it was obvious we would step up to the idea raised to help with a Christmas Day Box!

Originally asking Rotary friends to support 50 hampers, to help us fund raise and raise awareness was obviously going to get approval, and as the group got going so did the community.…

Within two weeks the 50 hampers became 100 and by the second week of December the need was at 130 but by December 19 we had requests for 145 hampers being requested and not enough funds or food to help those last few households and families!

But, by December 22 we had received enormous support from more members of the community, more businesses helped us, an anonymous donation was received and collectively we were able to provide 184 hampers for single, small, and large households across the whole of Blaenau Gwent.

We had added full bags of fruit and vegetables to each of those hampers which also had in them a Chicken, cheese, bacon, and sausages! Plus treats and store cupboard necessities not just for Christmas Day but for the Christmas week.

As well as the 184 hampers we were able to provide an extra 100 fruit and vegetable bags for another group who were providing dried food hampers and because of the generosity of the Thomas Carroll Group Caerphilly and our amazing community 119 children received a bag of gifts and selection boxes.

A community is stronger when they come together and by adding the Christmas Lunch Box and A Christmas Smile Gift Projects has truly shown us the generosity of people from within and outside of Blaenau Gwent, and as volunteers we are really humbled and grateful of the help received and hopefully will continue to receive so to help others.

These projects really showcased how young people step up when the need is there, as those hampers took lots of managing, handling, and packing and alongside the adult volunteers who on December 19 had to be stood down because of restrictions imposed, the family bubbles who had been working with their Mams, Dads and grandparents came into action and helped fetch, carry, and fill the hampers.

These young people are our communities future and we must say a huge thankyou to Sage and Brad Hurter, Calon and Mali Davies, Eve Hurcombe, James Priest as well as Daniel, Cariad, Daisy, Lexi, Finley, Brianna, and Austyn who all who played a part and will we know continue a legacy in Brynmawr of doing good.

We are always proud of our young people through their RotaKids and Interact actions - but more about them in another article!

So how can you help us do more?

Well, in short, please continue to support us, so we can continue supporting our communities.

Brynmawr Rotary meets now on Zoom weekly and we would welcome anyone wanting to find out about Rotary coming along to one of our meetings, or if you would be interested in helping us do more work locally please reach out to us, maybe join a zoom meeting to find out about what we do.

What would be amazing is if we could re-establish Rotary groups in Tredegar and Ebbw Vale or in more of our towns or within some of our community’s businesses - so we truly could do more as more hands make light work…or in the case of Rotary gives more service and brings Rotary back to those communities. If you are interested in knowing more, please email [email protected] - rr visit www.brynmawrrotary.co.uk or follow us on Facebook