Saturday, May 30, 2020

Pentredwr villagers get together in a bright new virtual world



* Pentredwr villagers pictured before the Covid crisis.

Pentredwr usually has its community centre as the heart of the village, bringing people together for various activities such as quiz nights, plant sales, yoga classes, and maker days. 

Unfortunately, due to the imposed lockdown in Wales, the community of Pentredwr were not able to use the centre or continue these activities.

However, they have come up with a way to continue with some of the valuable social activities that would normally take place in the community centre.

The community has now moved its activities online, using Zoom to keep the community spirit alive..

Since the beginning of May, coffee mornings, yoga and fitness classes plus quizzes, art classes, cookery lessons, book groups and talks will take place over Zoom and other social media platforms. 

Several of the villagers don’t have access to the internet, so a printable weekly newsletter has been created to help keep everyone connected.

This was all made possible through the Welsh Government Rural Communities - Rural Development
Programme 2014-2020, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government. 

Pentredwr received £3,000 of funding through the programme, allowing them to carry out a wealth of activities.

Recently the village hosted an online Zoom quiz that was a huge success and enjoyed by everyone involved.

Spike Hayward, a 19-year-old from Pentredwr, said: “I really enjoyed the quiz night. I can’t see my friends at the moment and having something like the quiz to take part in helped feel like a little bit of normality had been restored."

Another member of the community, Julie Jones, said: “Living on my own, it’s been very hard, and I can get lonely. I found it quite easy to create a zoom account and its been wonderful to be able to talk to different people."

Another benefit of the community moving online is that is has allowed people that used to live in Pentredwr to reconnect with old friends. 

Chris Bird-Jones used to live in the village and recently took part in the Zoom Zumba class,.

She said “It was lovely to join in and great that we can do this through Zoom, it really made me feel like part of the community again."

Ticky Lowe, the events and funding officer for the community centre, said: “As a rural village
the added isolation of the lockdown has had a big impact on our community, and we hope that this project will help our community to feel connected again."

If you live in the local area and would like to talk part please email info@pentredwr.co.uk for more information. 

Some of the recent events were Zumba Light with Julie Thomas, Mushroom Talk with Lisa Heledd Jones and a Community Coffee Morning.

This evening, Saturday May 30, at 11am, there's Yoga with Catherine Farrell.

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