Campaign helps Llan business to get switched on

 

* From left, Adam Bishop from Cadwyn Clwyd, Chris Smith and Dr Les Pritchard.

 

A campaign has been launched to get businesses in North East Wales switched on to the power of social media.

 

The Digital Clwyd pilot project was aimed at helping members of business groups and community organisations compete more effectively in the digital marketplace.

 

After attending the courses, one businessman in Llangollen says his Welsh gifts website has just enjoyed its busiest ever week.

 

Chris Smith was able to access the training as a member of the Llangollen Chamber of Trade and Tourism.

 

The courses were put on by the rural development agency, Cadwyn Clwyd, whose contribution came via the Rural Development Plan for Wales 2007-2013, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the Welsh Government.

 

According to Chris, whose company, Gifts from Wales Limited which encompasses Cottage Cards and Crafts, Cottage Tea Rooms and Cottage Cream and Candy, the internet was particularly useful for drumming up business outside the main tourist season.

 

He said: "Llangollen is very much a seasonal town, mainly from Easter through to September. 

 

"We’ve got our own website which is giftsfromwales.com but we wanted to promote that even more and also through the use of social media, Facebook and twitter.

 

"We're selling to a world-wide marketplace so, especially during the winter period when it’s quieter in Llangollen, we want to try to increase the traffic for sales in the gift shop and promote our products.

 

"Social media has revolutionised retail. As a result we sell all over the world as far afield as Canada, Australia, Singapore and China.

 

"In the last few weeks we’ve found that orders online have increased quite significantly and we've just had our busiest week for online sales.

 

"The courses were extremely useful in helping me to understand social media a lot better.

 

"They gave us a lot of hints regarding different sites that produce advertising material for the businesses, such as business cards, flyers, posters and also help if you want to do your own web design, how to use Facebook efficiently and productively and also a lot of other sites that I hadn’t even heard of.

 

"By being a member of the Llangollen Chamber of Trade and Tourism it opens up these opportunities for these courses which have been brilliant for us and the others who attended."

 

Organiser Sue Haygarth, who coordinated the courses on behalf of Cadwyn Clwyd, was delighted with the excellent take up for the courses which covered things like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, building websites, email marketing along with search engine optimisation and online security.

 

She said: "We had a six-week window to deliver the 19 courses and we had over 180 attendances at those courses.

 

"Cadwyn Clwyd were aware that a lot of small businesses, micro enterprises who employ nine or less, really struggle to access training sometimes, either because they’re small, so there’s only a couple of people in the company, or because of their location.

 

"We know how important social media is becoming to business and growing business, interacting with other businesses and contacting customers, so Cadwyn put forward a project in rural Denbighshire that would assist these businesses to access the training they need.

 

"The best way to deliver to these very small businesses was deemed to be through networks and groups that were already there, like business groups, chambers of trade, tourism groups along with social enterprises, community businesses and community shops.

 

"Collectively, all these businesses are really very important to the local economy, so anything we can do to help those businesses and boost them to bring in more customers and more income for them, is really important.

 

"Cadwyn Clwyd has seen the benefit already and they’re talking to the Welsh Government about the doing more in future to help these very small micro enterprises which are isolated or working together because they are so important to the local economy."

 

The tutor was IT expert Dr Les Pritchard, who runs a company called Neterix and is a lecturer at Bangor University's School of Computer Science.

 

He said: "The aim was really to deliver some really attractive courses to local communities and businesses and to really fill that gap in what we thought was missing in the area.

 

"Lots of small business were coming along and saying they’d heard of these things but they didn’t know want to do with them and in some cases they were a little bit scared of using social media.

 

"It’s vitally important these days that businesses embrace these new possibilities. The first place people look now, if they’re looking for a business, is online. It's a virtual shop window that brings people in."

 

It was a sentiment echoed by David Davies, the Chair of Llangollen Chamber of Trade and Tourism, who said: "Any business that’s going to be successful has got to market themselves in every possible way.

 

"These courses helped business people move with the times and offered them on a plate how to engage with audiences across a range of media platforms.

 

"The members who have used the course have been very enthusiastic."

Railway passes another milestone

* The diesel railcar at Corwen East, crewed by Karl Latham

and John Joyce, on arrival from Llangollen.

Llangollen Railway passed another milestone in its development when it operated the first passenger service to Corwen with a diesel railcar.

Although diesel railcars were generally introduced by British Railways during the 1950s, these modern trains were never introduced on passenger services between Ruabon and Barmouth prior to closure of the line by Dr Beeching's axe in January 1965.

But the two-day Winter Warmer event staged by the heritage railway on January 2/3 offered visitors a mix of train operations with both steam and diesel hauled trains routed along the recently-opened extension to the new station at Corwen East.

 

The first train of the day last Friday ran from Carrog and provided a 09.30 passenger service from Corwen to Llangollen.

 

It made several further runs to Corwen on both days and proved popular with visitors as it allowed the route of the new extension to be seen in detail from the windows behind the driver's cab.

 

Services with the heritage railcar continued on Sunday as the final day of the festive season of trains.

 

With the line closed for essential track maintenance in January, next public train services to Corwen will operate from Saturday, February 14, prior to an official opening ceremony on March 1 - St David's Day - when VIPs will be present to unveil the station name board.

 

George Jones for the railway said: "This was an historic occasion and provided a service which British Railways never aspired to 50 years ago."

Kayakers rescued from river

The Denbighshire Free Press is reporting this morning that two kayakers had to be rescued from the river in Llangollen yesterday afternoon (Sunday).

For the full story see: http://www.denbighshirefreepress.co.uk/news/142616/kayakers-rescued-from-river-in-llangollen.aspx

Corwen greets first New Year's Day train for 50 years

 

* Engine number 5199 hauled the first New Year's Day train into Corwen for 50 years.

 

Corwen welcomed its first New Year's Day train in 50 years on Thursday.

 

Steam engine number 5199 rolled into the new Corwen East station, which is now the far end for Llangollen Railway, hauling the final Mine Pie Special of the season. 

 

Photographers gathered at the gate at Bonwm to see the train heading towards Corwen from Llangollen where there was also a throng of keen snappers.

 

George Jones, for the railway, said: "Looks like we just had enough mince pies to feed the passenger complement on a day when trains were well supplied despite the late afternoon rain.

"Pity all the snow has been washed away, but still a wintry run along the Dee Valley.

"So ends the Santa/Mince Pie season, but there are still three days of train left to enjoy with the final day of railcars today, Sunday, January 4."

 

 

* Photographers wait for the train to pass by at Bonwm.

 

 

 

* The Mince Pie Special back at Llangollen station.

 

Have a great 2015!

... to all our readers.

 

llanblogger is now taking a short break and will be back in a couple of days.

Do you recall last train through Llangollen?

Local people are being asked to help Llangollen Railway remember the 50^th anniversary of the day Dr Beeching’s axe fell on the line.

The passenger rail route through Llangollen to Barmouth was one of a number which fell victim to the infamous purge of lines in the mid-1960s.

 

It only came to life again as a heritage railway thanks to a team of dedicated volunteers who took it over in the 1970s eventually developed it into the top tourist attraction it is today.   

 

Now, as the half-century anniversary of the original line closure rapidly approaches, the railway is asking if local people have anything which helps recall the occasion.

 

Spokesman George Jones said: “In the new year, January 18 to be precise, we will mark the 50th anniversary of closure of the line between Ruabon and Barmouth  Junction in 1965.

 

“The 18th was a Monday in 1965, so the last passenger train ran from Llangollen to Ruabon prior to the official closure day, on Saturday 16th, as part of the Beeching Axe.

 

“The line between Llangollen and Bala (via Corwen) had no service from December 14 due to flooding at Llandderfel.

 

“As there is no train service planned in January 2015 beyond the 4th, Llangollen Railway will not recreate the event as such on the anniversary date.

 

“However it could be interesting if some facts can be gathered together. I am unaware of any photo of the last train leaving Llangollen but wonder if the Llangollen museum has one - it was an era of many line closure was so not unusual or unique.

 

“Perhaps some older folk in Llangollen have memories of the last train.”

If you have any pictures or memories of this landmark time, please get in touch with llanblogger and we’ll pass everything on to George Jones at the railway. 

* Looking back at its high lights of the year 2014, Llangollen Railway recalls that it was used as a location in the filming of the new movie Mr Turner featuring the life of British artist JMW Turner, starring Timothy Spall.

Part of the film was shot near Carrog Station, with the production company hiring vintage steam locomotive 'The Planet' from The Museum of Science and Industry as it looked most like the engine used in the famous Turner painting 'Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway' (pictured above).

Police boss is least expensive in Wales

 

* North Wales PCC Winston Roddick.

 

The North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner is the least expensive police boss in Wales.
 

The news was revealed as Winston Roddick CB QC, an ex-copper who rose to become Wales's first Counsel General, celebrated his second anniversary in office.
 

Mr Roddick is proud that the costs of the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for North Wales - around £800,000 a year - are also the second lowest across the group of most similar forces in England and Wales.
 

After training and working as a police constable in Liverpool, Mr Roddick, who was brought up in Caernarfon, studied law at University College London from which he graduated as a Master of Laws.

 

Mr Roddick went on to carve out an illustrious career as a barrister,  taking ‘silk’ as a Queen's Counsel in 1986 and later becoming the Leader of the Wales and Chester Circuit, a Recorder of the Crown Court and the first Honorary Recorder of Caernarfon.

 

In 1986, as a member of the first Welsh Language Board, he was responsible for drafting the report which led to the passing of the Welsh Language Act of that year. He was appointed as the first Counsel General of Wales in 1998, the most senior legal adviser to the Welsh Assembly.

 

Mr Roddick made history again when he was elected as North Wales’s first PCC in November 2012 as part of the UK-wide revolution in the way policing is governed, which saw the old police authorities swept away to be replaced by a single people's champion accountable directly to the public.
 

He was awarded a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the New Year Honours List of 2003/04.
 

During his PCC election campaign, he promised to increase the visible presence of the police, to ensure security at home and safety on our streets, and to work with the Chief Constable and officers to ensure a police service of high standard.
 

However, he said that the biggest problem facing him had been getting people to understand his role, which is why he has spent a good deal of his time driving forward initiatives aimed at communicating directly with the public of North Wales.
 

“It’s not surprising that people did not understand as it was such a new role. That’s why I have been reaching out to them to explain by example, to let them know that I am their representative in their relationship with the police,” he said.
 

An indication of the increasing public awareness of his role, according to the Commissioner, has been the sheer volume of correspondence coming into his office in Colwyn Bay.
 

“I am receiving 18 times the amount of correspondence the former Police Authority used to receive. This is evidence that members of the public are confident in contacting me to discuss policing matters in North Wales."
 

The creation of the pioneering task force of officers dedicated to tackling crime in the countryside has also given him great satisfaction.
 

The Rural Crime Team is helping to turn North Wales into a no-go area for rural criminals and attracted the interest of a number of police forces across the UK.
 

Mr Roddick said of it: “We were the first to think of it and North Wales led by example in creating the team to fulfil an obvious need within the agricultural community.

 

“Farmers and their unions have demonstrated their appreciation of its creation and have given it their wholehearted support. It has resulted in a very substantial reduction in calls out to rural areas.”

 

An on-going initiative from the commissioner, supported by North Wales Police and North Wales Police and community Trust (PACT), is the use of cash seized from criminals to reward community groups devoted to tackling anti-social behaviour and combating crime and disorder.

 

Mr Roddick said: “There’s a total of £42,000 in the pot and two groups in each of the six counties will get £3,000 apiece and a £6,000 prize will go to the winning organisation that operates across North Wales.

 

“This is a fantastically important scheme and again communicates with the public to let people say how they want crime dealt with in their community to make it a safe place in which to live.

 

“They will come up with their own schemes to help the young, the old and the vulnerable.”

This year saw Mr Roddick launched the first ever Police and Crime Commissioner Community Awards to honour unsung heroes of the community who go the extra mile to make North Wales a safer place to live and work.

 

A host of awards were presented at a glittering presentation evening in the Kinmel Manor Hotel in October and Mr Roddick said: “I’m delighted that the awards were so well received. We had such a very healthy response from the public that I have been encouraged to repeat them next year.”

 

Looking back over his first two years in office, Mr Roddick said: “It’s been a challenging time because of the very new role which is without precedent in British policing history.

 

“I have enjoyed the past two years immensely and I think I have been measurably successful in my role.

 

“I’ve also managed to do everything without my office spending a penny more than the old police authority did in its last budget.

 

"I am particularly pleased that, according to the figures used by the HMIC for comparison purposes, the cost of my office is the lowest in Wales which shows that we have a lean but effective operation here in North Wales.

 

“The past two years have also been a challenge for my staff and I’d like to thank them for all the help they have given me.

 

“I would also like to thank my Deputy Commissioner, Julian Sandham, who is a former chief superintendent and has brought an enormous amount of police experience into my office.     

 

“My aim is for the people of North Wales to feel secure at home and safe in public places.”