Clwyd South Tories tell Theresa May to go

Members of the Clwyd South Conservative Association, which covers Llangollen, yesterday "overwhelmingly" supported a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Theresa May.

Association chairman Gareth Baines said: "The overwhelming vote of no confidence by ordinary Conservative grass roots members in Clwyd South should send a clear and unequivocal message to Theresa May: go now.

"Whilst Clwyd South may have been the first association nationwide to hold such a vote, I’ve been inundated with contact from other associations who now seek to follow our lead."

He added: "Coupled with polling from Conservative Home, which shows Mrs May to be the least popular Prime Minister ever, it’s clear the overwhelming majority wish for Mrs May to stand down before she does anymore damage to the country, or to the party.

"Yesterday’s vote was preceded by an open and amicable debate, where various issues regarding Mrs May’s leadership were aired, mostly around things not related to Brexit. 

"It is clear, through her own actions, Mrs May has lost the support and goodwill of grass roots Conservatives in Clwyd South and across the country."

Busy April for Llangollen Inner Wheel Club

April has been a busy month for Llangollen Inner Wheel members.

It began with an inter-club meeting when Bethan Mascarenhas, daughter of club member Carol, gave a talk on Celtic Myths and Legends.

* Enid Law has been selected
as  Association President for
Great Britain and Northern Ireland

An experienced performer, she delighted members with her tales which were enlivened by lovely singing.

Several members then joined Llangollen Rotary Club to host students from Manchester University for the annual international weekend. 

This project has been a feature of the Rotary and Inner Wheel year for over 40 years, and it is always a pleasure, and sometimes a humbling experience, to get to know splendid young people from all over the world and to give them a break from their studies in the lovely scenery of Llangollen. 

Immediately afterwards, many members headed for Cardiff for the annual nationwide conference of Inner Wheel members, and it was a special delight to be there when Llangollen member Enid Law was invited on stage as the Association President for Great Britain and Northern Ireland for the coming year.  

This is the first time that a member of the Llangollen Club has been elected to this prestigious and important post. 

Members will all be supporting Enid in her many duties and have wished her well in her important year.

In the meantime club members are looking forward to an interesting meeting on May 6^th at the Hand Hotel when Wendy Davies will be speaking about hats. There is certainly plenty of variety at Llangollen Inner Wheel.

Police appeal over stolen dog

* Flora the German Shepherd has been stolen from the Llangollen area.

The Leader is reporting online this morning (Wednesday) that North Wales Police have sent out an appeal after a one-year-old dog was stolen from the Llangollen area.

Police are trying to track her down and taken to social media to ask for any information that may help them.

The appeal was tweeted out via the NWP Wrexham Rural Twitter account, which read:

“Have you seen Flora? She's a 1 year old #GermanShepherd. Kennel Club registered and micro-chipped, she was reported stolen from the #Llangollen area on 31/3/19. Anyone with information please call us on 101 quoting ref. X053652.”

£10,000 marketing campaign up for grabs

Charities, social enterprises and not-for-profit organisations in Wales will have the chance to win a £10,000 video marketing campaign as part of the brand new Rockadove Third Sector Prize, launched last week. 

Leading Welsh video production agency Rockadove is giving away the £10,000 video project as part of the company's tenth year celebrations. 

Working in partnership with Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA), the prize will see a third sector organisation supported with a complete video marketing campaign worth £10,000 - devised, scripted, produced, distributed and evaluated by Rockadove - totally free of charge. 

* Phil Fiander (left) and Lloyd Morgan launching the prize. 

Lloyd Morgan, Rockadove's owner and managing director, announced the prize at WCVA's gofod3 event last week (21 March), saying: 'We wanted to do something special to kick start our tenth year celebrations, so we decided to work with the third sector to showcase just how effective video can be in that space and make a real difference to that organisation in the process. 

'If you are a charity, social enterprise and not-for-profit working in Wales, please get in touch and tell us about your next big project or an issue you face. Or a policy you need to promote. If we think video can help, you could win a complete video campaign. 

'Facebook alone generates around 8 billion video views each day. We want to make sure that Wales' third sector organisations tap into that. We have a fantastic, hard-working third sector here in Wales and we can't wait to get started.' 

Phil Fiander, Deputy Chief Executive of WCVA said: 'The Rockadove Third Sector Prize is an excellent opportunity for third sector organisations in Wales to tell their story. We know there are some incredible things happening across Wales and it's often the groups in the sector that don't have any budget for video marketing that have the most inspiring stories to tell. WCVA is really excited to be part of this new prize and helping third sector organisations to bring their work to life.' 

Entries received before the 1 May deadline will be shortlisted by the team at Rockadove before the judging panel makes the final decision. 

* For more information and to enter, visit www.rockadove.co.uk/tsp before 6pm on May 1.

Save the planet demo staged in Castle Street

Yesterday (Monday) afternoon saw the first Extinction Rebellion Llangollen meet-up being held in Castle Street.

The message from the protesters was: “Switch to lean, Switch to green, We want all our sources clean!”

* Pictures by courtesy of Cariad Yoga.

Operatic tunes up for Fiddler on the Roof

* Members of the cast of Fiddler on the Roof. Picture by Barrie Potter.

For the first time in 36 years Llangollen Operatic Society is to present the stage version of big screen blockbuster Fiddler on the Roof later this month.

The society last put on the show back in 1983 to great acclaim and a completely new cast bring it back to Llangollen Town Hall from April 30-May 4.  

The Bock, Harnick and Stein classic is set in the early 20th century in a Jewish village in Russia and their centuries old traditions which the village milkman Reb Tevye is determined to hold on to.  

But change is coming and it is difficult to ignore it.

The show features a host of memorable songs, including the show stopper If I Were a Rich Man, Sunrise Sunset and Tradition.

A strong cast is headed by Bill Hughes taking on the role of Tevye.

He comes to Fiddler fresh from his role with the society playing likeable cockney rogue Doolittle in their production of My Fair Lady last year.

There are many new faces in the line up with some coming from as far away as Colwyn Bay to take on key roles.  

A number of talented young performers are also joining the cast from the society's junior section, the Young 'Uns, who recently presented a smash-hit version of Grease in Llangollen.  

Producer Helen Belton said: "We welcome them to Fiddler because they are tomorrow's leads, chorus, producers, directors."

  

Musical director for the show is Leigh Mason who holds the same role with the famous Fron Male Voice Choir.

Director is Alison Ravenscroft and choreographer is Pamela Williams.

* Tickets for Fiddler on the Roof are now available online at www.ticketsource.co.uk/llangollenoperaticsociety as well as at the following Llangollen establishments - Jades, Llangollen Oggie and Fine Foods and Gwyn the Butcher.

Llangollen Railway bridges the gap at Corwen

* The work in progress looking across the area towards Corwen.

In the course of a four-day exercise beginning on April 15, a team of Llangollen Railway's Corwen Project volunteers helped local contractor Arwel Dolben with infilling the gap in the railway embankment. 

This has long been seen as the major obstruction in completing the railway line through to the new Corwen terminus.

Many tonnes of infill material have been recovered from the old Ruthin branch embankment and brought round by the dumper loads to the site of the gap.

The infill has required careful layering and rolling to provide a firm base as the level was brought up by 10 feet in places across the width of the former trackbed.

At the end on the first phase of the exercise project manager Richard Dixon-Gough said:

" May I, on behalf of the project team and Llangollen Railway, express my thanks and gratitude to all who have worked so hard over some long days and taken on the physical effort to achieve so much this week.
 "With the support of our contractors we have literally moved mountains and the first phase of the exercise has been virtually completed. Without the input from everyone involved this would not have happened."

The cost of the exercise was met through the Infill the Gap appeal for donations which has raised over £10,000 from supporters and well wishers, with £500 coming from a charity raffle organised by Corwen townsfolk.

Completion of the final phase of the project will continue after Easter. When complete new track will be laid to connect the existing railhead with the loop line in the platform area.