This week has been terrible, a terrible week of weather! Even this weekend it’s been a rare occasion for it to have stopped raining.

Hopefully you’ve not been too negatively affected by the weather. I saw lots of photos of flooded roads, but not too many of flooded houses. I think we all probably saw that stranded Ice Cream van. Who’s buying Ice Cream from a van in November?!

This week I bought a new piece of equipment for the podcast to hopefully improve telephone interviews, then I found that it introduced so much electrical interference I’m going to have to get rid.

This week I talked about the sense of community around Ramsbottom, one of the things that confirmed that me and my family had made the right choice of moving to Ramsbottom was the range of groups and activities that were ran by people giving up their time to contribute back to the town or meet socially and share a passion.

Before we moved here, my friend Josh had told me about Incredible Edible, I think in part because we share an interest in foraging and living off the land. We don’t do it, but we like to have an idea that if necessity required it we’d know what won’t kill us. The most I’ve grown has been a few potatoes and string beans as a child and harvesting the already present blackcurrant bush from my garden since moving to Ramsbottom.

Since moving to Ramsbottom I did get involved one night early on at Market Square with Incredible Edible.

They are just one group in Ramsbottom amongst many, the group in particular I want to talk about this week is one that I am a member of, it’s one that’s got the community in mind.

Before I talk about that group though, let me just list off all the groups I could find, if I miss out any groups, please get in touch.

Here we go:

Ramsbottom Rotary Club

Additional groups since podcast:

You might have heard of the Ramsbottom Community Hub? If not, maybe you have seen some of the work that they’ve been doing. Helping out at the Library Arts and Crafts refreshments staff, creating the Human Fruit Machine at Nuttall Park for the Lantern Parade but a recent bit of work that they’ve been doing has probably gone unnoticed.

Two meetings ago I mentioned to one of the members of the community hub Stuart Barkley that we have some big ideas for the hub, but sometimes, something as simple as a litter pick is enough to give back to the community.

I should have learnt by now, Stuart is not one to just sit around, within a week he had stated where and when he was going to go out

Following on from the success of that litter pick, Stuart arranged another one on the 10th of November, the day after this months meeting. This time, several more hub members were able to help, a total of around 8 or 9 people helped out. The rubbish that was collected was even sorted into recyclables, a lost football donated to a passing family in Nuttall Park and actual fun was had amongst the group whilst it happened.

Things like this is what the hub is for, helping out at existing events, bringing groups together and getting our town into a better condition like with the litter pick.

I’ll be having several of the group members on the podcast in a few weeks so that you can get a feel of the group, that way you don’t have to turn up at a meeting without an idea of what happens. The group is made up of some really amazing people and I’m proud to say I’m a member.

Lastly, I wanted to mention Ramsbottom United have increased their win percentage by 100%. Yes, that’s right, we’ve won another game! We are still bottom of the league, but we’ve got a game or two in hand over some of the other clubs above us and it only takes a couple more wins for us to jump about 3 or 4 places (assuming they have results in our favour too). Sadly yesterday’s match was called off due to a waterlogged pitch.

Links:

Stuart Barkley

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