Meeting Point Volume 44, Number 8, May 2020 The community magazine for the villages of Olveston, Tockington, Old Down, Lower Hazel, Awkley, Ingst, Aust, Elberton and Littleton upon Severn Courtlands If you read the small print at the bottom of this Olveston Bristol BS35 4DU page, you will see that Meeting Point was founded Tel: 01454 610081 in 1976. This month is the first, in all those 44 meetingpointeditor@ years, that the magazine has not been delivered to gmail.com every home in the area by our delivery volunteers. The reasons why we have decided to be online only for the time being are now all too familiar to our readers. Rest assured - we will return to a print Ashlea copy just as soon as we can. Haw Lane Olveston This month s content is quite unusual; there are no Bristol BS35 4EG articles advertising upcoming events - in fact there Tel 01454 612850 is no diary page, and we have no details of church meetingpointmagazine@ services, just contact details for each church. gmail.com However, the magazine is full of a variety of articles: we learn how a team of volunteers quickly mobilised to support the homebound and elderly in the area during lockdown; there are two articles Tel: 01454 620388 about how VE and VJ Days were celebrated meetingpointadvertising@ locally; we can find out how to access weekly gmail.com services from St. Mary s via YouTube and there is plenty more . This cover is by John Hodges Meeting Point Founded in 1976 by the Anglican and Methodist churches in Olveston, near Bristol. Meeting Point magazine and Meeting Point Directory are online at the May 2020 Community Website: www.olvestonandaust.com Martin Gibson Churchwarden & Parish Councillor If you have a neighbour, or friend, who would like to read Meeting Point, but who is not online, please offer to print Everyone knows that we live in a very special community. Two large villages them a copy. and four outlying hamlets, rural but with several useful facilities and good links This is easy to do from the website and most printers will fit to work-centres in Bristol and the rest of the country. And then disaster - two A5 pages onto one side of A4. Coronavirus, illness, lockdown, social distancing. How on earth do we cope, especially with an elderly demographic. If you are not allowed outside other than for limited exercise, not supposed to drive, cialise, how on earth can you manage? This was the problem put to me on Sunday 15th March. Then somebody Bernard Amos suggested that we start a social media group . Requests for support could be posted onto the group and then volunteers Rev. David Moss and Rev. Stephen Oram are now could offer to resolve the issues. The idea was to bring all the key contacts in known as the Revs Rural. Together they are the community together (such as the shops, Church and Parish Council) with pulling together an on-line virtual service each anyone wishing to volunteer, so that up to date information could be passed Sunday. This is a challenge, obviously, as they are and support offered to our vulnerable and self-isolating neighbours. Twenty in isolation from each other, but they have people signed up immediately to a WhatsApp group - called Village Volunteers managed to get people together by asking various - and that initial group soon swelled to sixty. folk to either sing a hymn (or a verse or two), play a piece of music, take the intercession prayers, give a sermon, rea Although the crisis had not yet hit home, the first thing needed was useful, would happen in Church. They then stitch them together into a virtual practical information - such as phone numbers of key people and local service. services - to be delivered to every hou already had a distribution network and Olveston Parish Council offered to For Palm Sunday they asked for some people to video themselves waving and stump up the cost of printing. inserted the videos into the service. They are getting a little bit slicker each week and on Palm Sunday even included a humorous out-take at the end. Within two days, cards with essential contact numbers were compiled and They can be found on YouTube, simply put RevsRural into your search th printed. They were ready for distribution by 2:30pm on Tuesday 17 March engine. and by 4:30pm on the same day, over FIVE HUNDRED households had received them. All 650 houses in the Parish had the card by noon the next day. The Village Volunteers did all the legwork (in the rain!) Rod Williams Phone calls asking for help started arriving on Wednesday 18th March. With so many of us enjoying local walks as our daily exercise, it is worth remembering that there are six leaflets, published two years ago, describing different walks covering Tockington, Olveston, Old Down and Rudgeway. Most housebound? are about 2.5 miles, with one at 1.8 miles. Can someone please shop for me I am an invalid? afraid. Packs of the leaflets - which are free - are available in the porch of St Mary's My dog is in difficulty and having puppies could someone please Church, Olveston. There are three map boards in the area which also show take me to the vets in Milbury Heath? (This was at 10.30pm and the the walks; these can be found on the bus shelter in Tockington, at Old Down ome until 2am!). near the pavilion and at the bottom of Haw Lane. Every single call for help was answered within minutes. [These walks are also online. Go to www.olveston.com - bottom of the page.] At the time of writing (5th April) no one knows what the next few weeks will hold, but one thing is certain, there is help, whatever that might be, available to everyone, from the Village Volunteers and not forgetting Tockington ouncil. Local businesses, Saffia Farr especially Olveston Stores and The Crusty Loaf, have also been extremely helpful. On Friday 13th March, Got So now we know just why Olveston Parish really is the best place to live in the Talent, was back for its second year and it world Community Spirit . was bigger and better than ever. Eighteen acts performed before a packed-out hall. The audience was treated to solos, piano and singer duets, drumming, dances, duets, self-composed piano performances and a show-stopping recorder performance of Mamma Mia by Mr Dyer and Miss Staley, dressed in costum extensive theatrical wardrobe! The event was judged by teachers Mr Hulin and Mr Richards who made an excellent double-act. The evening was hosted once again by the amazing Paris Troy who supported and encouraged the acts and entertained the Chris Bolton audience with his quick wit. In common with so s trip to Bréhan, our Twin The judges award went to Mabel and Hattie who performed a beautiful and visit would have coincided with the 75th anniversary of VE Day, and it would Bird Set Free. have been particularly interesting to see it from the other side of the Channel. (See photo) The audience vote was won by Megan and Harry who performed A coach and a ferry crossing had already been booked, and our friends in George Ez Budapest with Megan on Bréhan generously offered to contribute to the cost of cancelling, but vocals and Harry on guitar. Both sets of fortunately we were able to cancel before it cost OP l. winners were given glass trophies kindly Back at the end of March we had an update from Bréhan, which had a familiar donated by Linela. ring: With amazing performances, Bréhan has been an empty town for 2 weeks. We are all locked in our refreshments provided by the Friends of houses, with only an outing for supplies and bread, and work for those who Marlwood and a raffle with generous cannot work from home. We have a few people hospitalized for prizes from Kings Heavy Haulage, The CORONAVIRUS. Fox at Easter Compton, Container It's very stressful confinement. The Government has just announced that the Team, Randalls Office Furniture, Perry next 2 weeks will be terrible in terms of the number of people infected. We are & Sons butchers, NEAT technical asked services and C The World Travel, the audience left buzzing with happiness Our thoughts have been, and are, very much with them. and with smiles on their faces. There is The other activity which OPTA had planned was the Wine Tasting Event, a no doubt that Marlwood has got talent fundraiser which has been postponed until we can hold it safely. The wines to Photo by Imogen Roberts and the love of the Marlwood community be tasted are stashed away in my house. I just hope I can resist the conti temptation! Trevor Anderson Melinda Evans Greetings from the Movie Club Team. As many of you will We are all spending a lot of time at home at the know, we have taken the difficult decision to cancel our April to June Spring moment, and for some this will be a great opportunity Programme of movies in response to the worst public health crisis in a to spend even more time working in the garden. Springtime also gives those of us more fair-weather community is always our number one concern. We hope to return to a full gardeners the encouragement needed to get outside programme in the Autumn and we will keep you informed. and attend to jobs. The warmer weather and bonus home time has coincided with the withdrawal of garden waste services by South Gloucestershire Meanwhile, how about a short quiz? If you have time (and I think many of us Council as they concentrate on domestic waste, to create a perfect storm for have time at the moment) have a go at answering these Movie Club questions.