News

Both primary schools made a special presentation to LATCH, this year’s Community charity. The proceeds of their Christmas concerts were donated by the pupils of both schools to the charity at a presentation held in the schools on Monday 20th January. Lyn Howell, a volunteer from LATCH showed a video of the work of the charity and where the funds will be going to help children with cancer. Steve Murray, also a volunteer, accepted the cheques on behalf of the charity totalling £1325.

We are delighted to report that the meeting held on 15^th January attracted 43 people all eager to be a part of a new Choral Society. Peter Esswood gave details of his career to date and said how delighted he was with such a good turnout. He also said that he felt confident there would be others that will wish to become members. He even got those present to sing a short Chorale from Bach’s St Matthew Passion – unaccompanied and from scratch. It worked, sounded good, and even stayed in pitch. Good vibes for the future.

With such enthusiasm and capability, it was agreed to start rehearsals immediately. They will be held on Wednesdays either in the New Schoolrooms or Christ Church itself, starting at 7.30pm next Wednesday, 22^nd January. They will probably go on to 9.00pm.

Whilst members will be expected to be reasonably proficient in choral singing, it was decided not to ask people to go through an audition. Instead, people interested in joining should just come along and see how they get on. There will need to be a subscription but the level of that has yet to be set – things are happening very rapidly. So members will asked to pay just £10 to start and a further £2 per rehearsal attended thereafter. Once the subscription has been worked out the amount paid up-front will be deducted from the agreed fee. People will be free to leave at any time in this starting phase, but money will not be refunded.

Peter also managed to get a few volunteers to start the task of sorting out all the administration side – tedious but ever so necessary. Anyone who thinks they can assist in any way should contact him. He has great ambitions for the Society, even suggesting that one of his favourite works was The Dream of Gerontius, but that might be running ahead rather too quickly. He hoped the Society would put on three or four concerts a year, perhaps in different locations. The first ‘outing’ will be during this year’s R&M May Festival.

If you would like any further information, please contact Peter by email here or mobile, 07831 300617.

There has not been a proper Choral Society in R&M since the closing down of the old Radyr & District Choral Society over ten years ago. This is a great pity as there are many choral singers in and around the R&M Community, many of whom have gone off to sing in other societies.

But this could all change soon. Peter Esswood, who recently retired from the Royal Welsh School of Music and Drama – and lives in Radyr – has said he would like to get a choir going. Peter conducted at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations at the Golf Club in 2012 and at the ‘Concert in the Parc’ at the end of last year’s May Festival.

Peter is inviting all those who might be interested in joining a new choir to come along to a meeting at the Old Church Rooms at 8:00pm on Wednesday, 15^th January. Singers of any age will be welcome but some choral experience might be an advantage – there will probably be a simple audition to join! However, do not be put off by that. If you have been watching the programmes with Gareth Malone, you will know that good singers can appear from anywhere. You will also have noted just how much fun singing can be.

The repertoire of the new Society is up for discussion but Peter sees it as being mainly classical, with an emphasis on the ‘great choral works’.

So, if you are interested or just intrigued, come along on Wednesday 15^th January.

If you want any more information in advance, then Peter can be contacted via email here or ring him on 07831 300617.

Radyr resident Marcia Watts has been awarded the BEM in the Queen’s 2013 Honours list. Marcia has worked as a volunteer at Dan y Bryn Cheshire Home for over 20 years and has been involved with the Welsh Music College. She was a Community Councillor for Radyr, Castell View ward for a short time.

We are delighted to note that Radyr resident Marcia Watts has been awarded the British Empire Medal in this year’s New Year’s Honours list.

Marcia is secretary to the Friends of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, is a volunteer at Leonard Cheshire Disability, Danybryn, and was also a one-time member of the Radyr & Morganstown Community Council.

We all send her our heartiest congratulations.

Three
play readings will be held during June 2014. On Tues 10^th June, we
are reading ‘The Schoolmistress’ by A Pinero and on Tues 17^th June
the play will be ‘The Sunshine Boys’ by
Neil Simon’. On Thurs 26^th June, we will start with the A.G.M.,
followed by a reading of a play yet to be decided.

New members will be very welcome and further details are on the drama page of this web site.

LATCH – the Charity for children with cancer, has been selected as the village Festival charity for 2013/14. At the recent tree lighting ceremony bucket and stall collections amounted to £469. This was quickly followed by donations from our two local schools’ Christmas concerts. Bryn Deri donated £823 and Radyr Primary School £500. A further £92 was donated by the Cardiff Morris Dance group organised by David Silver and £30 from The Orchard tea house in Park Road.

The ladies of the Radyr & Morganstown WI have donated a community notice board for display at the Old Church Rooms in Park Road. This money is part of a grant received from the developers of the refurbished Radyr library for work performed by the WI. The rest of the grant has been donated to the Comprehensive School as a student award for community work. Pat Williams, Chair of the WI and members of the committee along with Nick Hawkins, chairman of the hall management committee formally handed the board over.

Yes, Radyr and Morganstown have finally moved into social media with the launch of the “Radyr & Morganstown Hub”. This is a Facebook Page for the entire community that we hope that local residents, organisations and businesses will come to make their own.

We launched the page just over two weeks ago and so far it has been very successful. We have already had over 150 people liking the page. These people will will get details of events and news fed straight into their own news feed without having to search for them. Over 1000 people have already looked at the page to see what is there.

We have been posting details of our own events ourselves, notably the Christmas Tree lighting event. There have also been posts about the RMA meeting speakers, Arriva trains new system of penalties for travelling without a ticket, Twinning, Bryn Deri School, Parish events, PACT, Cardiff Harlequins running club and the Radyr and Morganstown Rouleurs amongst others.

Obviously a number of groups and individuals have started using it. However, to make it really successful, we need more of you to start using it and posting on the page. We hope organisations will use it to tell the community what they are planning to do, where they need help and what they have been doing, with pictures if possible. Showing what you do will hopefully get you new recruits as well. Businesses can use it to tell us what they are doing.If you don’t have an account yourself, or no one in your organisation does, just send the information to us at events@radyr.org.uk and we will put it on for you. Another area where it can be used is if anyone wants to set up a group or start an activity that does not already exist. This is a great way to find like minded people. For those of you who do not use Facebook, why not start today. There are over a billion users worldwide and 30 million users in the UK, about half the population.

It is easy to get started by going to www.facebook.com or simply doing a google search on “How to open a facebook account”. You will be up and running in no time.

The Page is for everyone in R&M and it is there to supplement both the website and the Radyr Chain. Please use it to make it as beneficial to our community as possible

A large crowd gathered in Station Road for the switching on of the lights. Earlier Bryn Deri School choir and the Festival Queen assisted in switching the Christmas tree lights on in the Granny Park, Morganstown. At the same time Radyr Primary School choir and Princess Emma accompanied by Martha Pugh helped to switch the lights on the Lychgate Gardens tree. The crowd in Station Road were entertained with Christmas music, shopping at the many stalls and barbecue waiting for the lighting of the Windsor Road tree. The children from the two schools arrived to form a combined choir and sang two carols whilst the Festival Queen, her attendants and Martha helped the electricians to turn on the lights to be a big cheer. It was time to cross back into to Station Road for the overhead lighting to be switched by Martha and Patch, the LATCH dog, which was duly done to a count down from 10 to 0. Now was the time for the arrival of Santa, sitting in his sleigh with his helpers from the scouts. Sue was there to make sure that each child received a small gift from Santa and in the knowledge that their Christmas wish would be noted. Several hundred members of our community supported the charity stalls and local shops, who had stayed open for the occasion. Residents gave generously to the bucket collection for LATCH raising £469 on the night. This was in addition to a contribution made by Bryn Deri School from their Christmas carol concerts of £823. Radyr Primary School have donated a further £500, Morris Dancers £92 and The Orchard £30 – making a total of c£1900. A good start for our village support of this year’s charity. Other Charities also benefited from this event.

The Shop window display competition was won by Headway and the runner up was Ener Chi. It is thanks to all the shopkeepers, cafes and agents who took part to make the village a Christmas wonderland.

Many more photos in the GALLERY.

On the first Monday and Tuesday of December teams drawn from both the R&M Community Coucil and the R&M Association put up 13 trees, with lights, around the Community. The three main trees – in Windsor Park, the Granny Park (in Morganstown) and Lychgate Gardens – will be turned on during the events on Friday evening. The 10 trees above the shops in Station Road are already lit and already make a lovely backdrop. The shops have also dressed their windows for Christmas – well worth taking a look.

A short while ago the festoons and motifs (fixed to the lamposts) were put up in Station Road by a contractor. These will be lit on Friday evening as well.

Details of the lighting ceremony should have been delivered to all households in R&M ove the last week. If you missed the A5 leaflet, there is a link to it in the Noticeboard, and there is another one here.

As for the evening itself (which promises to be cold but dry), the two trees in Morganstown and Lychgate Gardens will both be lit at 6.00pm accompanied by carols sung by choirs from our two Primary Schools. Both of those will be lovely mini-events and great photo-opportunities.

Station Road will be closed from 5pm to allow set-up of the main event. A number of the shops are staying open late. There will be 13 stalls selling all sorts of items, a mulled wine bar and a BBQ. There will be no need to go hungry. Chris Dale has kindly agreed to look after the sound syetem for us (he now does for most of our major events) so there will be lots of Christmas music to listen to. All the stalls will be ‘open’ by 6:30pm so do come along early to have a look around, soak up the atmopshere, and even have an early drink of mulled wine. (Soft drinks will also be available).

At 6.40pm the attention will briefly cross Heol Isaf to Windsor Gardens where the main tree will be lit by this year’s Festival Queen, and there will be more carols sung by the schools. Another photo-opportunity.

At 6.50pm the main lights in Station Road will be lit by ‘PATCH from LATCH’ and his special friend, young patient Martha Pugh. LATCH is the R&M Association’s chosen charity for 2013/14 (you will hearing a lot about them in next year’s May Festival). So we are delighted to welcome PATCH (a somewhat unruly ‘dog’, we are told) and Martha for this key part of the evening.

At 6.55pm Santa will appear to take up his postion in his sleigh outside the resturaant (which, sadly, will not be open – that is going to happen, we hear, on 1 January). The Scouts have kindly agreed to take charge of the crowds. Every child will have an opportuhity to speak to Santa, and will be awarded with a satsuma!

So come along and ejnjoy yourselves. As noted before, the forecast is good – no snow (we had that one year) but cold and dry. It will be lovely.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, 10/11/13, two burglars climbed on to the porch roof, jemmied a window and broke into the bar area of the club. As they clambered into the room they set off all the alarms. In time they had they smashed a trophy cupboard and took a number of trophies. They made their escape through another window, leaving broken glass and discarded trophies all over the floor. This was obviously a predetermined effort to rob the Club. Fortunately they were caught out by the alarm system and caught on CCTV. Let’s hope the perpetrators are caught! The police arrived within minutes. Accompanied by their dogs, they entered the premises to discover the attempted robbery.

A crane manipulating the Radyr bridge. All the tyres were let down to get under the low bridge before they could get the crane on the other side to install the new power lines. This matter has been the subject in the soapbox over the last few weeks. I think it is all coming to an end!

Our local County Councillor reports that Western Power Distribution will be removing soon the netting over various roads and bridges
WPD has agreed to remediate all damaged verges and paths

121 R&M Residents attended a meeting in the Drama Studio of Radyr Comprehensive School on 7th October 2013 to learn about the implications of the Cardiff Local Development Plan (LDP). Speakers at the meeting were Cllr Rod McKerlich, Chairman of the Radyr & Morganstown Community Council (R&MCC), and Nick Hawkins, Secretary of the Radyr & Morganstown Association (RMA).

Cllr McKerlich apologised that no Council Officers were present. He had extended an invitation to them to join the meeting but had been told that legal restrictions prevented their attendance at ‘private meetings’ at this time.

Residents heard that the LDP sets out the plan to build 41,100 new homes in Cardiff by 2026, 5000 of which will lie between the southern boundary of Radyr and St Fagans and Fairwater. A further 2650 homes are also to be built up towards Creigiau. The R&MCC and the RMA have been working with adjacent Community Councils in Creigiau, Llandaff, Pentyrch and St Fagans who will all be affected by this scale of development.

There was a full discussion on the implications of the LDP and brief notes of the meeting can be found here. Inevitably, the key issues raised concerned traffic and the fear that the necessary infrastructure (ideally railways) might not be put in place before the homes are built. Residents were told that it was an uncomfortable truth that developers are not required to fund all the necessary infrastructure in advance of building and that a fully functioning railway could cost up to £1 Billion.

The LDP went out to full public consultation for a six week period from Tuesday, 15^th October 2013 to Tuesday 26^th November. There was a ‘Drop in Exhibition’ at the Old Church Rooms, Park Road, Radyr on Thursday, 31^stOctober when residents talked to Council Officers and expressed their views. Various ‘Consultee Conferences’ (i.e. public meetings including a presentation and round table discussions) were held, including one at Plasmawr High School, Pentrebane Road, Fairwater on Tuesday 12^th November.

It was firmly hoped that as many R&M residents as possible would take advantage of these opportunities to be involved with this critical planning process. About 40 people came to the OCR on October 31st.

Our local MP, Kevin Brennan, gave a wonderful talk at the last Radyr & Morganstown Association meeting on Monday, 16^th September.

He spoke about his role as an MP and the changing role of Parliament, giving insights into the nature of the Parliamentary buildings themselves and the famous people who have worked within their walls. Jennie Lee, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and even Winston Churchill got a mention. The talk covered his views on the increased accessibility to politicians, the power of Parliament, and even the influence of Trade Unions.

If you would like to read the summary of his talk in the minutes of the meeting, which also covered the Local Development Plan, the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on 6^th December and even next year’s May Festival, they can be found here.

The next Association meeting will be on Monday, 18^th November 2013 at 7.30pm in the Old Church Rooms when the speaker will be Martin Chamberlain of Forest Farm.

If you would like any further details about the Association and its meetings, contact the Secretary, Nick Hawkins, on 029 2084 2561 or rma@radyr.org.uk.

The public consultation on the LDP is now closed.

Cardiff’s information and documents are here.

R&MCC’s information and responses are here.

Our last News Item (see here) back in June gave a lot of detail as to the changes being suggested in North West Cardiff by the LDP. The R&M Community Council is working with its partners in the NW Cardiff Group (Pentyrch CC, St Fagans CC and the Llandaff Society) to analyse the Plan and we issued an earlier statement on our findings.

Cardiff’s LDP includes significant changes to R&M and our neighbouring communities. We take this issue very seriously and are actively engaged with the consultation process, Cardiff Council Officers, our County Councillor, MP and AM and neighbouring Community Councils to ensure that we represent the R&M Community effectively. We held a public meeting on 7 October to give everyone an opportunity to be fully briefed and to hear your views directly. 114 people attended. R&MCC’s LDP October 7 meeting leaflet : English Cymraeg

Our position is that we welcome the LDP and accept the need for some development. Our over-riding concern is that the existing bus, rail and road transport in NW Cardiff cannot cope with the proposed development and cannot sufficiently be improved. The Deposit Plan was certainly flawed in this respect.

In an excellent report the school achieved a “Good” marking for both their current performance and for their prospects for improvement. They were also marked as “Good” for each ESTYN key question and sub-section.

The school’s current performance is Good

The school’s prospects for improvement are Good

Current performance The current performance of the school is good because:

· nearly all pupils make good progress from their starting points;

· the overall performance of pupils is consistently high and compares well with family and national averages;

· most teaching is good;

· the curriculum is broad and balanced with literacy and numeracy given a high priority; and most behaviour is good and levels of participation in learning are very high.

Prospects for improvement The school’s prospects for improvement are good because:

· the new head teacher has settled into her new role extremely well and she has a clear vision for the school;

· there is a thorough process for self-evaluation and very good use of data;

· there is a very clear focus on raising standards of teaching and learning;

· school improvement plans focus well on suitable priorities;

· successful partnerships contribute effectively to improving outcomes for pupils; and

· Governors provide good support and direction for the work of the school.

If you wish to read it the full report can be found on http://www.estyn.gov.uk/english/provider/6812153/

Thanks to the efforts of the Radyr & Morganstown Association the hanging baskets in Station Road have at last been restored to their summer glory. Cardiff Council have supplied the baskets for the last two years but budget cuts mean they can no longer afford to do that. Unfortunately, they did not tell us.

When the RMA heard the baskets would not be refreshed they stepped in, fixed the automatic watering system (which had been damaged in the cold last winter), then took down and refilled the baskets.

Well done and many thanks is all we can say.