News

The opening night is drawing near and there is a palpable focus (or is it panic!) in rehearsals, as for the 23rd year of its existence the Radyr Parish Music Group gets ready to apply the greasepaint, don the costumes and tread the boards.

This year the residents of Radyr and Morganstown are in for a real treat – the cymbals sound, and horns blast as your neighbours appear as you have never seen them before – willing victims of aesthetic transfiguration! Flowing locks, gowns, and lilies abound – and the women are even more outrageous!

‘Patience’ is one of the most under-rated but charming of Gilbert and Sullivan’s long line of operettas. It satirises a late Victorian fad of recreating Medieval romance and art (think of the interior decoration of Cardiff Castle!) so it has a marvellous array of wildly flamboyant poets, swooning maidens, dragoon guards and Patience – the milkmaid who, through her rustic simplicity, actually exposes the nonsense of the whole ‘aesthetic’ movement and wins our hearts.

The music ranks with Gilbert and Sullivan’s finest and the humour equally so. From the foot tapping jollity of ‘In that case unprecedented’ to the tear jerking melancholy of ‘I hear the soft note of the echoing voice’, this production has been a treat for all involved in its preparation and hopefully that will show through when it is performed.

Production dates: 21-24 February

Tickets (from £5.50-£7.50) available from Sue Thomas, 1b Heol Isaf, Radyr, Cardiff, CF15 8AF (Tel 029 2031 0894).

For further details see www.music.radyr.org.uk

It is twenty years to the month since Sue Philpott became a member of Radyr and Morganstown Community Council. At the end of last night’s council meeting she was presented with a poem especially written by members of the community.

Sue is currently Chair of the Council. This is the fourth time she has held this position having previously been Chair in 1989, 1994 and 2001.

Besides her obvious great interest in local community, Sue is a keen gardener, has a strong interest in environmental affairs and has superb culinary skills, preparing Friday lunch at the Old Church Rooms for the senior citizens of Radyr and Morganstown.

We all look forward to working with Sue for many more years.

David Silver
Vice Chair of the Council

On Thursday 12th October, Reverend Jenny Wigley was inducted as the new Rector of the Parish of Radyr. The service, conducted by the Right Reverend Dr David Yeoman, Assistant Bishop of Llandaff and assisted by the Venerable Bill Thomas, Archdeacon of Llandaff, was attended by 265 parishioners, friends and clerics. It was followed by a reception in the New Schoolrooms. Jenny’s first service in the Parish will be on Sunday, 15th October.

The picture shows Jenny together with (from the left), Bill Thomas, David Yeoman and her husband, Stephen. Her two boys, David and Andrew, are in the front.

Jenny and her family will be moving into the new Rectory being built behind Christ Church when it is finished.

February’s Radyr Chain will be a youth edition. The Editors have invited children and young people to contribute all the content. A group of young people will be editing and preparing the Chain for publication. Get in touch if you want to join the team.

If you are under 25 you can get involved in many ways: either on the editorial team as a lead writer or designer, as someone with IT skills or simply submit something. Local schools, churches and clubs are also involved with student-led projects on various themes.

The style, the design, the content is down to those who get involved. There’s space for local news, eco stuff, reviews of music, film or games, features on arts and culture, spirituality and lifestyle, group or individual blogs, campaigning articles, competitions and questionnaires, investigative journalism.

We are also linking this to a video-cam project. RMA youth and Imaging 2000 will give you a recorder for a week. Tell us about an issue in Radyr from your perspective and report in the Chain and Festival.

For more information get in touch the team at rmayouth@radyr.org.uk or phone 029 20843291 / 20843938.

Garry Newbould and Kieran Webster (R&M Association Executive)

Radyr & Morganstown Association held their first Festival 2007 meeting last night (18th September) at the Old Church Rooms. It was a very productive meeting with the initial programme being developed. There are still one or two evenings available and we would welcome any new suggestions!

Linda Kinnick of the NSPCC (our 2007 charity) attended the meeting together with Barbara Sullivan (Chair) and other members of the local branch.

Allan Cook has already been working hard towards improving the arts content for the 2007 festival. Fluellen will be back and ‘At the drop of another hippopotamus’ a tribute to Flanders and Swann is hoped will be the opening concert on the 5th May, 2007. Allan has also been offered world premiers of 7 songs for tenor and baritone by Welsh composer Merion Williams. The first half of the concert would be Merion Williams and the second half popular arias for tenor and baritone. Allan has also been offered the British Libraries exhibition of the Llandeilo/Lichfield Gospels. It is a computer exhibition with which you can turn the pages of the illuminated Gospel on the screen.

Maggie Roberts and Julie Davies will once again be choosing the 2007 Festival Queen in February.

Mick Sullivan will continue to be the official photographer with an assistant, Paul.

The Nominations for the 2008 charity are Motor Neurone Association and George Thomas Hospice. Beverley Lewis and Chris Willis the nominees are to be invited to make presentations for their charity at the next meeting which is Wednesday 15th Nov at 7.30pm in the Old Church Rooms.

Due to the fantastic work done by Norman Clewer, the Old Church Rooms has been awarded first prize in the

“Best kept Community Garden”

section of this year’s Cardiff in Bloom competition.

Congratulations to Norman for all his hard work. The gardens looked really stunning.

Other prizes won in the competition were:

Norman Clewer (again) 1st place in the Radyr & Morganstown Ward for his own garden in Windsor Avenue within Class 1 (Best front garden);

Claire Thompson 2nd place in the same category for her garden in Maes yr Orchis;

John Williams, of Cefn Coch, 1st place in Class 6 (Best front garden, first time entrant).

The standard of these gardens is such that John Williams was also awarded first prize and Norman Clewer second prize in the City Finals for the classes entered.

These cover all Wards in the city.

The associated pictures (above), taken by Mick Sullivan, show the Old Church Rooms garden and others which all added to the spirit of Cardiff in Bloom.

The doctors at Radyr Health Centre would like to inform all our patients that from September 11th 2006 we will be practising at our new premises behind the church on Heol Isaf.

The address will be

                              RADYR MEDICAL CENTRE

                              Rectory Walk

                              Radyr

                              Cardiff

                              CF15 8DZ

Our phone numbers will remain unchanged.

The new Medical centre will have ample parking and we look forward to treating our patients in a modern environment.

The following is a report on the Fight the Landfill Residents Action Group meeting which took place in Pentyrch Village Hall on Friday 7 July.

What a fantastic evening – it was a success!

The turnout was incredible!

The questions were constructive (we had done our homework) unlike the council!

The media coverage was good – Red Dragon Radio news every hour all day Saturday, HTV News and page 2 of the Echo!

We have sent, in writing, the questions which were not answered (which was most of them) to the appropriate individuals, giving the time parameters in which we expect the responses. We will of course keep all up dated on any developments.

Please pass on the e-mail address others – the bigger the network the greater the impact!

Many thanks again for your continued support.

TONI

Contact Fight the Landfill Residents Action Group at fightthelandfill@fsmail.net for more information.

We are delighted to announce that the Reverend Jenny Wigley has been appointed as the new Rector of the Parish of Radyr. At present Jenny is Team Vicar in the Parish of Central Cardiff and will be taking up her appointment (probably) in early October.

Born in North Wales in 1953, Jenny was a teacher before being ordained in St Asaph Diocese. She is married to the Rev Stephen Wigley, who is the Minister of Cathays Methodist Church, and superintendent of the Cardiff Methodist Circuit. They have a pair of 12yr old twin boys. She joined her present team as Vicar of Cathays in May 2002, having previously worked as University Chaplain in Swansea.

The Parish is looking forward to welcoming Jenny in the autumn.

The golfer Oliver Duckett, assistant Professional at Radyr Golf Club, achieved an amazing TEN ROUNDS of golf in one day and raised funds for TENOVUS the adopted charity of RYDER CUP WALES.

This step towards the World Record of 209 holes was featured on BBC Wales Today by Sports Presenter Bob Humphries.

The First Minister and the Chair of Ryder Cup Wales John Jermine supported the event and the Ryder Cup was displayed at Radyr Golf Club for all to have a rare chance to see the famous Trophy.

Many congratulations and grateful thanks are extended to Oliver.

Betty Fitzgerald (Radyr and Morganstown Tenovus Group)

Over the last couple of weeks the Community Council has held its annual meeting and the initial Committee meetings of the year. Congratulations to the new officers who have been elected for 2006/7.

• Chair of Council – Sue Philpott
• Vice Chair – David Silver
• Chair of Finance Committee – Margaret Lloyd
• Chair of Environment Committee – David Silver

All meetings of the Council are open to members of the public and are held at 7.30pm in the Old Church Rooms. Meetings are held on the fourth Thursday of the month with the exception of August and December.

Unfortunately, Val Harvey, our current Clerk/Financial Officer, is moving away from the area and the Council are looking for a person to fill this important part time position. If anyone is interested in applying for the post and would like more information, contact the clerk at clerk@radyr.org.uk or phone 029 2084 2213.

Thanks go to Margaret Lloyd, the outgoing Chair, and to Councillor Marcia Watts who resigned last month. Marcia worked tirelessly for both the Council and the Good Neighbours scheme and will be missed by both groups. This has left a vacancy on the Council. If anyone is interested in this position please contact the Clerk for further information.

Have you done anything interesting in Radyr and Morganstown today? If so maybe you want to tell people about it.

We are interested in hearing from you about happenings in Radyr and Morganstown, or involving Radyr and Morganstown people. Perhaps you could write a few paragraphs for us to publish on-line.

All you need to do is to email your words to web-team@radyr.org.uk with a few days of the event.

Also if your item is important to the community a more detailed article can also be printed in the Radyr Chain.

Do you want the Cardiff Council to take out a loan to finance a £265M school closure & merger plan that your Cardiff Council tax will have to repay at the cost of £13M per annum? 
Do you want to spend more time in rush hour traffic driving through Radyr in the mornings? 
Do you want more car pollution in Radyr? 
Will you appreciate more construction traffic on the roads? 
Do you want at least 50% more children leaving the school gates at lunch times and at the end of the school 
Do you want the education of the community’s children compromised with :-

The closure of schools,

Loss of teaching posts,

Loss of community’s focus,

Larger schools / class sizes

Can you afford not to protest? Want to know more?

Additional information here at The Radyr Website (http://radyr.darkgreen.me/docs/) See list of documents below.

OR

Pick up a leaflet from the local shops,

See parents action group

OR

Just sign the petition!!

Documents available on-line:

1. Minutes of Public Meeting 12 April 2006

The Radyr and Morganstown Festival continues its tradition of inviting local artists to headline at its May Festival. Over the last few years singers Helen Field and Jeremy Huw Williams, both residents of Radyr, have been the main attraction. The 2006 Festival is no exception, Catrin Finch, who lives in Gwaelod y Garth, has agreed to perform at the Festival.

Catrin who has been called Queen of the Harp was until recently Royal Harpist to the Prince of Wales. The Prince revived an ancient tradition, last used by Queen Victoria in 1873, to honour Catrin. In a recent Radio 3 interview Catrin told a story of how her parents took their three small children to a concert given by Marisa Robles to save the cost of a baby sitter. As a result of this visit Catrin became “hooked on the harp”. Catrin is breaking into her busy schedule to perform at the Radyr and Morganstown Festival on Tuesday 9th of May before leaving on an extensive tour with flautist James Galway and the London Mozart Players. Catrin can be seen at Christ Church, Radyr on Tuesday 9th of May at 7.30 p.m.

The other major musical event at this year’s Festival is a visit by the Hermitage Ensemble of St. Petersburg, Russia. The Hermitage Ensemble is a small choir of male voices. All the members of the Ensemble are professional singers in their native St. Petersburg, singing in concerts, choirs and at the world famous Kirov Opera. The aim of the Ensemble is “to bring the Russian tradition of church music closer to the west”. Their concert will contain work by some of the best known Russian composers, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov as well as less well known names like Galuppi and Berezovsky. Banned after the 1917 revolution this sublime music was inaccessible for more than seventy years.

The second half of their programme will be made up of folk and national songs which show a range of emotion and covey the characteristic of the great “Russian Soul”. The Hermitage Ensemble appear at Christ Church, Radyr on Tuesday 2nd of May at 7.30 p.m.

To celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday in 2005 Harold Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Pinter is undoubtedly one of the great dramatists of the twentieth century with a string of prize winning plays, The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter, Old Times and The Caretaker to name but a few. He is also a prolific writer for the cinema having written more than twenty films, The Servant, The Go-Between and The French Lieutenant’s Woman being, perhaps, the best known.

To celebrate this incredible career the Radyr and Morganstown Festival will close with a visit by Fluellen with their production of one of Pinter’s best known plays The Caretaker. The Sunday Times called it “A modern classic, tough, cruel and brutally funny”. Fluellen is the resident theatre company at the Grand Theatre, Swansea and this will be their third visit to the Radyr and Morgantown festival where they have built up quite a following. They previously brought Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Victorian melodrama Maria Martin to Morganstown Village Hall.

The Caretaker can be seen at Morganstown Village Hall on Friday 12th of May at 7.30 p.m. Tickets £8 and £6 are available on Cardiff Nick Hawkins 20842561 or Allan Cook 20843176.

All Day Challenge at Radyr Golf Club – for Tenovus 

on Sunday June 25th 2006.

Oliver Duckett, a professional golfer at the Radyr Golf Club intends to play TEN rounds of golf in ONE day to raise funds for the local cancer charity Tenovus.

The first round will start at the very early hour of 4 am in order that Oliver can utilise the long summer hours of light and the coolness of the morning. The plan is to complete TEN rounds by 4pm. The attempt will prove to be very arduous, as the golfer knows, having succeeded in completing 150 holes (8 rounds and 6 holes) in his 2005 event, on one of the hottest days of last summer, despite suffering from a hamstring injury during the first few holes. This Challenge Day will be another, important, step towards Oliver`s ambition to beat the Guinness World Record of 209 holes.

The First Minister for Wales, the Rt. Hon. Rhodri Morgan, has kindly accepted an invitation to support the event for part of the day.

All are welcome to attend the event, for all or just part of the day, to walk the course to support Oliver, or just to enjoy a barbeque and a drink on the patio or try your luck in the putting competition, which will go on during the All Day Challenge.

The Tenovus Friends wish to extend grateful thanks for the adoption of the Charity by Oliver. Your sponsorship, for this exciting event, whether or not you are able to attend on the day, would be very much appreciated.

If you would like to sponsor Oliver please ring the pro shop on 029 2084 2476 or Betty Fitzgerald on 029 2084 2096.

Well done to the 10 little girls who attended the Festival Queen auditions on Wednesday evening at the Guide Centre. The results are

Festival Queen: Hayleigh Bradley

Her attendants are: Jessica Watkins and Bethan Munt.

The girls are all 10 years old and attend Bryn Deri School. Thank you all for coming and a big thank you also to Brown Owl and the brownies for allowing us to interrupt their meeting to hold the auditions.

The following email was sent to the press by Cllr Marion Drake regarding the proposed closure of the Friary in Cardiff City Centre.

You can read an earlier article from the South Wales Echo at About the Closure of the Friary, and also http://www.savethecardifffriary.co.uk.

I am contacting you to say how appalled I was to hear of the threat to the Friary and its continued use by the music service and other council services which provide very important support to people with specific learning needs.

The Music Service provides opportunities for hundreds of young people from all over Cardiff to come together in a central, easily accessed venue to develop skills which greatly enrich their own lives and the lives of our whole community. They make a great contribution to our culture and are important in Cardiff’s ambition to be recognised as a great Cultural Capital of a great Cultural Nation. To disperse these youngsters and their tutors to other venues across the City in order to reduce spending on them is not acceptable and I will be voting against this proposal.

During the year I was Lord Mayor of Cardiff ( 1998-99 ) many amazing events took place in Cardiff – such as the European Summit and the visit of Nelson Mandela to receive the Freedom of the City Amongst these I have never forgotten the concert given by the Youth Orchestras for the senior citizens of Cardiff. This was provided free and St David’s Hall was filled to overflowing with elderly residents. The quality of the playing and the pure enjoyment of young and old responding to one another was pure magic. In addition to their normal school day these youngsters had already played a concert the previous evening and their commitment to the physical demands of another full evening and that of their parents in bringing them and collecting them from the hall cannot be praised highly enough. It gave me great pleasure to be able to write to each member of the youth orchestra and their tutors, as Lord Mayor, to thank them on behalf of the people of Cardiff.

This free concert is still an annual event greatly looked forward to by many of our senior Citizens as the highlight of their year.

It is however only one of the many events put on by our talented youngsters who spend hours of hard work practising to develop their skills to the highest quality in a venue which is valued by all for its suitability and the musical tradition that is now associated with it. The Friary has become the home of music for thousands of young people who developed their musical skills there, are currently l developing their skill there, and those who are already working hard in our primary schools so that they can develop their skills there when they are old enough .To deprive them of this centre would be to fail to give recognition to the value of these young people to the community of Cardiff.

As already stated, for all these reasons, I will be voting against the proposal to close the Friary.

Cllr Marion Drake

Radyr student Harry Ferrier will shortly be off to Monaco with other members of the Cardiff based The Unknown Theatre Company to represent Wales and the United Kingdom in the prestigious “International Mondial du Theatre” event. The competition is held every four years and this year twenty four nations are competing for this coveted award.

Each country hosts a cultural evening which includes the best of its traditional national food and drink; so Welsh cakes, Bara brith and local beers and wines will also be on the menu. The group will be performing ‘Dance with Dragons’, a musical play by Philip Mitchell with music by Matt Brind. These two exceptionally talented young Cardiff men have already made their mark by putting on their own successful musical last year at the New Theatre, Cardiff.

The Unknown Theatre Company was formed in 1997, and has a cast of 19 young men and woman, whose average age is eighteen. They have competed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the past three years and in 2002 won the Sony Global Search for New Musicals as part of the International Festival of Music Theatre with Dance with Dragons.

Its going to cost them around £22,000 to fund their programme in Monaco and whilst they have been doing everything possible to raise funds with concerts, bag packing, fayres and garden parties (one of which was held in Radyr recently) they still have a way to go. You can help with grants or donations or by attending their performance at the Millennium Centre Studio on 26 or 27th June before they go to Monaco.

Please lend them your support. To know more please contact Jane Donoghue at jane@unknowntheatre.fsnet.co.uk

The Council Planning Meeting on 15th June approved the plans for a new Radyr Health Centre on the Rectory Gardens site, behind Christ Church on Heol Isaf. This is excellent news as the existing Health Centre in Park Road is grossly overstretched. The new Centre will have five consulting rooms on the ground floor, together with two trainer consulting rooms, two nurse treatment rooms and a phlebotomy room. Upstairs there will be offices, a meeting room, minor operations room, nurse treatment room and four other rooms for use by chiropodist, counsellor/dietician and physiotherapist.

Thanks are due to Councillor Marion Drake for all the lobbying that has been necessary to ensure the success of this application, which will also delight the 785 people who signed the R&M Association petition in support. It will, of course, be some time before the new facility is built and ready for use.

Consideration of a further application, for a new Rectory, also on the Rectory Gardens site, was deferred until the next Planning Meeting, on 20th July. This is primarily to allow time for the Councillors to make a site visit. There are certain contractual links between the two applications which may or may not prove of relevance later. However it does look as if the future of Healthcare in our community is assured.

The first Tenovus Sponsored Walk along the Taff Trail was organised in June 1995 and raised £1,371 for the Charity. Since then the event has taken place each summer and the number of walkers has increased every year until, in 2004, over 40 walkers took part and raised the magnificent sum of £3,700. A large proportion of funds raised on each Walk since 1995 has been due to the participation of Mrs Mollie Tilley and the many generous sponsors from her Yoga classes.

Since 2000 the Rector, Rev. B. Barlow has also taken part and the amount raised has been considerably boosted by the very kind support of his parishioners. Many grateful thanks go to them and to all our walkers and their sponsors for the really wonderful support the Friends of Tenovus Group has received.

The Strawberry Tea, organised by Janet Boyce and other Tenovus ladies, as a separate event in 2000, was combined with the Walk in 2001 in order to refresh the walkers and to enable other villagers and friends to enjoy a delicious Tea on the lawn at Christchurch.

We have been very lucky and grateful to have been entertained over the years, at the Strawberry Tea, by the Radyr and Morganstown Mellingriffith Band, the Tongwynlais Brass Band and more recently the Radyr Big Band.

If you would like to help us help Tenovus then join in The Walk, sponsor a walker or come along and enjoy a summer tea and music at Christchurch on the 26th. June. For sponsor forms or tickets for the Tea ( £4 and £2 children under 11) please ring Betty Fitzgerald 20842096