PORTHCAWL

available on Thursday and Saturday mornings between 10am and 12noon, to open up the shop for members needing supplies for their gardening activities.

Anyone interested in hiring the hall at Cliff Cottage for functions, meetings etc, are welcome to come along at theses times to have a look at the facilities the club has available at a modest cost.

The next committee meeting of the club will take place on Friday, January 18 and the Chairman and Committee hope you have a happy and healthy New Year.

Interested in Joining? Why not come to our next advertised lecture or event and meet some of our members.

We will be happy to tell you about the benefits of joining this friendly, well established local club.

Please see the links below for more details.

For room hire details please see our website at: www.lalestongarden club.co.uk or find us on Facebook. Coffee Mornings:

Nantymoel Knitters Class: We are members of a Knitting Club who live in Nantymoel. We meet twice a week at Dinam Close every Tuesday and Friday from 10am12noon.

We are always looking for new members and all our efforts are to make things for charity.

If there is anyone who has any spare wool they do not want, we would be very grateful to receive it.

Many thanks from all the knitting club members.

Your News: Please remember to send any news or information to me by 10.30pm on Wednesday night every week.

Email gazette@ ogmore-vale.co.uk or ring 01656 760 640.

Community Council: The Newcastle Higher Community Council clerk John Richfield has received a reply from the monitoring officer of Bridgend County Borough Council Kelly Watson, about the Newcastle Higher Community Councils questions put in connection to the ownership by Bridgend County Borough Council of the Pheasant Field Penyfai.

The letter from Kelly Watson monitoring officer to John Richfield clerk is to be discussed separately from the other business of the Newcastle Higher Community Council meeting on January 8 at 7pm in the Westly Methodist Church Centre Tondu.

Penyfai Guide Group: Scout and Guide Hall, Court Coleman Road, Penyfai (except summer) as follows:

Rainbows (ages 5 to 7) meet Wednesdays from 5.30pm-6.45pm.

Brownies (age 7 to 10) meet Mondays from 5.30pm-7pm.

Call Pippa O’Neill on 07480 825 532 for more information.

1st Penyfai Scout Group: Scout and Guide Hall, Court Coleman Road, Penyfai (except summer):

Beavers (ages 6 to 8), meet Thursdays from 5pm-6.15pm.

Cubs (ages 8 to 10) meet Thursdays from 6.30pm-8pm.

Scouts (ages 10 to 14) meet Thursdays, 6.30pm-8pm.

Call Christine Jordan on 01656 860 831.

Play and Community Playgroup: For families of newcomers to the village of Penyfai with children from two years to four years looking to join a play group, there is the Play and Community play group held in the Scout hall on Court Coleman Road, Penyfai.

The play group is open 9.15am-3pm Monday to Friday during term time.

Call 07813 392 464 for more information. Send Your News To: 42 Suffolk Place, Porthcawl, CF36 3EB. 01656 451844 davidn-w@homecall.co.uk

Porthcawl Lions Burns Night: Porthcawl lions are holding their Annual Burn’s Night on Friday, January 26 in the HiTide in Mackworth Road Porthcawl at 7.30pm prompt.

Entry is by ticket only and tickets at £27 can be obtained from Porthcawl Museum, Porthcawl YMCA or from individual Lions.

The Haggis will be piped in by piper John Campbell and there will be a raffle in aid of Porthcawl Museum.

Dress code is lounge suit and black tie or tartan.

Porthcawl Farmers Market: The next Farmers Market will be held in Griffin Park Hall on Saturday, January 26 between 9.30am and 12.30pm.

All the usual stalls will be there and refreshments will be available.

Porthcawl Weekly Table Top Sale: This is a weekly event and is held every Friday at Griffin Park Hall with doors open between 8.30am and 12.30pm.

If you want a table to sell things yourself, then tables are available at £5 per event.

Porthcawl Christmas Morning Swim: This year saw the Biggest and Bestest Christmas Morning Swim with nearly 1,500 swimmers and thousands more wrapped up warm viewers.

Well done to the organisers and to all those who braved the elements on the day.

Porthcawl Lions Fun Run: This again was well attended and again may I congratulate the organisers and all those who braved the elements on the day.

Fairtrade Afternoon Tea: Come and beat the winter blues, by enjoying a selection of delicious homemade cakes with Fairtrade ingredients and Fairtrade tea or coffee: all this at an Afternoon Tea – Fanfare for Fairtrade, which will be held at Trinity Church Porthcawl this Saturday, January 12 from 2pm4pm.

There will also be some up-beat music to cheer the afternoon, with the musical duo, the Scott- McNicholas Experience.

Tickets are only £3.00 each and will be available from Trinity Church Office, mornings only.

Porthcawl Befriending Group: A new not-forprofit weekly “Porthcawl Befriending Group” started on Sunday, January 6 between 2.30pm to 3.30pm at the Griffin Park Community Centre, New Road , Porthcawl.

The Group is mainly for people who live alone so that they have a chance to meet with similar people for a chat over a cup of tea or coffee.

Your first visit is free then £2 per visit to cover hall rental and cost of milk and tea bags etc. but then attendees can help themselves to as many free cups as they want.

Porthcawl Museum Society: As part of their winter series of lectures, the Museum Society have arranged a lecture on ‘Food during World War I’ to be given by Alan Underhill at 7pm on Tuesday, January 15.

These lectures are usually free to members and visitors are charged £1.

Note that the Museum Society is closed until Saturday, March 30, but that the front office remains open every Saturday morning from 10am-1pm for queries and to enable members to renew their membership subscriptions.

Time: Here we are at the start of a new year, and each and everyone of us has their own way of calculating the passing of time.

I had an aged aunt who was a member of the Gorsedd and always related years and events to where the National Eisteddfod was that year; and I am sure that everyone who was in the Services and who was approaching the end of their time and w as looking forward to ‘demob’ had a graph of some description on which they could tick off the weeks and days. I know I did.

Mine – certainly for the last three months of my time in Egypt and was living under canvas - was headed by an extract from an old evangelical hymn and nightly pitch my moving tent a day’s march nearer home’.

Later on in life –1979 to be exact – and living in West Road in Porthcawl at a time when the bins were collected on a Monday and it always seemed to be Monday; and I always seemed to be walking down the drive with two black bin bags I had a thought.

At the time it was a Monday, a few days before my birthday and coincidentally my next door neighbour was also walking down his drive with the obligatory two black bin bags.

I had a sudden thought and after a quick calculations said to my neighbour, “Do you know: in another two thousand and eighty bin bag days I will be 90” and we both laughed.

It’s not quite as funny now that it is down to 32! Or indeed 16; now that BCBC has chosen to go to a two week cycle.

Porthcawl Public Toilets CLOSED: I was talking to a friend of mine who was sitting down on a bench by the side of the old Victorian Toilet Block in John Street last Friday when I became aware of the number of elderly ladies who were entering the toilets – or indeed trying to enter the them; and then ‘bouncing’ right back out! ‘Why?’ I can hear you ask! ‘Closed’ was the shabby answer.

BCBC in their wisdom have decided to close the public toilets in what was one of the premier holiday resorts in Wales.

‘The Jewel of the Severn Sea’ and ‘The lung of the valleys’ were epithets used when talking about Porthcawl – not any longer obviously.

I know that there were talks about Porthcawl Town Council taking them over-hopefully still ongoing.

The queue of people who were still trying to get in but could only read the shameful notice did not abate.

I have to admit that BCBC have served the citizens of Bridgend no better.

I have no knowledge of the state of affairs in Maesteg, but past experience leaves the people in Porthcawl suspicious as to the answer.

The queue didn’t abate even though we are in mid-winter; but then that may also be the cause.