Maulds Meaburn Village Institute Key Dates for your diary

 3rd Oct     Coffee Morning at  MMVI 10.30am
14th Oct     AGM and Social MMVI at 7.30pm
5th Nov     Grand Opening MMVI at 2pm
“        ‘Beyond the Blues’ play Meaburn Institute 7.30pm

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Twelve long years have passed since the old wooden and corrugated ‘tin hut’ Village Institute was condemned in 1999. The plans of those of you originally involved in commissioning the “new” building will have perhaps been forgotten. Some of the originators are no longer with us. Some of your children have grown up. However, at long last, we are able to say that we have a Village Institute again (thanks to The Lottery Fund, CCC and stalwart volunteer efforts). Now we have to remind ourselves what we planned to do with it!

We have a complete, watertight building. It’s looking good, if sounding a little echoey due to lack of furnishings. There will still be small things to finish off, especially outside, but the heating, lighting and toilets work. The kitchen awaits it’s first big cook off, the main hall looks good and the small meeting room has a lovely outlook over the Lyvennet, Dent’s bridge and the Green.

The new Institute is the final piece of the jigsaw of local services and amenities in the Parish. It will restore a public building to Maulds Meaburn. This will be a resource not just for the village but like its predecessor, the Institute will be a resource for the whole Parish where all will be welcome.

The monthly Coffee Morning will move from being very sociable gatherings in village homes, to very sociable gatherings in the Institute. We hope that this will result in bigger, and wider, attendances. If you would like to have a sociable cup of coffee then please come along. If you have young children please bring them. We have rescued (and washed) some lovely old toys from storage, which are badly in need of someone to play with them. The new furniture will arrive later in the month but we have 40 chairs and some tables, the tea urn works and the crockery is ready on the shelves. The first gathering is on…
MONDAY 3RD OCTOBER: COFFEE MORNING at 10.30am

Please also put the following dates in your diaries and come along and join in.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING and SOCIAL
FRIDAY 14TH OCTOBER at 7.30pm

This represents the next stage of development of the Institute. The very reduced Trustees team are proud to have got this far and are looking forward to handing on the Institute’s further development to a new team.

We need new ideas on what we all want to see happening in the new building.  So if you, or your group would like to use the hall, if you have ideas on how the Institute should be used to benefit the village and the Parish, if you would like to help organise events, if you would like to help run the Institute, if you would like to have a look at the facilities, then please come along. Bring all the family. The intention is to combine AGM business with pleasure. The bar will be open for business!
GRAND OPENING TEA PARTY
SATURDAY 5th NOVEMBER

All residents of the Parish are invited to the opening Tea Party at 2.00 p.m. on Saturday 5th November.

This will be an opportunity for the whole Parish to get together and enjoy a traditional Westmorland tea with some gentle live music in the background. If you would like to contribute some home baking this would be much appreciated.

‘BEYOND THE BLUES’ play MEABURN INSTITUTE!
7.30PM on SATURDAY 5TH NOVEMBER

The band have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to play here after the
enthusiastic reception to their fund raiser for CRVH and MMVI last year.
After you’ve been to your bonfire and let off your fireworks, come back up to the Institute for some chilli and change into your boogie shoes for some dancing.

There will be a licensed bar, and a nominal charge for the food. However, we’re currently looking for a grant which would allow us to make entrance free.

We are anticipating a large crowd so it will be advance tickets only from Annie at Chestnuts MM tel 715168 or Sheila at Weir House MM tel 715509.

See you there!

Booking
If you’d like to get in quick to reserve a date for your own event then Vanda Betts (tel 715391) has a booking diary waiting for entries.

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Maulds Meaburn Village Institute today

Our grateful thanks to John and Barbara Wood of Crosby Lodge for kindly providing building stone for our Maulds Meaburn Village Institute’s new wall. Pictured here being constructed on the north side by a team of builders from Ben Jackson Stoneware, a local firm based in Reagill the wall is made of attractive local building sandstone. Ben and Ollie Jackson and Pete Johnston do a lot of walling around here. Thank you very much, lads.

For quality stone work contact Ben Jackson at 07818 452251

Ben Jackson Stoneware at work on the north wall

From left to right, Pete Johnston, Ollie Jackson and Ben Jackson of Ben Jackson Stoneware at work

Ollie Jackson dressing a stone prior to its inclusion in the wall

The Maulds Meaburn Village Institute Trustees wish to express our heartfelt thanks for some particularly useful recent help. We’d like to thank Mr. & Mrs. Green for the excellent Robson Room curtains. What a difference they make! They are very elegant and well-made and nicely complete the room. All agree that the new curtains in both rooms have much improved the acoustics and the atmosphere.

Also on the subject of essential infrastructure, we’d like to thank Ged Williamson and Tom Varley for making and installing the Institute’s superb bar. They made a really nice job of it and it will stand by the community, and vice versa for years to come!

We are also grateful to those gentlemen and The Hellfire Club for their substantial donation.

A big thank you also to Sheila Smith, Margaret Jarvis, and the Ladies Group, for their donation from the ‘Pie and Poems’ evening, it was a very fun and well attended event.

On the subject of great events, Maureen Newrick deserves our thanks, three cheers and a pat on the back for organizing our MP for Penrith and the Border, Rory Stewart’s highly popular and thoroughly engaging talk on Afghanistan. Tickets all sold-out well in advance. Our thanks again, to Rory for providing an illuminating evening and a large injection of funds for our Institute.

It is also our pleasure to thank John Wood of Crosby Lodge, for the kind donation of stone for the north wall, which is now complete, looking grand and is topped with soil that can be planted with House Leeks (Sempervivum) and other suitable rock garden succulents and herbs. If you can spare any such nice plants off your wall to colonise the soil it will get the floral cover off to a flying start.

Last but not least, our thanks to all The Friends of MMVI and to all who come along to the events here. There are more great events in the pipeline too with a Fashion Show scheduled for  October 26th and we are happy to state that we’ll have much to celebrate at the MMVI Anniversary Supper before the fireworks on November 5th, resuming with open bar afterwards!

Please click on the poster above to download the poster as a pdf

Doug Scott will be presenting an illustrated lecture “The Three Peaks: Everest, K2 and Kangchenjunga” at Maulds Meaburn Village Institute on Monday 3rd December 2012 at 7.30 pm to raise awareness and raise funds for Community Action Nepal and Maulds Meaburn Village Institute
Tickets £15 – advance booking only – from Ron & Sheila Smith Tel: 01931 715 509

• Bar will be open from 7 pm
• Doug will bring mountaineering posters and Nepal Crafts and goods for sale – available before and after the lecture and at the interval.
• Doug will also auction signed books and posters. (Payment by cash/cheques only)

Maulds Meaburn is about 7 miles from Appleby, about 5 miles from Shap (A6/M6),
about 12 miles from Penrith and has a postcode CA10 3HN

They’re on a mission! The Blues Brothers Film evening at Maulds Meaburn Village Institute was a rip-roaring success

I thought the debut film show at Maulds Meaburn Village Institute last night (Nov.16) was a cracking success!  Good folk from Eden Arts set up an enormous screen,  the projector equivalent of Big Bertha and speakers in the main hall, while our live Blues musicians warmed up the audience a dedicated team ran the bar and cooked up beef burgers and vegetarian counterpart in the kitchen – with the most scrumptious caramelised onions that ever treated the taste buds.

The Band! Brian Morris and Ethan Thomas playing soulful Blues at MMVI

The show kicked off with a live Blues selection from the talented Brian Morris and Ethan Thomas and then the film began. Back projected and seen at full-size, the film really came alive to the audience.  The car chase through the mall and dance action was restored to the intensity that the Director intended. Praise the Lord and pass the popcorn!

It was a big hit. Congratulations to the Friends of MMVI involved with this one, it’s another winner. Anybody interested in joining the Committee should contact Annie Kindleysides, we would love to have more people of all ages involved. Not least, in the selection of which films we’d like to show.

I’d never seen this film on large screen and I’d forgotten how intense the action is. TV is all very well, but it’s just not the same. This is what the roving cinema can do, it allows classic films to be seen as they were made to be, larger than life and with full sound, right in the hearts of our communities. For latest releases and THX surround sound glamour etc, go to the Cinema in Penrith, but for community film events, Remote Rural Cinema is the ticket!

Any film available on DVD or Blue Ray can be booked by local film clubs / Village Hall Committees and transformed into a memorable event.  So six months or so from now we could be showing the new Bond fim, Skyfall. Excellent work Eden Arts!

As it is fully digital, their system can play anything from a laptop, Disc or mp3 player in public buildings with the required license in place.

Eden Arts super digital projector system

Crosby Ravensworth Village Hall will be showing  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel soon. Watch this space for details.

Click link below for more information about Eden Arts Remote Rural Cinema.

 http://www.edenarts.co.uk/portfolio/remote/

Maulds Meaburn Village Institute
Committee
Invite you on
Sunday 30th June
To
Forget cooking
come and join us at
Maulds Meaburn Village Institute
From
10 am till 12.30

Juice, cooked breakfast
Tea coffee and toast
£6.00 for adults
£3.00 for children under 10

The Big Breakfast Kitchen team

Big Breakfast sign

Delicious Big Breakfast at Maulds Meaburn Village Institute

Another very successful Big Breakfast fundraiser last Sunday. Thank you to all who supported the event. It was a very tasty breakfast and big enough that I didn’t need any lunch!

Maulds Meaburn Village Institute Committee

Invite you on

Friday 12th July
To a Quiz Night with Sandwiches and Chips
Make up teams of four
£5 per head
Bar will be open
Contact vanda.betts@btinternet.com
01931715391

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Monday September 2nd
10:30 till 12:00
Maulds Meaburn Village Institute

Come and enjoy a

Coffee Morning With An Italian Feel

Fresh ground coffee
Italian cakes
And themed raffle
Buy Italian meals for your freezer
Chatter and fun as always
Donations for MMVI  funds

Joanne Backshall, delivering a lively illustrated talk in Maulds Meaburn Village Institute.

On Tuesday, Sept. 24th Joanne Backshall, Conservation Officer for Eden Rivers Trust talked about her important work as part of an organisation that studies and conserves the Eden Valley’s river system in partnership with residents including land owners and farmers, through multi-generation volunteering on survey and conservation projects.  The work assists flood alleviation and maintains river bank integrity and water quality.

Her talk was informative and lively, and it conveyed her passion for the rivers and their denizens. There was plenty of audience interaction from the outset and clear slides showing maps, diagrams and fine photographic montages. There were lovely images of Eden’s rivers and wildlife and the talk was informed by her direct experience of work on the rivers including our Lyvennet, where, in one section she found fifty crayfish under fifty stones and also noted Otter spraints!  She grounded Eden’s rivers in their context.

Flowing south to north, the Eden is 130 km long is home to 184 species of plant and a wide variety of animals such as otters, Atlantic salmon, lampreys (primitive jawless fish), eels, bullheads, water voles and threatened native White clawed crayfish.

This river system has such a rich biodiversity it  is considered an internationally important wildlife heritage that is protected by SSSI and Special Area of Conservation status.

You can learn more about Eden Rivers Trust and their work on this blog page  http://lvcpnews.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/major-assistance-for-our-endangered-native-crayfish-revealed-in-eden-rivers-trust-winter-newsletter/

and on the Eden Rivers Trust website at http://trust.edenriverstrust.org.uk

Hammerhead sharks on the slab. 100,000,000 sharks are thought to be fished each year – an unsustainable number. Copyright C. Paxton

A talk by Kay Foster from the Marine Conservation Society

on 22^nd October 2013 at 7.30pm in

Maulds Meaburn Village Institute

Tickets:  £6-00 (£4 for under 18s);  Advance booking only

Please ring 01931 715 370

The Society’s vision is for seas rich in wildlife, abundant fish stocks, pollution free beaches and bathing waters:  seas fit for wildlife and for people to enjoy.

Kay will describe the Society’s work in both coastal and oceanic areas.  She will describe commercial fishing techniques which are destroying marine habitats near the shore as well as in the oceans.  Kay will consider possible solutions to these problems, including the importance of ensuring that the fish we buy is from sustainable sources.

The Bar will be open from 7.00pm.

This is a fund raising evening for the MCS and MMVI.

Readers interested in protecting fisheries and marine life might also be interested in the Oceana website

http://oceana.org/en/eu/media-reports/press-releases/200-scientists-urge-eu-parliament-to-invest-in-rebuilding-fish-stocks

Illustrated talk in aid of wildlife rescue and conservation group ARCAS Guatemala

This Friday night, 7 pm Charles Paxton will deliver an illustrated talk to raise funds for Guatemalan wildlife conservation group ARCAS (The Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Association) in The Maulds Meaburn Village Institute’s Robson Room.  £5 pounds entry for adults, £2 for children.

Come along and find out about the gritty realities and joyful triumphs of this crucial rescue and release work in the World’s 5th Biodiversity Hotspot.

The talk coincides with a Drop In at Maulds Meaburn Village Institute and John will kindly be running the bar!

Maulds Meaburn Village Institute Illustrated Talks

Presents

Tuesday, 19^th February 2014 at 7.30pm

A talk by Andrew Trehearne from the

              UK Biobank

We all will die but the question is ‘From what?’ 

One hundred years ago it would probably have been from an infectious disease.

Today it’s more likely to be from cancer, heart disease or a degenerative illness.

 UK Biobank, a resource for medical researchers world wide, is set to challenge some of the most life threatening and disabling illnesses of the 21^st century by monitoring the health and lifestyles of half a million UK residents:  the largest study of its kind ever undertaken.

Andrew Trehearne will talk about the UK Biobank:  the participants and the questionnaires they have completed, the physical measures and biological samples they have provided, the research approved so far including recent developments in the study and use of genetics.  Andrew will also draw attention to ethical questions raised by the collection and storage of personal medical information.

Tickets:  please contact Sheila and Ron Smith 01931 715 509

£6 (£4 for under 18s)

Last night we watched The Artist, at Maulds Meaburn Village Institute. At first I had my doubts about a feature-length (mostly) silent movie but I was wrong. It was a great night out, an enjoyable film with good company and nice snacks and a raffle fundraiser in aid of The Alzheimers Society. Well done Alison and Mark Fallon!

For family fun this Friday, drop in to the MMVI for make your own pizza and games

Family fun, make your own pizza night, lots of games Friday Feb 21st 6pm at Maulds Meaburn Village Institute

Youngsters come and make your own pizza
with Tim
Followed by games in the hall -
table tennis, snooker,
and much more

Adults can join in games and buy pizza later

£2 for children’s 9” pizza

 £5 for adults 12” pizza 

Soft drinks
Side salads
Bar will be open

Haweswater Reservoir March 2014, home of England’s Golden Eagle. United Utlilities (UU) own 9% of the land in The Lake District National Park and gather water from about 35% of the land to supply  fresh water to over 2 million people.

Lee Schofield, RSPB Site Manager for Haweswater at Maulds Meaburn Village Institute

At Maulds Meaburn Village Institute on April 2, Lee Schofield, Site Manager for the RSPB delivered a fast-paced talk on recent developments at Haweswater that was illustrated with fine images of birds and was densely informative, highly interesting and very encouraging. Haweswater Reservoir in Mardale is one of Cumbria’s iconic lakes, it supplies more than 2 million people with fresh water and is home to a rich and varied fauna and flora including England’s last Golden Eagle.

The Royal Society For The Protection of Birds (RSPB) is now responsible for the management of two farms, one at The Naddle and one at Swindale and working hard to improve the local area for wildlife as part of a larger project of improvement in which United Utilities are in the process of planting about 180,000 trees!

Some of the key wildlife habitats that will be improved by the Sustainable Catchment Management Scheme (SCaMP) are Western Atlantic Oak woods, Juniper Woodland, Tall herb ledge vegetation, Blanket bog, Upland heath, Valley mires and Hay Meadows.

Lee explaining The State of Nature (2013) at Maulds Meaburn Village Institute.

Lee explained in his talk that the changes at Haweswater are being driven primarily by two forces:

• by worrying declines in many species ranging from butterflies and liverworts to farmland birds as reported in The State of Nature Report (2013)

and also

• United Utilities’ desire to improve the quality of the drinking water, particularly the colour which has become noticeably peatier in recent years. Unless the quality can be improved through innovative environmental management, they may have to construct a new water treatment facility at enormous cost.

In his presentation, Lee explained RSPB’s new work at Haweswater, “a long-term project to deliver multiple objectives”, farming Haweswater to the benefit of wildlife biodiversity, water quality and other ecosystem services. He grounded this plan in the context of RSPB’s history of monitoring the breeding Golden Eagles and limited management of Naddle forest and tree nursery in a proto-SCaMP phase.

Since 2012 the RSPB have embarked on a 45 year tenancy from UU over the 500 Ha Naddle Farm and the 250 Ha Swindale Farm. They have also acquired Commons rights on Mardale Common, Bampton Common and Ralfland Common. Currently they manage 1150 breeding Swaledale and Cheviot Ewes. Their plan is to reduce livestock by about 30% to allow recovery of vegetation such as heather, they’ll graze cattle just on the rough bog vegetation due to a restriction for the sake of water quality. They’ll fence off rivers to keep them pristine.

These changes are expected to help biodiversity and improve water quality and carbon sequestration. An expected consequence will be an increase in the Golden Eagle’s natural prey species.

He briefly introduced some of the species and habitats of the area with some high quality images of the Ring Ouzel, Red deer of Martindale, Red Grouse, Merlin, Red squirrel and Golden Eagle. He gave us a lot of interesting information about the Golden Eagle.

Interesting facts about Haweswater’s Golden Eagles

He explained the SCaMP and ecosystem services such as water retention and filtration, and carbon sequestration, then described their staff roles and talked a little about the challenges of the task.

Key information about SCaMP.

Lee listed some of the very impressive achievements made so far, see the slide below:

Some impressive achievements of the project already accomplished. The new broadleaf tree planting will greatly boost biodiversity while helping to stabilise the soil and reduce run-off and sequester carbon from the atmosphere to help reduce global warming gases.

Then followed a Q&A session in which the Eagles featured most prominently. Who was persecuting them and why? Apparently some farmers and game keepers continue to persecute them, sometimes with poison.

Why didn’t the RSPB just reintroduce a new female for the lonely male? The rules are strict, it was felt that she might not necessarily stay, their natural food species would need to be more abundant – they can’t raise chicks on carrion.

Where did the Eagles’ off-spring go? It’s likely they flew north to Scotland, but as they weren’t ringed, we don’t know where they are.

Lee welcomed new RSPB volunteers to help with the work. There is an advert on the RSPB website for a long-term volunteer http://www.rspb.org.uk/volunteering/277-residential-volunteer-long-term-placement-haweswater but other volunteers are needed on a regular basis for a variety of tasks every first Thursday of the month.

If you are interested in helping, please contact the RSPB via their Haweswater microsite.

The viewpoint is open from April and August from 11 am-4 pm on Saturdays and Sundays, plus bank holidays. When questioned about volunteering at The Viewpoint, Lee said it was possible with specialist training, so perhaps extra days could be added.

Prospective visitors might be interested to know that refreshment is available at The Haweswater Hotel.