Horticultural class

BUDDING gardeners in Dolgellau were given a free horticultural class this week (pictured, right).

As part of the community garden project that will be based around the Glan Wnion Leisure Centre in Dolgellau, a morning of activities took place on Monday.

The aim was to encourage as many people as possible to come along and enjoy a workshop for the adults based on herbs and their medicinal uses, run by garden designer Mark Rendell.

For the children, Anna Williams, the wildlife officer for Wildlife Trust Wales led a children’s fun art workshop based around an autumn theme.

Cllr Mair Rowlands, Gwynedd Council Cabinet member for Healthy Gwynedd said: “The activities morning is a great way of getting people involved with growing herbs and also for us to promote and raise awareness of the community garden project which we hope to develop at the leisure centre. We are also keen to make sure that children are involved from the start.”

Plans are underway to develop a community garden around areas of the leisure centre currently not being utilised.

Fruit, vegetables and herbs will be grown and gardeners of all abilities are welcome to take part in this new project.

Music Club

The next concert will be a song recital at 7.30pm in Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor on Friday, 6 November by Alison Rose (soprano) and Matthew Fletcher (piano).

A recent opera review refers to “Alison Rose’s ravishing singing”.

The duo have been working together since 2011 and in that year won the Elena Gerhardt Lieder Prize at the Royal Academy of Music, followed in 2012 by the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform Award.

Their programme for Dolgellau (sponsored by Oxford Lieder) includes songs by Fauré, Debussy, Messiaen and Strauss, and folksong arrangements by Benjamin Britten.

St Mary’s Women’s Fellowship

THE speaker at the latest meeting was Susan Keys from the Wales Air Ambulance.

Susan explained that the Air Ambulance is funded purely from public donations and needs £6.5m to deliver the important service throughout Wales. This year, they raised £8.4 million, which could not be achieved without the work provided by an excellent team of dedicated volunteers.

Susan’s role as co-ordinator is to raise awareness of the service and to fund raise. She works from the Caernarfon base — one of three bases, the others being in Welshpool and Swansea.

The service provided by the Wales Air Ambulance is vital, as many areas of Wales are isolated and far from hospitals that can provide the urgent treatment, often required in an emergency.

From the three bases, all areas of Wales can be reached within 20 minutes, and their commitment is that patients will arrive in hospital within 16 minutes of take off.

Once they receive a call, they aim to be airborne within three minutes. This means that emergencies reach hospital in the ‘golden hour’, the optimum time required to ensure the best outcome for the patient.

Susan then showed the group a DVD, with first-hand reports from survivors of serious incidents that had been saved by the air ambulance. The stories were moving and inspiring, these people, including a child, would probably have died had it not been for their intervention.

The group asked what they could do to help, and were told that opportunities are vast: they could consider volunteering, fund-raising or joining their lottery, for example.

Susan had some good products to sell, which members bought with enthusiasm. These are also available from their shops and on the internet.

Jean Williams gave the vote of thanks.

To close the meeting, members were reminded to donate £1 for the raffle prises for the coffee morning.Wendy won the raffle. The speaker next time is Rev Tim Webb.