Hooray!!

The Bamford Recreation Ground Play Area Committee are very pleased to announce that work has started on the play area in November.

Our application for funding towards the project from the CommunitySpaces programme has been approved. The Community Spaces grants programme is being managed by Groundwork UK as an Award Partner to the Big Lottery Fund. Community Spaces is part of the Big Lottery Fund's Changing Spaces initiative.

We are looking forward to having a lovely new Play Area for the children and once again would like to thank everyone who has helped us with fundraising events and kind donations. We would also like to thank the Recreation Ground Committee members and parents who have helped with repairs and maintenance needed to keep the Play Area open.

Playdale Playgrounds will be installing the new equipment and safety surfacing. We hope the Play Area will be ready to use by the end of December and we will be holding a launch event to celebrate. (Date to be confirmed so please watch the village notice board)

Selling Cakes to Mountain Bikers!

This was the scene down at the Rec last weekend. There were several hundred mountain bikers camping on the field. They disappeared during the day to pedal up hills but returned in the evenings to be fed and watered.


This is the team selling on the Sunday. There was a different crew on the Saturday and I'm afraid we didn't gather photographic evidence of them!



And me in this one..

The goodies!! We had sold a lot by then so most of the more spectacular creations had already gone

And a reminder of why we're doing all this. The play area was looking a bit sorry for itself. There was lots of kids camping on the Rec and seeking entertainment while their dads biked - how much better it would have been for them to have a decent play area to run riot in!

This fund raising business leads you down strange roads indeed. Having heard about our need to raise money, one of the organisers of the Polaris Challenge Mountain Bike Weekend on Bamford Rec last weekend asked if our group would like to (wo)man a refreshment stall selling tea/coffee, cold drinks, snacks and homemade cakes to the hungry and thirsty bikers on their return from the hills.

We took up the challenge, swung the mothers, grandmothers and assorted other women (and maybe a few blokes) of Bamford into action baking and set up our stall on the Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon selling. By Sunday evening we were getting pretty good at shifting the merchandise too as we squeezed the last few coins out of those hapless bikers' pockets!

For a woman on a diet, it was a pretty hard task! We were surrounded by tables groaning under the weight of homemade goodies - lemon drizzles, carrot cakes, parkins, oaties, fruit cakes, victoria sponges, muffins, flapjacks, chocolate brownies and many, many more! It was as though a battalion of WI fanatics had gone cake crazy! For balance we did include some fruit etc but I notice that the gooey-er and more calorific a cake was, the quicker it was snapped up. I suppose they had been cycling in the hills for hours so they deserved a few treats!

The generosity of all those women in giving their time and money to bake all those cakes just shows how important they think a new play area is. You don't spend valuable time and grocery money cooking for something you don't care about.

We would like to thank everyone who donated baked goods to sell. You efforts are much appreciated and are going to a really worthy cause.

Still, I think the bikers appreciated it and we managed to raise in the region of £650 for the cause. The weather was lovely too.

As a general update, we're currently awaiting the results of our planning application and should hear by mid-July. once we receive the planning permision (note my confidence) we'll be able to power ahead with the Grant Application. Keep some fingers crossed for us.

Car Boot Sale Sunday 17th May

A 6a.m start on a Sunday morning -were we mad?

Well it was worth it -we raised £425. There were about 30 sellers and lots of people came to buy. The morning was a busy and profitable one.

We lost count of the number of bacon sandwiches we sold. We had to go and get extra supplies but still sold out. The catering was a resounding success.

I don't have any photo's of the car parking team. Mainly because they were so busy running about directing the traffic in their fluorescent orange jackets.

As people were leaving they asked "When's the next one?"

Car Boot Sale

There will be a car boot sale to raise money for the new play area on

SUNDAY 17th MAY 8.30a.m. til 12 noon.

So have a clear out and come and make some cash.
£5 per car
Tea and coffee will be on sale .

Just to update on progress with the new play area. Once planning permission is granted we can apply for stage 2 lottery funding.

£1000 from local councillor

On 21st January Councillor Tracy Critchlow came to present us with a cheque for £1000 from the Community Leadership Scheme. Some of the younger residents and their Mums came to say thank you for this welcome donation and had some fun on the slide whilst they were there.

We have now raised a total of £20,000 towards the £60,000.

The tender deadline is looming so more news soon

A reminder...

...as to why we are doing this again.

I was just flicking through some old photos and noticed these taken a couple of years ago in Buxton Pavilion Gardens. Kids love roundabouts. I noticed that they were very popular in our questionnaire replies and now I can see why.

At the moment in Bamford play area, there is only the fort which would keep 4 kids of differing ages entertained and interacting with each other and even that needs a fair bit of work doing to it. Hopefully, if we're sucessful, we'll be be able to provide good new stuff for the children so they don't have to be driven here there and everywhere just to have a bit of fun!

(And our roundabout will be able to be used by children in wheelchairs too!)


Fingers crossed.

What's new?

Well, just because it's Christmas, we haven't been slacking! We managed to get our tender brief out to 4 contractors last week and 2 members of the committee met up with the first of them down on the Rec this very morning. We've set out clearly in our brief what we want from the sucessful contractor and expect to meet them all to explain it in more detail as well.

Then, when they have had chance to work up their plans and costings, we've asked for formal quotes to be returned to us by the beginning of February. These will be opened on the same day and we'll select a winner then.

Although price will obviously be a very important aspect of the selection process, we're also going to take into account design and quality. There's no point in going for the cheapest if the equipment is rubbish and the design boring. We don't want to have to do all this again in a hurry!!

Then comes the planning application.....doom doom...... but let's not think about that now!

We hope you all have a very merry Christmas and let's all hope for a happy (and playful) New Year!!