Rob Tremain, President, took the annual meeting of the Launceston Old Cornwall Society in the Royal British Legion Headquarters in Tower Street.  He opened the meeting by welcoming  everyone present and received apologies for absence.  Everyone  then stood in memory of members who had died during the year – Trixie Strike, Pat Billing, Tony Howe and former member Marie Moffat,  Trixie was the Launceston Branch’s oldest member at 98 and had attended meetings and trips out until the beginning of the year. 

 Rob in his address spoke of all the Society had done in the past year and of the visits made during the summer which ended with a cream tea at Endsleigh House.  As the secretary John Neale is in Hospital, there were no minutes to be read.  Bill Roberts gave the treasurer’s report, which ended with a healthy balance.  John Ellacott, chairman gave a Recorder’s Report and  in his remarks as chairman spoke on some Federation items and of meetings with various society recorders. 

 Officers elected were: President, Rob Tremain; chairman, John Ellacott; treasurer, Bill Roberts; banner bearer, Peter Adams; deputy, Rosemary Phillips.  To the committee: Mike Millard, Vera Ellacott and Kevin Wadland.  John Neale, due to indifferent health has stepped down as secretary and recorder and Kathlene Fuge was elected secretary and John Ellacott, as recorder.  Rob Tremain then  thanked everyone for all they had done for the Society during the past year.  A discussion   took place regarding  new members.  The Old Cornwall Society is not a Society for older people, but for anyone interested in Cornwall  and its history with the motto ‘Gather ye up the fragments that nothing may be lost.’ 

 The evening ended with a slide show by John Ellacott, in which slides were of  the changes in shops  within the town, of various trips  out and of the Gorsedh at Callington, in which the Launceston banner was  carried by Peter Adams.  The final slide shown was of another organisation, in which  sitting in the centre was Trixie Strike, who will be greatly missed by Society members, who will remember her with great affection. 

 Anyone interested in the Old Cornwall Society, information: 01566 776142  or 772164.  New members are always welcome.  The next meeting will be on  Wednesday, October  9th at the Royal British Legion Headquarters in Tower Street at 7.30pm when the speaker will be  Brian Oldham from Liskeard, who will talk about John Passmore Edwards.  All are welcome. 

A bilingual Cornish -English service took place at St Mary Magdalene on September 1, as part of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the consecration of the church. Led by the Reverend Canon Jane Kneebone, chaplain to the Cornish Gorsedh, the service contained both English and Cornish, with an English translation provided so that non Cornish speakers could follow proceedings.

The main Cornish elements were the readings from the Old and New Testaments, read by Sarah Cooke and Ray Chubb respectively, the Prayers of Intercession, led by Sharron Wormald and the Lords Prayer, led by Pat Tremain. St Marys choir also sang a Tudor anthem Hayl Gwinn Spyryson Heryon Krev (Hail Glorious Spirits Heirs of Light) by Christopher Tye.

The final blessing was performed in Cornish by Reverend Michael Dobson who has recently been appointed Priest in charge at St Mary Magdalene. Following the service a cream tea with home-made cakes was enjoyed by the congregation.

If anyone wishes to learn Cornish (or brush up on their language), evening classes start on September 26 at the Central Methodist Church in Launceston, from 7.30 pm until 9. All welcome, contact details for the class can be found on the Go Cornish website www.gocornish .org.

Launceston Folk Club are excited to announce, and want to invite you to the celebrations of our first anniversary, at Launceston Town Hall on Saturday, September 21 from 1pm to 11pm.

The free to attend daytime events will consist of seven local musicians who have supported the folk club throughout the year; a fun folk quiz with Keep Audio Co’s infamous ‘Quiz Queens’; a licensed bar; a record stall by Keep Audio Co., and more!

The evening event doors open at 6.30pm, and features the exciting, foot-stomping, lively and upbeat trio from Falmouth, The Smokin’ Pilchards, with support from acclaimed local trio Annown with their vibrant tunes and melodic songs about Cornish myth and legend, as well as Martha Woods a young, upcoming, and innovative musician from Lostwithiel playing songs accompanied by fiddle and electronic techno style beats.

Evening tickets are subsidised thanks to funding from FEAST/Creative Kernow and Launceston Town Council, starting at £7.50 each. Tickets can be purchased in a variety of ways via the website: www.launcestonfolkclub.uk , Eventbrite, Facebook, Keep Audio Co., or can be purchased on the door. You can also email Emma at [email protected]. It is always helpful for us to know if you are coming so that we can have an idea of numbers on the night.

We have had a fun and successful first year and have achieved far more than we ever imagined possible at this stage. We have hosted highly acclaimed musicians from across the UK as well as Cornwall and the South West and their generosity of spirit has been very much appreciated. Our support acts have been drawn from some of the amazing talent in Launceston and surrounding areas. We have been running a Songwriters’ Spotlight and a Folk Jam session on the 4th and 1st Wednesdays of the month at Firebrand Taproom and have met so many brilliant musicians in the process. It has been a truly humbling experience being with everyone and the Folk Club audience have been a joy! If you have not been before, you will feel very welcomed and uplifted to be around these wonderful people.

We are very grateful to the Eagle House Hotel who have housed us for most of our concerts, as well as Launceston Rugby Club, Firebrand Taproom, Launceston Town Hall, Morwellham Quay, and Keep Audio Co., who have also hosted us throughout the year.

As always, our aims are those of the Adept Living Foundation CIC (ALFCIC) who support people struggling with PTSD/ Trauma by providing space for people to find a sense of belonging, come together in a supportive community and make friends, find a sense of meaning and purpose, and support to follow their passions, gifts, strengths, and talents.

We have an unbelievably brilliant 2025 programme shaping up for next year, and still have some legendary acts to come for the remainder of 2024 including Fairport

Convention, Gigspanner, Phil Beer from Show of Hands, and the man who is responsible for the English Folk Revival in the 1960s himself, Martin Carthy.

We want to thank all of our Folk Club members and everyone who has volunteered and helped us, whether on the night, or behind the scenes, including FEAST/Creative Kernow, Launceston Town Council, Launceston Rotary Club, and Cornwall Council who have helped with bits of funding for things like our PA system, leaflets and banners, launch and anniversary events, and Town Hall Hire. We are also grateful to Cornwall Folk Festival and Piran Sounds CIC with whom we have been collaborating, on various events and projects and will continue to do so over the coming year. We recently took over Cornwall Folk Radio in conjunction with Cornwall Folk Festival and have relaunched it as Wreckers Radio, a radio station for musicians and music lovers, supporting independent musicians across all genres in Cornwall, the South West and beyond, so do look out for that as we develop over the coming year (www.wreckers.radio).

We look forward to meeting you at some of our events coming up, and would love to see you at the First Anniversary event on September 21. Thank you

The September meeting took place in The Manor Suite at the rear of Holsworthy Memorial Hall attended by a number of members & visitors.

The speaker this month was Mr Paul Watts from Shebbear who gave a very interesting talk on ‘Drinking in Shebbear through the ages’ focusing on the public houses in the village and their numerous and varied landlords and ladies.

It seems nothing is new in the behaviour of patrons and owners of such establishments.

The next meeting is to be held in the same venue featuring a talk by David Kendrick about Winston Churchill, the parliamentarian on October 10, at 7pm when visitors and members alike are welcome. Please see their website for further details.

Following our summer break members and two visitors were joined by the Bude President and a WI member from Marhamchurch.  The latter, Val Wonnacott, represented the Grenville Group as the delegate at the National Women’s Institute AGM held in the Royal Albert Hall in London.   

On completion of our WI business, Val gave us an update on the AGM. The WI seems to be thriving throughout the UK with more new groups forming opposed to those closing.   This year’s theme at the conference was “Violence and Abuse against Women and Girls”.  Mel B (Scary Spice), a member of the Spice Girls, who had come through an abusive marriage spoke on stage to Victoria Derbyshire about her experiences. 

Our speaker for the afternoon was one of our WI members, Louise Murray, a fully trained nurse, gave a fascinating and informative talk on the Ambulance Service where she worked as a clinical nurse on the control desk, giving assistance and advice to the call handlers.  We all quickly realised how little we knew about how things work within the Service.  Once the emergency is established, action is taken immediately, but everyone was staggered to hear some of the time-wasting reasons given when people make the initial call for help. Louise ended here presentation by saying although the job was very challenging at times it was one of the best careers she’d had.                                                                                          

The monthly competition, a ‘Holiday Snap’ was won by Judith Ingram.  The ‘Flower of the Month’ was won by Sandra Rowland. 

We’ll now be busy baking, sewing and crafting for our members Autumn Show, to be held on October 9 2024. 

The Inner Wheel Club of Bude held their first meeting of the new year under the leadership of President Di McDougall at the Falcon Hotel on Monday, September 9.

The meeting was preceded by a very interesting talk by two representatives of Ad Surf, a charity which offers surfing sessions for people of all ages with mental or physical disabilities.

Sessions are on a one to one basis with 180 having taken place so far this year. Photographs were shown of some of the participants and the joy on their faces was a delight to see.

Inner Wheel members will be looking forward to social and fundraising events, the first of these being a coffee morning in November to raise funds for donations to local charities at Christmas

All of Cornwall are grateful for the Air Ambulance and Marhamchurch WI welcomed one of the charities workers to their September meeting. 

Paul Ford, sporting a white beard (a sponsorship challenge) and a red Air Ambulance shirt bringing to mind a jovial Santa Claus now works as part of the ground crew for Cornwall Air Ambulance. He was guest speaker and gave the group a history of the service as well as explaining all the work it does now. Accompanying Paul was Priscilla Windsor -Brown, an observer and learner as she told the members. 

32,000 people have been air lifted by Cornwall Air Ambulance, a good percentage of the 500,000 who live in the county. 

The first Air Ambulance in 1987 was because of Geoff Newman who had seen the system working in Germany. It was originally NHS funded but became a charity after 6 months- the NHS deciding it was too expensive. 

Helicopters were leased and kept at military bases etc whereas now there is a purpose built base at Newquay which members of the public can visit. The base has recently been extended so thereare now training rooms storage space a kitchen and places for staff to relax. 

 The team consists of six Pilots, 12 Paramedics, seven Doctors, 49 Charity Staff and 318 volunteers. The Paramedics are now technical crew trained on simulators in navigation and also able to land the helicopters in an emergency. There are also two specially equipped vehicles just in case places are not accessible by the ambulance or the helicopter is unable to fly. 

 The Helicopters fly 1,000 missions per year, 19 hours every day . They now carry blood and lots of specialised kit including The Lucas Chest Compressor which does CPR. 

 The crew now have night vision goggles paid for by a grateful patient of the air ambulance after her and her family were involved in a bad boating accident. She raised a fantastic £300,000 and means that the helicopters can be used not only at night but also in poor weather conditions. 

 A new Air Ambulance has been ordered and is currently under construction. A second helicopter will cover annual services which take eight weeks and will help during busier times of year. 

 Paul was an exceptionally engaging guest speaker and this report is just a précis of all the members learnt about The Cornwall Air Ambulance. The running costs of this service are 6 million a year and it is hoped that those living in Cornwall will continue to support and raise money to keep the helicopters flying. 

Thanks were given to Paul and Priscilla who hopefully left with money in their collecting bucket. 

Photographers of all ages spent summer days in and around the church of St Peter ad Vincula in Ashwater. All were creating a perfect or unusual shot to be included in an exhibition for a special day of celebration entitled A Snapshot in time, with Ashwater’s ancient parish church at its centre.  With its peal of six bells, its well-tended churchyard, a Norman font, ancient carved bench-ends and a famous medieval monument, Ashwater’s church is a well- known local landmark which has stood for centuries.  Its list of rectors goes back to the thirteenth century.  Visitors come from near and far to see the church or to visit the churchyard when searching for Devon ancestors.  

At the beginning of the summer holidays local resident and church member, Diana Marriot, asked both new and experienced photographers to create their own special shot of St Peter’s to celebrate the summer of 2024 and capture a moment in time. Using traditional cameras and mobile phones many rose to the challenge.  All the images were displayed on Saturday, September 7, when the church opened its doors to local residents and visitors to celebrate the church’s history and its special place in the Ashwater community.  Diana said “I challenged photographers to be creative, taking both traditional and unusual shots of the church from near and far, inside and outside, in colour and in black and white and the response has been wonderful, a true snapshot in time.”   

There were interesting things to see around every corner.  Local residents brought in photographs of weddings and other special events held in the church over the years.  Everyone had a chance to try bell-ringing and listen to live music. Young Ashwater musician Rowan Tidball, a student from the, Birmingham Conservatoire, joined his family and other local artists in performance.   A highlight of the day was the singing of the Ashwater Song, collected by Sabine Baring-Gould, about local bellringing competitions.  Children took part in a quiz and their younger siblings searched for three church mice. Local historians provided a display from church archives and people were encouraged to take a selfie wearing a knight’s helm or an historic hat based on 14th to 20th century fashions.  There was also time to visit a book-stall and enjoy a chat over tea and home- made cakes.   

Revd Dr Paul Fitzpatrick, rector of Ruby Country Benefice, congratulated the participants for creating a special historical record of the church’s place in the 21st century landscape, playing their part in the continuing history Ashwater’s ancient church and rural community.