Crosspool News – crosspool.info
The Crosspool community website run by Crosspool Forum
These are the winning entries for this year’s
“Pet of the Year Competition”.
Each winner was presented with a voucher to spend at the Crosspool Pet Supplies, Sandygate Road, Crosspool
Cocker and Carr (Estate Agents), Sandygate Road, CrosspoolÂ
who kindly sponsored this year’s event, will be displaying these photos in their shop window until the end of next week.
After long deliberation judging the many entries to this year’s Photo, Art and Cake competitions, the winners were finally announced and awarded with their certificates and cash prizes at the close of the exhibition in St Columba’s Church at 4.30pm, Wednesday the 3rd July.
Crosspool Forum is looking for nominations for 2018 Crosspool Person of the Year.
The award was set up in 2013 to acknowledge commitment, accomplishment and achievement by individuals in the neighbourhood.
In 2017 Sheila Lomas picked up the award for her voluntary work at Tapton Congregational Church.
Nominate someone by filling in the form below by Monday 7 May 2018.
All nominees will appear on a voting form in the autumn issue of the Crosspool Clarion.
A local resident who has spent decades helping out in our local community has been rewarded with this year’s Crosspool Person of the Year award.
Sheila Lomas is well known for her voluntary work at Tapton Congregational Church where she has been involved with hosting garden parties, Christmas events and summer fetes and other fundraisers.
Her selfless work in the local community has been truly remarkable and she is a worthy recipient for this award.
In 1997 Sheila started the Soup and a Roll lunch club with 6 guests. Still running today, it has grown to nearly 40 diners, meeting monthly for lunch, a natter and an afternoon of entertainment.
Crosspool Forum had arranged for the Lord Mayor Councillor Anne Murphy to make the presentation at the Open Meeting on Thursday, but due to a last minute reschedule the Lord Mayor was unable to attend and has therefore kindly agreed to officially present Sheila with the award a little later in the year.
A local volunteer has won an award for his outstanding voluntary work at Crosspool Community Pre-School.
Martin Swift began volunteering at the pre-school in 2011 and his commitment and contribution to the charity was recognised when he was presented with The Pre-School Learning Alliance Volunteer Award for the North Division at an event in Leeds.
Pre-school Manager Lauren Hodgson said: “Martin became our chairperson in 2011 when his eldest daughter attended pre-school. His son has also attended pre-school last year and he has another child to follow.
“He has shown a high level of personal commitment and made a valuable contribution to the running of our committee and pre-school. This has enabled our community based pre-school to continue to run and provide high quality education and care for local families.
“Martin has been very supportive in helping implement changes such as our lunch time club which enabled children to attended mornings and afternoon sessions. This has helped working families, provided a social opportunity for the children to eat together and generated much-needed revenue for pre-school and helped us be financially sustainable.
“When pre-school was flooded in 2012 he helped with our insurance claim and the big clean up. As a result, pre-school was only closed to families for two days as we relocated into our main school building.
“Martin was a fantastic support during our Ofsted inspection in 2015 and was available to talk at length to the inspector about his role as chair of the committee and pre-school’s strengths and priorities for improvement. We were very pleased with our ‘good’ judgement. He was proactive in our recruitment for a new deputy manager and helped with the restructure of the staff team. He spent many hours developing the interview process and chaired the interview panel.
“Martin attends and chairs the regular half term committee meetings and is available for conversations throughout the week. He regularly comes to visit the setting and is a familiar face to the children, families and staff team. He helps with any financial matters that arise and makes suggestions and contributions for our policies and procedures. He also helps with any issues or concerns that are raised and helps develop our plan for improvement.
“Martin’s support has been vital for the effective running of Pre-School and I really value his support and contribution as the chair of our pre-school management committee. The award reflects Martin’s hard work and responsibility as an outstanding volunteer as our nominated chairperson which is essential for us to continue to run as a pre-school for children in the community.”
Martin is now through to the National Pre- School Alliance Learning awarding in London on 16 June.
Residents in Crosspool nominated and elected Glenda de Brouwer the 2016 Crosspool Person of the Year.
The award was presented to Glenda by Crosspool Forum chair Ian Hague during the Lydgate Junior School’s Friday morning assembly, marking the valued and much-appreciated contribution she has made to our community.
Glenda’s dedicated leadership of the Beavers every week in the Benty Lane scout hut for the past 12 years and her positive influence as a teacher at Lydgate Junior School has benefited many children and parents and made her both well-known and respected in the community.
The time and leadership Glenda has given through scouting, teaching and many other things has led to countless young people having life-enriching experiences.
Crosspool would not be such a great place to live without people like Glenda, who just gets on with serving the community week in, week out.
Whilst at the school, Ian Hague and vice chair of the Crosspool Forum Steve Reynolds took the opportunity to present a £300 cheque towards the school funds, a proportion of money raised from this year’s Crosspool Forum’s festival.
The dedication of the Crosspool Forum vice chairman Steve Reynolds has been recognised with him being presented with the 2015 Crosspool person of the year award.
The award, set up in 2013 by Crosspool Forum on a suggestion by St Columba’s minister Reverend Frances Eccleston, acknowledges commitment, accomplishment and achievement by individuals in the neighbourhood.
On the recommendation of the Frances, Crosspools first award winner was Sue Havenhand, the retired headteacher of Lydgate Junior School.
In 2014 some 50 residents, at an open meeting, proposed and voted Ian Hague, Crosspool Forum Chairman, as the person to receive the award.
For the 2015 award, voting slips were compiled from a shortlist of people, nominated by the public and published in the Crosspool Clarion. Steve Reynolds, receiving the most votes, was presented with an engraved tankard and certificate at last week’s open meeting.
This week eight students from Crosspool’s Tapton School received a Diana Award for an initiative which has provided a safe haven for young people from homophobic and transphobic bullying.
Rosie, Sara, Catherine, Ruairidh, Molly, Oliver, Imogen and Aleksandra, all aged 17, are the Tapton Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Straight Alliance (LGBTSA), nominated by SAYiT in Sheffield.
The group formed an alliance for the protection of young people at their school who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. As well as being a support network, LGBTSA has helped develop the way in which their school can provide a safe and happy learning environment for students.
LGBTSAÂ has also inspired students from other schools who learned of their campaigning success to establish their own alliances.
The Diana Award is a lifetime award set up in memory of Princess Diana and today has the support of her sons The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry and the Prime Minister as Patron.
It celebrates young people who have had a monumental impact on the lives of others – whether they’re a volunteer, fundraiser, young carer, campaigner or anti-bullying mentor – they all share a deep sense of social responsibility.
The hard work of Crosspool Forum Chairman Ian Hague was recognised on Saturday when he was presented with an award for his contribution to our local community.
The Crosspool Community Award, or Crosspool Person of the Year as it is sometimes known, was set up in 2013 by Crosspool Forum to acknowledge commitment, accomplishment and achievement by individuals in the neighbourhood.
Retired Lydgate Junior School headteacher Sue Havenhand was the first person to receive the award last year, and following public nominations and a vote at an Open Meeting it was decided that Ian should receive it in 2014.
He was presented with the award at Crosspool Fayre on Saturday and gave a short speech to say thank you and explain his motivation for all his Forum work, which is to bring the community together.
Crosspool Forum Vice Chairman Steve Reynolds sums up Ian’s contribution:
Ian moved into Crosspool with his family in 1972, where his children grew up in the area before going to universities, getting married and having families of their own.
He worked for the CIS until his retirement in 2002. He was unable to hang up his working boots altogether, taking a couple of part time jobs helping out in Crosspool’s Greencross Chemist and also Kathryn’s Flower shop in the precinct.
The idea for Crosspool Forum came in late 2002, under the auspices of David Aspinall, then South West Area Coordinator. In June 2003 the Crosspool Forum was launched and run by volunteers under the watchful eye of Ian and Barry Clay.
The Forum was set up to tackle issues such as litter, grass verge parking, local public transport, planning applications and tree replacement. It had a large input into the 2007 traffic management scheme through the shopping precinct alterations and secured Hagg Copse (Coldwell Lane/Manchester Road junction) as a community green area
It has also worked to bring to light significant local planning applications, including the proposed convenience store at Motor World site in 2010 and more recently Moor View Farm.
In Ian’s eleven years at the Forum helm we have seen:-
- The introduction and editing of the Clarion quarterly newsletter delivered to over two and a half thousand local households in the area.
- In 2008 the installation of a bench, made possible by generous donations, was a welcome addition to the precinct.
- 2010 saw the launch of our website, Crosspool News. Today you can also keep up to date by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
- Precinct Planters/hanging baskets/Christmas trees.
- Crosspool Festival, Summer Fayre and street markets.
- Car Boot Sales and Community Skips
- Vergeside bulb plantations, seeing 30 thousand bulbs planted over a decade
- Annual Children’s Christmas Party
- Various local computing training courses bringing computer skills to the more mature residents of Crosspool, and recently Tai Chi which is becoming very popular.
Since the launch of the Forum Ian’s drive and determination was to bring the community together, work with council officers, local councillors, schools and police, to improve and enhance the community in which we all live and work, promote a community spirit, and to preserve and improve Crosspool’s first-rate access to the countryside, village atmosphere, good neighbourliness and general character of the local area.
Over the last eleven years Ian has certainly achieved this goal.
The Crosspool Community Award was set up in 2013 by Crosspool Forum to acknowledge commitment, accomplishment and achievement by individuals in the Crosspool neighbourhood.
Retired Lydgate Junior School headteacher Sue Havenhand was the first person to receive the award last year. She was presented with it for her contribution to education in the community. This includes 14 years spent as head of the school, where she was responsible for approximately 1,500 local children passing through. Prior to her time at Lydgate, she was also an outstanding teacher at Hallam School.
Sue was presented with a small memento to mark the occasion at 2013 Crosspool Festival’s Picnic in the Park.
Who do you think has made an exceptional commitment to our community and deserves to be recognised with the 2014 award? Use the form below to submit your nominations.
The Crosspool Forum/Crosspool Festival committees needs your nominations by noon on Friday 25 April. They’ll go through the submissions and choose a winner. The location and time for the presentation of this year’s award hasn’t been decided yet.
Crosspool News - crosspool.info 