The Crosspool community website run by Crosspool Forum
St Columba’s church in Crosspool has launched a website.
It can be found at stcolumbacrosspool.org.uk and includes details of services, news, and information about its activities in the community.
The launch coincides with a busy programme of Christmas service at Crosspool churches, starting this weekend with candlelight services.
If you happen to be in the Crosspool precinct over the next two or three weeks, have a look in the right-hand window of GT News.
You’ll find a display of pictures painted by year six children at Lydgate Infant School.
Although they are all commendable, your choice will be decisive in determining the winner of a competition to find the best. You can record your favourite with the GT News sales staff.
The child with the most votes by the 4 January 2012 will be presented with a £20 voucher.
At the request of one of the younger members of our community, Crosspool Forum was proud to organise a Children’s Christmas Disco party.
As a result on Sunday 4 December, 35 young children enjoyed a party atmosphere in St Columba’s Church Hall.
Local children danced to the amusing music of Fabio’s Disco, enjoyed the excitement of playing musical chairs and were thrilled to pass-the-parcel, whilst their accompanying relatives relaxed with a cuppa and a bite to eat. With all this exertion, it wasn’t long before the children became thirsty and enthusiastically consumed the refreshments of drinks and nibbles.
At around 3.15 in the afternoon, little faces lit up when Santa arrived with gifts for all the children.
Thank you so very much to those who made the afternoon a great success and in so doing supported our endeavours to ensure that the children of Crosspool had a wonderful time, a smile and above all, happy memories.
The four local Crosspool churches have announced their programme of services for the Christmas season:
18 December 10am Family Communion; 4pm Festival of Angels Carol Service
24 December 4pm Candlelight Nativity Service; 11.30pm Midnight Communion (joint service with Beacon Methodist at Stephen Hill church)
25 December 10am Christmas amily Communion
18 December 2.45pm Candlelight Service
25 December 10.15am Christmas Day
24 December 4pm Children’s Nativity Service (not Mass); 8pm Christmas Night Mass
25 December 10am Christmas Day Mass
18 December 4pm Carol Service
24 December 4pm Children’s Service with Christingles; 11.30pm Midnight Communion (joint service with St Columba’s)
25 December 10am Worship For All Ages
A Tapton student, James Gray of Crosspool, has been awarded a special award from the Sheffield Federation of School Sports for his outstanding contribution to schools cross country running over the last seven years.
Eighteen year old James, who represented Yorkshire and South Yorkshire, and has been Sheffield and South Yorkshire champion for most of those seven years, was presented with the award at a ceremony attended by Councillor Dr Sylvia Dunkley, Lord Mayor of Sheffield, at the Sheffield United FC Bramall Lane on 24 November 2011.
He is also due to receive another honour in January from the South Yorkshire Schools Federation.
This Christmas, St Columba’s church in Crosspool is celebrating its second Angel Festival, using large willow angel figures created for the church by local artist Lesley Warren.
The word angel means “messenger” and community groups have been invited to create an angel that expresses the message of their group this Christmas. The host of angels will be exhibited at St. Columba’s over the weekend before Christmas. The exhibition is open from 10am-2pm on Saturday 17 December, with hand bell ringers at 11am.
On Sunday 18 December, the exhibition is open 3-4 pm with an Angel Carol Service at 4pm. Refreshments will be served and donations received in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, who have been a huge support to a local family.
At the last Crosspool Forum Open Meeting, residents raised the issue of the frequency and reliability of the 51 bus service. Our local councillor Geoff Smith has contacted First and asked us to publish the response he received.
He appreciates that it does not take us any further but thought our readers should know what was said. He has also contacted Stagecoach about running a service on the 51 route as well but has not received a reply yet.
South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive has a role in keeping bus companies to their advertised timetables. However, they need specific examples to take any action. If you have a specific example you wish to bring to their attention then you can do so by using pam.horner@sypte.co.uk or 0114 221 1452.
Dear Councillor Smith,
Thank you for your email in relation to the problems passengers are receiving in Crosspool on Service 51.
Firstly, I am sorry to hear that passengers are unhappy with the service being received. There have been a number of timetable changes in recent times all with the objective of improving punctuality.
I have received feedback from our Scheduling Department as follows;
We have been analysing data for each journey over a period of a typical month and adjusting the timetable to account for known and predictable delays. For example, the slow queue up to Broomhill at the afternoon peak period, delays at school start and finish times etc. This has resulted at certain times in scheduled and published breaks in the timetable of slightly longer than the general frequency of 10 minutes. It’s the unexpected that can cause unscheduled breaks and there can be a variety of factors outside of our control.There should be the facility for passengers to text “Your Next Bus” at the bus stop, if they have a mobile phone and this should provide the customer with an estimated arrival time of the next bus.
We can’t really draw comparisons between different services. It was always the case that different areas merit different frequencies and solutions. The population density along the 52 route is much stronger and so are passenger numbers. And another bus company has chosen to operate alongside First on the 52 route.
I hope the information provided is of assistance to you, however if you have any further questions then please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely
Amanda Maybury
Lead Customer Service Advisor
Subject: Update – 51 Bus Service
Last night the first snow of the season settled in Crosspool.
By this morning the pavements and roads were lightly covered. At 8am, it had turned to slush on the main road through the precinct and on Manchester Road. Some light snow was still falling.
There is no snow on the ground once you get past Shore Lane, however it is still very wet and quite slippery so be careful if you are heading out.
Crosspool card and gift shop Charisma will be open Sundays in December from 9:30am to 1.00pm to give customers more time to browse and stock up for Christmas.
They also have an online shop, at www.giftsonlineuk.net, and you can follow them on Twitter at @charisma_gifts.
Crosspool residents are being urged to check their bank statements following further reports of unauthorised withdrawals from bank accounts after using the cash machine in Crosspool.
One person on Twitter said: “Just to let you know, the cash machine outside the spar in Crosspool has been tampered with again. (information from spar staff) please check your bank accounts!”.
Another post on Crosspool Forum’s Facebook wall commented: “Acc to the manager at crosspool tavern the cash machine at the spar has been tampered with again plz RT check your accounts”.
At the end of October we reported similar problems for people who had used the Crosspool cash machine. Some banks identified the unusual activity and stopped funds leaving customers’ accounts.
If you have used the ATM outside Spar recently then we recommend that you double-check the transactions on your account and contact your bank if you see anything unusual.
If you’ve been a victim of this you can report your incident to the police by calling 0114 220 2020. If you want to speak to Bank Machines, the company that runs the machine, they can be contacted on 0800 028 6923.
We’ll keep you updated if we hear any other news.
Crosspool News - crosspool.info 