Category: News

SLINGSBY METHODIST CHURCH NEWS – November

HARVEST FESTIVAL

Our Harvest festival took a suprise turn this year due to the illness of Rev Jacky Hale who was supposed to take it. We decided to organise it amongst ourselves with Rachel Prest giving the lead and “The Worship Group” leading much of the singing. There was an appearance of the “Shy Spies”, (Geoff & Styephen). Many others took part and Will Jeffels organised the powerpoint presentation. It was a very happy service with lots of laughter and this was followed by an excellent “Harvest Lunch” in the schoolroom.

SHOEBOX SERVICE

We have had our annual shoebox event with over 30 shoeboxes filled with all sorts of children’s toys and gifts. These have been sent to very underprivileged children either in Eastern Europe or Africa. A special service to dedicate these gifts was held on 2nd November led by Margot Taylor.

CHRISTMAS EVENTS

We are holding a “Candlelit Christmas Praise” for all the family on Sunday 14th December at 4pm at The Methodist Church. The service will be followed by a “Party Tea.” Please bring your families along.

Carol Singing on Tuesday 16th December… Meet at The Methodist Church at 6pm to sing round part of the village and then at 7pm we shall be singing in The Grapes Inn. Do come and join us. Sunday 21st December we are uniting with our Anglican friends for a United Village carol service at the Parish Church at 6pm.

Margaret MacKinder reports on the latest activities of the Local History Group:

We have been out and about in October looking at lumps and bumps in the open spaces around Slingsby to try to identify what they are, and record them before memories fade. The first outing was thwarted by heavy rain so we worked on maps in The Grapes and marked on the features which Peter Smithson could remember or had heard talked about when he was a boy, but which have now disappeared. It was followed up a week later by a walk around the castle / sports field and moat with Peter and Stephen Prest. Many thanks to Stephen for letting us in to investigate the part of the moat which belongs to Castle Farm.

The heavy limestone walls are more visible on the west side of the moat. Are these the outer walls / ramparts of the original medieval castle? There are also the remains of other walls, now almost buried to the south west of the moat, which enclose another large area of land to the west. We intend to find out more about this and have a talk next spring from an expert in this field.

We walked along the northern part of the sports field and observed the very uneven land just south of the Wath Beck and tracked the line of the original gutter which took water to the moat and ran along the western side of the sports field and bowling green. This has now mainly disappeared. It is difficult now to imagine how this worked as at first glance the levels are misleading. The potential lower level of the ditch only becomes apparent as you walk westwards on the sports field along the edge of the beck.

Peter Smithson also showed us where the communal village sheep wash was. Years ago all the farmers washed their sheep in the stream near to the lawns bridge at a specially constructed platform which they had built. If you look westwards from The Lawns Bridge upstream towards Fryton, you will see a concrete platform on the banks which looks like the remnant of a bridge. The concrete blocks supported a temporary bridge under which the sheep had to be pushed to completely submerge them. A man stood on an alcove dug out of the north bank just beyond the concrete and pulled them round on to dry land on the north side of the beck. If you look carefully in the water you may just be able to see the worn pathway in the bed of the stream. The sheep were then collected up on the field where the Mowbray Oak tree is located.

Our visit to Malton Museum: The group made a special evening visit to Malton Museum in October to hear about their plans and learn about the outreach work they do, and to look at the small, but very informative permanent and temporary displays they have about Malton history. The work done by the volunteers to catalogue the museum’s extensive collections is now about complete and is truly impressive. We hope to be able to forge closer links with them and make use, if possible, of some of their collection in our own local history events. Very many thanks to Margaret Shaw for hosting a very interesting evening for us. The displays are open Tuesdays to Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The exhibitions change and there are also special events and workshops form time to time. The Friends of Malton Museum also run a series of interesting monthly evening talks on history subject relevant to the area.

Forthcoming Slingsby Local History Group meetings can be found here  

Malton (and Helmsley) history lectures are here

Today’s Gazette and Herald reports on renewed calls for more information and a public debate on fracking in our area. Lindsay Burr (Ryedale Councillor for Malton and also North Yorkshire Councillor representing the South Holme area of the parish of Slingsby) is calling for a public meeting and more openness, following a recent Ryedale meeting which was closed to the public at short notice. The newspaper article also refers to a meeting in Slingsby Village Hall on Tuesday evening, where (following last month’s expert talk attended by some 100 people) a small number came together to express their concerns about the environmental and health risks of fracking, with a view to establishing a local anti-fracking group. Those present felt that if the true facts about fracking were disclosed, local people would be better placed to make up their own minds. They intended to raise the matter with the Parish Council.

In you have a view, leave a comment on this post using the form below, or email the Slingsby Village website at [email protected]

The full Gazette and Herald article can be read here: http://www.gazetteherald.co.uk/news/11596562.___We_need_a_public_debate_on_fracking___/

 

The Slingsby Village website launched the Slingshot feature earlier in the year to give folk a shared platform to express their concerns on the topics of the day. Contributions can be published here anonymously under the Slingshot byline.

You can find out how to go about this at the foot of the page, but first you ought to read these words which have been sent to us at the website by a concerned resident of this Parish.

What’s all the fracking fuss?

Can’t see why so many people are getting upset about fracking? Think it will help safeguard our energy supplies? Think it’s just the ‘NIMBY’ brigade on a new crusade? You’re wrong on every count!

If you’re not worried about fracking, you certainly should be. Why? Because it’s the biggest threat to Ryedale in a generation. Kevin Hollinrake, the prospective Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Thirsk and Malton, recently expressed his concern about fracking in Ryedale, specifically the threats to drinking water, tourism, groundwater, land and surface damage, and country life in general. York Town Council has already banned it.

If fracking goes ahead in Ryedale it will lead to polluted water supplies, poisonous and radioactive waste water being re-injected into the earth near Pickering and Ebberston, tens of thousands of tanker movements in the area, hundreds of wells being bored around Ryedale, every well working 24/7 and all permanently floodlit.

Land will be at risk of permanent contamination. Toxic substances burnt off by these wells are known to contain cancer-causing chemicals and there has been shown to be a link between animal health and fracking. The value of property will fall and there is no protection for landowners when problems occur, which they always do. Virtually all wells eventually leak; by then the company has long gone and accepts no responsibility.

Fracking will result in Third Energy getting rich while the rest of Ryedale suffers the consequences, which are irreversible!

Dangerous scaremongering? Not so – check the facts for yourselves, then join the fight to stop them!

Slingshot 

Want to join the debate?

If you have something that you’d like to share with others, perhaps something you’ve been dying to get off your chest – especially if it concerns Slingsby and its residents – then you can have it published here anonymously under the Slingshot byline.

Send your contribution to us either by e-mail at [email protected] or put in an envelope and leave it with Tony at the Village Shop. Please remember to include your name, address and telephone number, in case we need to contact you, though these details will NOT be published (your contribution will be anonymous). Finally, please be aware that the Slingsby Website editors will have the freedom to decide whether or not to publish your contribution.