The Oxfam Saga - "You've Managed to Upset Them All by Yourself."

Warning - this is a very long post, but I thought it was important to get the whole thing down in one go.

The Oxfam shop has had people going in and out over the last couple of weeks, re-organising inside, creating new window displays and so on. The shop will be re-opening soon.

So yesterday I had a coffee with a lady who is one of the volunteers for Oxfam. She's one of the group of volunteers who worked at the shop up until it was closed last year and she's been involved in the attempts to re-open the shop over the last year.
She is not happy about the way Oxfam management have handled the entire affair.

I had been aware of some of the things that had been going on behind the scenes, from a variety of sources, and she filled in some of the details for me.
She started off by talking about the way Oxfam shops across the country are being changed into a "cookie cutter" template. In other words, if you walk into any Oxfam shop across the UK, it will look very similar. One of the elements to this is that Oxfam shops are now selling more new goods, and they are being positioned at the front of the shops, with the donated goods at the back – and preference is given to displaying Gift Aid items which have been donated. Other donations are given a lower priority.
All charity shops get a rate rebate, and also their stock is donated, and the shops are run by volunteers who work for free, so they have an advantage over other local businesses that have to pay the full rates, and pay their staff, and pay for the goods they sell. The volunteers felt that it was unfair to be in direct competition with local businesses, so they were stocking the minimum amount that they could agree on with higher management (they were quite happy with the Fairtrade stock - it was the other goods they disagreed with).

She was also very unhappy with the way the management of Oxfam had dealt with the volunteers over the past year. At every stage, the volunteers wanted to get back to running the shop, which they were refused permission to do. The management also expressed surprise that the volunteers stuck together as a group, something that they didn't seem to know how to deal with.
At one point a member of the management said that it had been very stressful to get emails from members of the public complaining about what was happening, and another said that they had been shouted at outside the shop, and that people were being stirred up by "ringleaders" among the volunteers. The volunteer they were complaining to replied: "You've managed to upset them all by yourself."
The management were very upset when Kirsty Williams got involved – but she's always been very involved in what goes on in Hay, and this was a matter of public interest.

When the volunteers ran the Oxfam table sale in the Buttermarket last year (which had already been booked) they were not allowed to go into the shop to get stock, so got donations together at the last minute, along with the plant stall – the people who run that had been growing the plants all year. When they sent the cheque off to Oxfam, they were thanked, and told how much difference it would make – even though the volunteers knew that the amount they raised at the table sale was only a fraction of the amount of money that was being wasted on paying the rent on the closed shop.

Eventually, Oxfam decided that what was needed was conflict resolution between the volunteers and the management. There were several meetings, some with the groups separately and some with them together – including a day at Baskerville Hall, with lunch. The result of this was a conflict resolution agreement – a document that everybody agreed to, which stated that the volunteers should be consulted, and kept informed of developments.
So then Oxfam management appointed a new manager – and refused to tell the volunteers the new manager's name. So much for keeping them informed.
Eventually, they found out that the new manager had been the manager at the Brecon Oxfam shop until it was closed.

Readers might be wondering why the volunteers stuck around to continue the dispute with the management for so long. After all, they were volunteers – they could just drop the whole thing and get on with their lives. But this particular group of volunteers had been together for a long time, and they were proud of what they had achieved. Hay Oxfam was consistently in the top quarter of Oxfam shops across the country in terms of performance. They knew they were a successful shop, and they knew that they could be again – they even suggested that they should run the shop as an all-volunteer shop, without a paid manager, and this was refused by the management, too. By this time, there were only about 10 volunteers still involved in the process, but they believed that they could encourage others of the original 40 to return.

In line with the conflict resolution agreement, the volunteers were supposed to be consulted on the new layout of the shop when it re-opened. The management tried to get them to give their ideas individually by email – the volunteers thought it would be far more sensible to get together to give a combined plan of what they wanted the shop to look like.
The management had already decided what the lay out was going to be when they finally got into the shop to see what was happening.

And then there were the training days. Bearing in mind that some of the volunteers had been working in the shop for 30 years, and that it had been a successful shop, so they knew what they were doing – the management sent trainers who seemed to be under the impression that they were training brand new recruits who didn't have a clue what they were doing, and were very surprised when the volunteers started asking awkward questions. Such as why they would be selling new plastic bottles of shampoo and so on – wasn't this in contradiction to the Oxfam policy on plastic reduction? And why was Oxfam offering Nectar Points to people who signed up for Gift Aid? Also, they were told that they would not be allowed to re-use plastic carrier bags donated to them – they would have to throw them away.
The volunteers who went to these meetings were expected to sign forms to say that they agreed with the Oxfam policies – they were given the forms with a pen, so obviously were intended to sign them at once. The policies all sounded very high minded, and the training session had all been about "empowerment" and "inclusivity" and all sounded very fine. Which was a complete contrast to the way those volunteers had been treated for most of the previous year, where they felt bullied and ignored by the management. So they were very reluctant to sign, because they no longer trusted the management. Especially since the new manager would only talk about "moving on" and not looking back at what was past – and claimed not to be bound by the conflict resolution agreement, which she hadn't been aware of until the volunteers brought the subject up.

Then there was the clearance of the old stock – where donated goods from the stock room were thrown onto the back of lorries and taken to be dumped. This was because clothes moths had infested the stock room in the year that it had remained untouched.
But they weren't only throwing out clothes. The ladies from Londis watched them throwing crockery and other items into the back of the lorry. The lady from the Red Cross shop even went down to ask if she could have some of it, rather than see good stuff be thrown away – and she was refused.
The ladies from Londis were not only angry about the stock being thrown out – they had kept the spare key for the Oxfam shop, and when the management came in to collect it, they didn't even say thank you. Also, Londis had the tea and sugar and so on for the Oxfam shop on a tab – the management didn't pay that bill; it came out of the pocket of one of the volunteers. I don't think they'll be running a tab for Oxfam in future.

When the volunteers finally got into the shop and checked, they found that all the children's toys had gone, and also the DVDs – it was claimed that the children's toys were broken, and the DVDs were pirated copies!
There is a new Oxfam policy that the shops will not sell anything for under £1 in future – and what seems to have happened is that they have thrown away everything that would have been priced at under £1. So, mugs at 50p, glasses for 30p, Cds and DVDs, toys, even the container of scrap metal that used to be collected to sell to the dealer – all gone. Apparently donated goods that would previously have been sold at under £1 will be "bundled" in future – so 2 or 3 items for £1 (or 99p – can't have a whole number as the price!)
The new pricing policy is that goods will be £1.99 rather than £2 (or whatever it might be) – and this is apparently to deter the staff from stealing! It means that they have to open the till to give change for every transaction. It seems that the Oxfam management hadn't considered the fact that there are no banks in Hay any more – so good luck with getting the pennies to give as change!
And you'll need more than pennies to buy the vintage Welsh blanket that's now hanging in the window of the shop – I stopped by to check after I came out of Shepherds, and they want £199.00 for it!

Finally, the lady I was talking to gave me a quotation she'd found which she thought summed up the whole situation with Oxfam. It's actually from Melanie Phillips the columnist, who was talking about a completely different subject, but it does seem rather apt:
"Their behaviour provides a ghastly illustration of the signature characteristic of the social justice warrior coupling the most lofty goals for the human race with a total absence of care, duty or respect towards actual people."

St. David's Day Concert

Some very good local musicians will be on stage in the Globe! And it's for a very good cause.

Baskerville Hall 7th Anniversary Session

Wednesday nights at the Baskie are always a lot of fun, and it all started seven years ago. In that time, we've met in Moriarty's Bar, the ballroom and, most recently, in the Music Room, which is a beautiful setting. Bob Evans, who runs the evening, has been working out statistics, and he thinks that sixteen thousand songs have been sung (some of them more than once!).
He started the evening with an old favourite, The Fighting Temeraire, in honour of the picture on the new £20 note, and later in the evening, we all sang along to Too Many Guitars, as Bob was debuting his new guitar.
It was nice to see Phil and Pam Brown back after a long absence, singing about Satanic black foxes and lonely glow worms. Pam was also giving out leaflets for an evening with Les Barker at Moccas Village Hall, on 14th March.
A group of four performers came for the first time, including Catherine Hughes who does a lot of singing around Hay, sometimes in Welsh. They raised the tone with harmonic madrigals, Gilbert and Sullivan, and a song in Bulgarian about a Macedonian young man, watching the young ladies in his village.
I chose songs on the theme of the number seven, including one which I'd only ever heard before when my little sister learned it at school, about a handsome butcher - and the madrigal singers knew it! My other choices came from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and a song about the seven victims of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster, which is surprisingly jolly considering the subject matter.
A member of the audience was moved to get up and sing a country and western song, and when his turn came round again he chose Fiddlers' Green, which we knew because a regular who wasn't there last night sings it - so Rob could join in on guitar, and I sang along with the chorus.
Ellie and Bob duetted with Summer Wine, and Ellie gave advice to the madrigal singers about finding harmonising music from South Africa, such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
It was a great night - and I hope I'll still be there in another seven years!

The Quest for Absolute Zero

I could just about keep up with the science in this talk at the Science Café! It had equations in it! And graphs!
For this session, we were in the bigger back room at the Swan, and the speaker was John Tyler, who had a background working with liquid oxygen.
So, as I vaguely remembered from my A level Chemistry days, the coldest temperature it's possible to be is -273.15 degrees Celcius, which is the same as 0 degrees Kelvin, and John's talk outlined the history of how scientists had attempted to get down to that temperature through history.
The first problem was how to measure temperature at all. The first accurate measurements were with the scale devised by Mr. Farenheit in the 18th century, followed by M. Celcius, who devised the scale that started at 0 degrees for the boiling point of water, and 100 degrees for the freezing point of water - until someone else decided that it would be more sensible to do it the other way round, as we do today. To take the measurements they needed mercury, and good enough glass blowers to make the glass tube to put the mercury in.
There are other methods of temperature measurement that are more useful at very low temperatures, such as measuring the resistivity of a platinum wire.
The theory was that, if the temperature was low enough, a gas would turn into a liquid, and eventually into a solid, as can be easily observed with water, becoming steam or ice according to the temperature. Another important variable is pressure - which is why it gets more difficult to boil water the higher up a mountain you are. So more pressure helps to turn your gas into a liquid.
This is where I learned of the "triple point", the one place in a graph of temperature against pressure where an element would be in all three states - solid, liquid and gas - at the same time! There's an international committee which fixes the official measurements, and which fixed the official temperature for Absolute Zero.

Steam engines were used to power the experiments, and at first the only object of the experiments was to see if it could be done - there was no practical application for liquid oxygen, hydrogen or nitrogen. There is now, of course - MRI scanners in hospitals use liquid helium as a coolant. Helium wasn't even known as an element when the experiments began, but in the middle of the nineteenth century there was an eclipse, centred in India, where astronomers used spectroscopy for the first time to detect the different gases in the corona of the sun as it went behind the moon. This gives coloured lines for each element, and there was a bright yellow one that had never been seen before. The name it was given, helium, comes from helios, Greek for the sun. Later, helium was detected on earth, coming from uranium ore, and the scientists who had been experimenting with making liquid hydrogen also wanted to try to make liquid helium. One of the foremost of these was Sir James Dewar, who gave demonstrations before audiences at the Royal Society. There is a picture of him in the 1890s making liquid hydrogen before an audience which included famous scientists like Marconi - without any safety precautions whatsoever. Apparently Sir James' two assistants each lost an eye in experiments that went wrong!
Meanwhile at the University of Leiden, a chap called Onnes had the resources and the inclination to make Leiden a world centre of cryogenic research, setting up a school to train glass blowers and instrument makers who were essential to build the equipment needed. By this stage they were using glass vacuum vessels as part of the method of lowering the temperature, first making liquid air, and using that to cool down hydrogen until the gas became liquid.
There was some discussion at the end of the talk about the feasibility of producing hydrogen powered cars in the volume necessary to replace petrol driven ones, and they weren't very optimistic that it was practical. Another member of the audience had also worked with cryogenics, at Llanwern, where they processed 5,000 tons of air a day into liquid oxygen and other elements! Argon is one of the trace elements in air that has a commercial use (welding, I think). And apparently the Dutch are experimenting with introducing hydrogen into the gas supply with some success.
The picture used at the beginning of the talk was of the Boomerang nebula, which is the coldest place known in nature, at about 1 degree Kelvin. Most of space is at about 2 degrees Kelvin. The coldest recorded temperature in nature on Earth was -81 degrees C.

The next talk will be on Monday March 23rd, when Brian Henderson will be talking about PCR, which I think stands for Polymerase Chain Reaction!

Welsh Lessons

The Welsh lessons at the beginning of the year went so well that Haydn is doing it again. Lessons start on 24th February, at the Three Tuns, and the course lasts for 6 weeks.

Cusop Churchyard

The talk last night at the Cusop History Society was about Cusop Churchyard.
There was a serious technical problem at the beginning of the talk where the memory stick wouldn't talk to the laptop that controlled the projector, but a Heroic Tech Guy took the laptop outside, and when he came back, it was fixed, and Jane could quickly go through the pictures that accompanied her talk up to the point she had reached.

Jane Weaver, who also belongs to the Camera Club, was asked to take photographs of the graves in Cusop Churchyard. An old list had been found (from around 1990) with a map of the graves and their inscriptions. Since then, of course, more graves have been added to the churchyard, and the churchwardens wanted to have an up to date record.
Then, when Jane had started the project, someone else found a different list of graves, so there were two documents to work from, one with 43 pages and the other with 13 pages.
It wasn't as easy as it sounded, to just record them all. Jane decided to work from the "John Wilkes list" (he compiled it), as it was more comprehensive, and started in the corner of the churchyard near the lych gate, where the graves are mostly in neat rows. The Booth family are buried there, the most recent being Richard Booth the King of Hay.
One of the problems Jane found was that the churchyard has not always been as it appears today. Her map showed rows of flat graves up in the top corner (if you take the lych gate as the bottom corner), which have been overgrown to the extent that many are no longer visible. Other grave stones have broken, and there is a pile of them against the wall of the church. In the 1970s, a group of men "who were good with crowbars" tidied up the churchyard by moving a lot of gravestones, and laying them flat under one of the yew trees like a pavement. They had a serving police officer as part of the group, to add a veneer of legality to the proceedings, but they didn't seem to make any record of what they were doing. Apparently, at the time, the churchyard was in a bit of a state, with a pony tethered near the lych gate and sheep grazing, and brambles overgrowing areas.
Another problem Jane found was that memorials which had been legible in 1990 had deteriorated, and were no longer legible, so that in some cases she couldn't find graves that had been recorded.
The oldest grave she found was by the church door, of Thomas Watkins who died in 1792, I think - he'd been a local JP.
One of the other early graves was of William Seward - it's now illegible, but they know where it is, because William Seward was a nonconformist preacher who was injured while preaching to an unruly crowd, and later died of his injuries. Jane wasn't sure why he had been buried in Cusop, but someone in the audience thought that he had been taken to a farm nearby, where he had died. There is a memorial to William Seward inside the church. Celia, one of the present churchwardens, said that their next project would be to restore the box tomb where William Seward is buried.
Jane also photographed the memorials inside the church - William Seward's, and also the First World War memorial, which starts with a member of the Royal Flying Corps. There is no memorial for the Second World War. One memorial mentioned in an old historical article is no longer there, and the two bells mentioned in the article were removed in the 1960s.
Another member of the Royal Flying Corps buried at Cusop went on to train as a doctor after the First World War, and ended up as quite a high ranking surgeon in the Royal Navy.
Another interesting grave is of "Johnny the Pilot". He was a Polish airman during the Second World War, and one of the Cusop History Group is doing a little project to find out more about him. He was shot down twice, and came to live in Cusop after the War. There are quite a few other graves of military men in the churchyard, too, including one young soldier who died in India, and another who died in the Transvaal.
One picture Jane showed was of a typical family plot, with eight members of the family buried there. "It's the Adams Family," she said, looking round the room. "Not a titter!" she complained.
She had also looked at the grave of a Victorian curate who worked at Cusop - I missed the name. The rector of Cusop had been absent at the time, so he employed the curate to do the parish work. He is buried with his wife Isabella, and the grave monument is interesting. It consists of three steps, meant to symbolise God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, with a cross on top. The memorial to Isabella is on the East side, where Jane expected to find the curate's details - but he is memorialised on the West side of the monument. Various beliefs about the Last Judgement were mentioned here - like the idea that Jesus would come from the East to raise all the dead from their graves - so the details were recorded on the west side of the grave where Jesus would see them!
After the talk, I mentioned the previously unknown chapel I had helped to dig in Norwich, back when I was an archaeologist. We found the grave of a man we assumed to be the priest, partly because he had been buried with a small chalice and paten, and partly because he had been buried in the opposite direction to everyone else in the graveyard - so that on the Day of Last Judgement, he would rise from the dead to face his parishioners.
It was a fascinating talk, and brought out quite a few memories from the audience who had known some of the people mentioned, or their families. Jane was thanked at the end, for the quality of the research she has done.

The next talk will be by John Price, on 13th March, who will be showing local photographs from the Mary Ridger Collection, including some stereographic 3D photos of Cusop.
On Friday 17th April, Tony Usher will be giving a talk "From Roman Roads to Railways: Connecting People in Herefordshire"
In June there may be a trip out, to be confirmed, and on July 10th Heather Hurley will be talking about the Green Lanes of Herefordshire.

Flood Relief

In the aftermath of the Storm Dennis flooding, local people are stepping up to help.
On Facebook, Cheryl Payne has set up a page called Helping Flood Victims in Hay on Wye and All Surrounding Areas, and a Go Fund Me page.
The official help for the residents of Dulas Terrace has been the Gurkhas coming to help, and Herefordshire Council saying they'll pick up the ruined furniture and take it away for free (the cottages are just over the border into Herefordshire). Cheryl has also contacted Powys County Council to see what help they are offering for the people on the Welsh side of the border who have been flooded.
The unofficial help has been people dropping off donations of things like kitchen equipment at the Three Tuns, which is co-ordinating this part of the assistance. They were also offering free soup and coffee or tea for the flood victims.
On the Facebook page, people are also offering furniture and curtains and bedding, but these things won't be needed straight away - it's going to take a long time for the houses to dry out enough before they can be redecorated and carpeted and have furniture put back in.
On the Facebook page this morning, Cheryl says that the people at Dulas Terrace are pretty much sorted out now, so she's turning her attention to twelve bungalows in Brecon that flooded, and have elderly residents. She's got a list of things that they need. She's also been sourcing carpet off cuts to put down temporarily for houses in Peterchurch.
A chap called Merlin has offered to go round to help with odd jobs - he says he can do carpentry, plastering, plumbing, decorating, laying floors and more, but he will need equipment and materials.
The Hereford Times and Herefordshire Community Foundation have also teamed up to set up an appeal fund for the flood victims.

More from the Extinction Rebellion Meeting - Upcoming Events

There are quite a few events coming up soon in the area, but I only took very sketchy notes, and I may have missed one or two.

There's a talk, organised by the national XR team, at Talgarth Town Hall, called Heading for Extinction on 28th February, which sounded like something well worth attending.
On 22nd February, there will be a march in London, for anyone heading down that way, and for anyone heading up to Machynlleth, there's a training weekend happening there for people who want to be involved in protests. Justin, resident Welsh speaker, had to go over to read the notes, so it was pronounced properly!
There's a meeting in Brecon on 23rd February.

Borderlines Film Festival is coming up at the end of February, from from the 28th to the 15th March, and there are several films with a climate theme being shown.
For instance, 2040 is a film showing what the future would be like if we embraced all the solutions that are available to us now, and Weathering with You is a Japanese anime film with an environmental theme.

On April 18th, there's a Green Festival at Hay School. The local XR group will have a stall.

Starting at about the same time as Hay Festival, at the end of May, is the XR national campaign "Waves". There will be several events at Hay Festival on an environmental theme, as there have been for several years already. They are also trying to make the Festival carbon neutral. Several people at the XR meeting said that they thought Peter Florence and Hay Festival would be open to talking to XR and seeing what could be achieved.
It was also said that most groups that approach the Festival want to see what they can get out of a collaboration. XR, on the other hand, would be asking what they can do to support what the Festival is already doing.
The Low Carbon Group from the Town Council will also be active in town during the Festival.

Meanwhile at the other end of town, Roger Hallam of XR has been booked to speak at How the Light Gets In, but there seems to be nothing else going on at How The Light Gets In on climate change. It would also be more difficult for local XR members to support his talk, because of the way the tickets are organised - people who go to How The Light Gets In buy a pass for the day or the weekend, whereas the Hay Festival site is free to walk around, and people can buy tickets for individual events rather than staying on site for the whole day.

Finally, on June 13th, a gig is planned at the Globe as a fund raiser for XR - details to come when I have them.

Help for Flooded Cottages

The cottages along the Dulas Brook were flooded at the same time as the Gliss car park was flooded. The water has gone down again now, but there's been a lot of damage done.
This evening, Brian with the Staffie has just been by to tell me that the Army has arrived! He's been down there talking to Gurkhas and other soldiers who are helping with the clear up.

Extinction Rebellion Meeting - Hay Town Council and COP26

There was quite a good turnout, with several people who hadn't been before, considering that it was the first night of Storm Dennis.
The meeting started (after tea and cake and introductions) with a cut down film of a talk by Professor Rupert Reed, who was talking about regeneration, rewilding and repair - positive actions highlighting topics such as food security by planting a pop-up allotment outside the County Council offices or preparing a feast with food that has been thrown away by supermarkets (there are groups that do this - one of them came to Hay for the Festival a few years ago).
Now the XR movement has been noticed, by doing big actions like the ones in London last year, it's time for tactics to change, so the emphasis should be on local actions, but co-ordinated nationally. This means that people are not having to travel long distances to do the actions, and they can be relevant to local conditions. The aim is to be disruptive of the people in power, rather than ordinary people.

One of the people at the meeting was also a Co-ordinator for the Midlands, so he could listen to the ideas in the local group and pass that up to regional level.
One problem the group identified was that - last year there was a clear focus, on going to London and doing various things as part of the big actions there. This year, we've got to find our own focus.
Two aims that the meeting wanted to keep in mind were to campaign for Net Zero Carbon emissions by 2025, and to organise Citizens' Assemblies to decide priorities.
One person in the circle (all the chairs were arranged in a circle around the room so that everyone had an equal chance to see and be seen and speak if they wanted to) suggested that the movement needed to do something like the Flood Warning system - starting with a Flood Alert, and moving on to Flood Warning, with clear advice about what to do in each situation.

There was praise for Hay Town Council and their Low Carbon Group. They want to make Hay carbon-neutral by 2030, and have invited XR members to come along to advise on the town's carbon footprint. There will also be a Green Festival at Hay School on 18th April, where XR will have a stall.
Powys County Council, on the other hand, have not yet declared a Climate Emergency, and they are launching their new local development plan soon - it would be good if they paid attention to the Climate Emergency in that plan.

One of the reasons for the meeting was to get people who were interested to join the sub-groups of the movement. There are the Affinity Groups, who are trained in how to act during big protests, but not everyone is willing or able to do that. So there are other groups, such as the one for Regenerative Culture - this is fundamental to the way XR works, and involves self-care, and practicing the change they want to see. So the Regenerative Culture group members would be the ones making sure that other groups had hot soup or cold drinks or time out when they needed it. It also covers singing, counselling and meditation. There is training available.
A Climate Choir is going to start meeting at St. John's soon, on Monday evenings. There's another group for Art, making banners and costumes, and in an area like Mid-Wales, where groups tend to be small and spread out, this can be a good way of collaborating between groups - so Hay could do something with the Golden Valley group, for instance.
There's also a group meeting at the Globe on Thursday mornings from 11.30am, not just to talk about climate change, but to chat about general topics and be supportive.

Having said that there wasn't really a focus for action this year, in November COP26 will be happening in Glasgow. This is the 26th year that the nations of the world have met to discuss climate change, and there hasn't been a lot of action so far. So expectations are low that it will be any different this time - but it is something to focus on to encourage world leaders to concentrate their minds on the problems that the world faces. On this topic, there was a book recommendation - There is No Planet B by Mike Berners-Lee. A table at the side of the room had been set up as a library table, with various books and magazines for people in the group to borrow.
Suggestions of what to do before and during the COP26 meetings included a "Jarrow March" up the country, linking up with XR groups along the way, to deliver the message that this time real action was needed internationally, and ending the meeting with a vague statement of intent was not enough.
Slogans were considered (it's always useful to have a memorable slogan), such as "Good COP/Bad COP" or "Fair COP".
Another suggestion was that XR should organise its own COP meetings - though it's probably not possible to hire a hall in Glasgow at the same time as the official COP meeting. So maybe this could be organised regionally, and it would also be a good idea to get the School Climate Strikers involved - there wasn't anybody young at the meeting. Or an XR COP could take place after the official COP meetings, like the Paralympics after the main Olympic Games. This would have the advantage of the XR meeting knowing what had been decided by the world leaders, so they could respond to it. This is where the regional organisation of XR comes in, as the Midlands group can contact the Scotland group to see what they have in mind.
Someone asked what the carbon footprint of the COP meeting was, and would it be possible to find out, and make a visible representation of that?
Nobody at the meeting had any great hopes of the present UK government being remotely environmentally friendly, especially after seeing Boris Johnson sharing a platform with Sir David Attenborough at the Science Museum (and saying all the right things) and promptly going off and approving HS2.

Storm Dennis Flooding

A bit blurry, but this is the view from Hay Bridge towards the Gliss car park this morning.

More Oxfam Developments

When I said that the stock from the Oxfam shop was being cleared out yesterday, I didn't realise that it was actually being thrown away! Apparently, the shop got infested with clothes moths while it was closed, so they've just chucked everything onto the back of a lorry - bric a brac, china, the lot.
Which has annoyed local people who donated all that stuff in the first place, now that it's all gone to waste.

Something New at the Oxfam Shop?

The Oxfam shop has been closed for nearly a year now (apart from the few days that they opened over the Festival last year), but now something is happening there. The stock in the shop is being cleared out, bit by bit.
I haven't heard yet whether it will be re-opening as an Oxfam shop or whether it will be something else, but I'm keeping an eye on developments.

Sticks and Stones Photography Competition

Thru the Lens is holding a competition. They are looking for local landscape shots, and the theme is Sticks and Stones. Each entrant can enter five photos. The judges will be Paul Smith, who was a photography lecturer at the London College of Print, and Finn Beales, photographer. The closing date for entries is 24th February, and winners will be exhibited at Thru the Lens in March.
Entries should be sent by email to andra@thruthelens.photography and the competition is open to all ages.

Extinction Rebellion Meetings Coming Up

There's a lot going on in the environmental movement locally:

XR Hay will be meeting at Cusop Village Hall at 7pm on Saturday, 15th February to discuss what should be done next locally.
This follows the Hereford Friday Climate Strike by students on the 14th February, which is joining up with a rally outside Shire Hall to support the new Herefordshire Councils climate friendly budget.

On Friday 21st February, at 7pm for 7.30 start, the sequel to Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth will be shown at St Mary's Parish House, Kington. It's called An Inconvenient Sequel, and talks about the solutions to the present climate crisis that are still within our reach.

Meanwhile in Brecon, at the Muse on Sunday afternoon of 23rd February, from 2.30 to 5.30pm, there will be a combined lecture and workshop (with social) by Scott Bennett. The title is The Social, Ecological and Climate Emergency: Extinction Rebellion, Poverty and Working Class Power.
Because climate change is a class issue and a social justice issue as well as an environmental issue.

Town Council News

The column in WyeLocal reports that the precept for the coming year will be increasing by 19%, which apparently works out at about £10 for the year for the average household. The precept is the part of the Council Tax which is paid to the Town Council. The rest of the Council Tax goes to the County Council.
Over the last few years, the Town Council have been running the public toilets in Hay, and originally, they negotiated with the County Council so that they would have money to cover these costs, from the revenue collected from the car park. The County Council, however, refused to pay, leaving the Town Council to deal with the shortfall - and this is the only way they can do that, if we want the public toilets to stay open.
The Town Council also has to vacate the Council Chambers by the 4th May this year, and this means that the various tenants who are at present paying rent to the Town Council will also have to move out, and the Town Council will lose that revenue.
The Town Council already meet in a room away from the Council Chambers, at the Sports Pavilion on Brecon Road.

Lots of Variety at Stitch and Bitch

The Stitch and Bitch group welcomed two new members this month, with a full house of regulars sitting around the big round table in the room to the side of the entrance in the Swan. I took my medieval lucet to make a loose cord that I'm knitting up with broom handle knitting needles into - well, at the moment it's just growing; it'll probably end up as a bedspread!
We found we had three people called Sarah (or Sara) around the table, one of whom was knitting pouches for baby joeys who had been orphaned in the bush fires in Australia. And we had two Kittys, one of whom was knitting fingerless mittens for refugees. One of the new ladies was finishing off a jumper. As ever, the conversation was wide ranging, taking in serious topics like home schooling to world domination via knitting groups! We even mentioned the recent Science Café talk on light bulbs as we tried to work out if Kitty's yarn was teal or green under the yellow lights of the chandelier, and the white light of somebody's phone.
The group meets from 6pm to around 8pm on the First Thursday of every month, and sometimes at other times, if enough people want to turn out and do it.

XR Action in Hereford Again

Hereford Council is now run by an Alliance of parties which all broadly favour green and environmental changes to the County. On Friday 14th February, they are meeting to launch their first budget. They have some good ideas about electric buses, solar panels, cycling and council housing, and propose to put money into these areas. However, there are enough Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Independent councillors who oppose this (and still support the bypass plans) that the proposals may get watered down.
So XR Marches are going to turn up to support the Alliance budget. They intend to be there at the Shire Hall at 9am, when the councillors are going in to the meeting. The meeting itself is open to the public from 10am. The Red Rebel Brigade, those ladies in bright red dresses, will be there, and so will local students, as it's also the day of the school Climate Strike. The students will be gathering outside HSFC at 8.50am, to march through Hereford City centre to end up at the Shire Hall at 9.30am.

Blind Bookworms Book Club

The Story of Books on Castle Street are holding a three day, multi-sensory event, on Thursday 20th, Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd February between 10am and 4pm.
The Story of Books has been involving local people, and the College for the Blind in Hereford, for a long time. The Blind Bookworms jazz musicians provided music at the first staging of Unicorns, Almost, and they've also showcased books in braille at the Wayzgoose celebrations they've hosted.
The three days are each structured around a single book (they haven't mentioned in the WyeLocal which books they are), so each day will be different, and visitors to the shop can stay for as short or as long a time as they like. There will be dramatic readings, multimedia recordings, live music, communal eating, and scent, taste and touch tours. There will be activities for all ages, whether blind, visually impaired or fully sighted - so something for everyone! And it's all free.

And in March, on Saturday 28th, they are holding their fifth Wayzgoose. Ken Burnley of Juniper Press is the guest "Journeyman Compositor" and he will be working a Titan treadle press, with live letterpress printing going on all day.

Good News for Talgarth Library

William Powell, the County Councillor for Talgarth, has a regular column in WyeLocal, and this month he congratulated Michael Eccles for all his hard work in setting up the CIC to help Hay Library, and also mentioned what had been happening in Talgarth.
Talgarth Library is another of the small local libraries that has been under threat of closure by Powys County Council. Now Talgarth TiRC and Talgarth Regeneration Group, together with the Friends of Talgarth Library, have managed to secure a funding boost from Comic Relief Wales, via PAVO. I'm not sure what the TiRC is, because the councillor doesn't say, but it may be the Talgarth Information and Resource Centre, which is based at the Tower Shop in the middle of Talgarth.
The project they have funding for is to improve provision for children at the library, with story telling, something for the pre-school group Puddleducks, and more opportunities for the pupils at Ysgol y Mynydd Ddu and the surrounding area. They are also planning partnerships with the Hay, Brecon and Talgarth Sanctuary for Refugees group, and the mental health charity, the DPJ Foundation, which supports people in agriculture who have mental health problems.

Noson Llyfrau - Harry Potter Night at the Library

The Lego Club at Hay Library will be Harry Potter themed on 6th February. The session is from 4.30pm to 5.30pm. It's free, but donations are welcome, and the dress code will be wizarding robes, Harry Potter themed fancy dress, or best Muggle attire! Kids under 8 must bring a parent.

Meanwhile, these stickers have been appearing all around town:

We don't know yet what cuts are planned by Powys County Council, or how they will affect Hay Library. As soon as we do know, HOWLS can make a response.
In the meantime there is the new CIC, which has been set up to protect Hay Library. Their vision is to keep the Library open by, first of all, raising enough money locally to keep the Library running for five years - and then negotiating a five year binding contract with the PCC to maintain all the existing Library services, including the Library staff.
It's not just about keeping the Library open, though - the vision is to expand the use of the Library across the whole community (including teenagers), and to innovate so that the Library becomes the primary local interface between the local community and the State, which is to say between the people of Hay (and surrounding areas) and all the services provided by the PCC.
And the long term goal is to build our own Library, which will be bigger than the present one, and which we can rent to Powys.
Public Libraries Transform Lives.

Percussion at Hay Primary

Hay Music brings some wonderful performers to Hay. Most play or sing classical music, but sometimes they do something a bit different.
On February 14th they will be having one of the concerts that's a bit different.
ensemblebash is a percussion quartet, and they will be performing at Hay School from 7pm. Their core repertoire is based on African music, and one of their pieces in this concert is from Ghana - Siwe Bell Music. They'll also be performing some new compositions, and something called Dance of the Dragonfly.
Tickets are £10, with £5 for students and free for under 18 year olds.

Meanwhile, Hay Music is already looking forward to summer, with their programme already arranged for June, July and August.
In June they will be at the music room of Dorstone House, with the beautiful surroundings of the garden and arboretum, with the Odora Piano Trio. Concert goers are encouraged to bring a picnic lunch, and there will be tea and cakes after the performance, which starts at 3pm.
In July they will also be at Dorstone House, for Llyr Williams on the piano.
In August they will be at Gwernyfed High School for Three Harps, in association with Glasbury Arts Harp Summer School. The harpist is Ruth Wall, from Scotland, who will perform on three different types of harp, and Graham Fitkin the composer will talk about the music. For this one there is a pre-concert supper available from the River Café (pre-booking essential!).

Protect the Oceans

We're a long way from the sea in Hay, but we should still be concerned about the state of the planet's oceans.
On Thursday 6th February, the Globe is hosting what they call an immersive exhibition called Protect the Oceans. It's being organised by Greenpeace, and involves a photographic exhibition and use of a VR headset. There will also be a Greenpeace speaker talking about why it is so important to protect the oceans for climate and biodiversity.
There's also the opportunity to sign a petition to put pressure on the government to endorse the Global Oceans Treaty, which is to make 30% of the world's oceans into sanctuaries by 2030. The idea is that these would be like national parks on land, giving fish species somewhere safe to recover from over-fishing, for instance. At the moment only a tiny proportion of the seas around the coasts of the UK have any protection, and they are at risk of pollution, amongst other things. Most of the oceans are international waters, so international co-operation is needed to protect them.
The exhibition is free, and starts at 7.30pm.