It was announced earlier this month that GLL, a large company that runs leisure facilities in many places in London, and round the country, including South Oxfordshire, has won the ten year contract to run leisure facilities on behalf of the Vale of White Horse District Council and South Oxfordshire from September 1st 2014.

GLL began life as Greenwich Leisure Limited in 1992, and merged with Nexus Community Leisure in 2011, and will now run over 120 facilities. So they are big.

That means that the 2 facilities in Abingdon: The Vale of White Horse Leisure Centre, currently run by Active Nation,

and the Outdoor Pool, currently run by SOLL, will come under the control of GLL.

(Management of Tilsley Park, Abingdon’s other facility, was previously taken over by Abingdon School.)

District Councils are increasingly in the business of managing contracts with specialist companies on behalf of council tax payers, rather than running services themselves. The new contract could be good news to Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council who currently subsidise the open air pool to the tune of over £40K a year.

Anyway, good to see that the outdoor pool was a good temperature yesterday.

The World Cup is due to start in Brazil . Here in Abingdon I am not sure whether The Midget

or the College Oak has the better display of flags. The College Oak has more up front but The Midget has more round the side.

England expects – not a lot this time. It will be an achievement if the England team get over the first hurdle (Italy). Anything after that will be a bonus.

(Thanks to Lesley for the first 3 pictures and Peter for the last 2)

The Town Crier, Mr Peter Green, Officially Opening the Open Air Pool at 10am this morning – in the rain.

The popularity of the pool is very much dependent on weather, and the warmth of the water, and the Friends of Abingdon Outdoor Pool are keen to see the pool well used this year, and a few of them were there to open the season with a splash.

The Friends are running a competition on their website to win a free season ticket.

One factor in encouraging customers to use the pool is its appearance. With that in mind, the Friends of the Open Air Pool arranged  for volunteers, under supervision of the district council, to give it a make-over before the opening. The Mayor of Abingdon on Thames has already been featured by local press as taking part. Also worthy of note is that our local MP, Nicola Blackwood, did a stint.

As did Layla Moran, the local Lib-Dem Parliamentary Candidate in 2015. Waitrose provided refreshments.

Pool Open:
24th May – 1st September 2014
10am – 6pm Monday to Sunday

Timetable and Prices

Competition to Win Season Ticket and bid for signed front page of Oxfordshire Guardian with volunteers painting pool

Abingdon Bowling Club had their annual open day on Friday Evening and Saturday Morning. This allowed people to come and try the game, and if they like come back and play some more.

On the near side (of the second picture), two of the more experienced players show how it is done. The game is very simple to start with, but can become a complex strategy game to the better players.

Abingdon Bowling Club celebrated their centenary last year. The first bowling green in 1913 was thought to be have been in the south west corner of Albert Park. Now they are established in the South East.

Their first known match was against Witney on June 20th 1914, with a return game in July 1914, when a brake (forerunner of a coach) was hired to take the team to Witney.

There is to be a centennial rematch against Witney Town on Saturday June 21st 2014, from 2:30pm. But times have changed, and the game will not be followed by a Smoking Concert.