Following on from a video showing Christmas Lights south of the River Ock, here is a video with some of the lights north of the Ock, excluding the town centre.

The music this time is In the Bleak Mid Winter taken from an album called Bluegrass Christmas by the Kentucky All Stars. I got round nearly half of Abingdon north of the Ock, and found some hidden gems.

The video ends with a window in East St Helen Street.

2 shots before that is Bob the Snowman in our window in West St Helen Street. Bob came from the Lewis Baker shop where he had a leading role in their Christmas 2010 window display.

I cycled round South Abingdon earlier this evening taking a few pictures, and lots of video clips of the Christmas lights in that part of town and have joined them together into a video.

There were good displays at the top of Gainsborough Green… and the bottom half of Saxton Road …

and Medlicott Drive.  I thought the twin towns estate had far more lights than previous years.

I will try to do the same north of the River Ock early next week, but it is a much bigger area. Let me know any roads that should not be missed.

A full report will appear on the Choose Abingdon website later in the week. So the best I can do is to summarise the partnership’s achievements and plans – as I understood them at the AGM. The partnership is a forum of councils and local business with an annual budget of 60K, and one paid partnership manager:  Heather Brown.

The following projects have been taken on by Choose Abingdon in the first 2 years …

• Whats On Leaflet – put about in town shops and often in the Round&About magazine to promote Abingdon events.
• Gazebos Scheme – on hire every week – nominal fee to cover wear. Being used most weekends by community groups.



• Community Shop. Displays from community groups changing weekly. This week sees the Carbon Cutters including Abingdon Hydro.
• Local Excellence Market – allows local Abingdon and villages to show off their wares, including local shops. Also gives a first chance to smaller craft producers to try out a market stall at low cost.
• Positive Abingdon PR – Heather, the partnership manager is often to be seen in town going above and beyond, and she is always trying to promote Abingdon in local publications as a place to: visit, shop and eat.

• Choose Abingdon Loyalty Card – seen as the partnership flagship as it links people and businesses in a 2 way communication benefiting both, and makes Abingdon people feel a part of Abingdon. There are now 1400 card holders.
• The Choose Abingdon website has been live for some time. This Friday an interactive Whats On will be launched once it has been preloaded with known events. That should supersede abingdondiary.co.uk.
• Town Map boards… One has been out there at Rye Farm Car Park since June. The rest will soon follow. The information board in the Market Place will continue to be used for information, and an additional map be added nearby.
• 52 Things to Do – a new local tourist booklet out in November, with local poems, artwork, and 52 things to do in Abingdon, Wantage and surrounds – has had much input from the partnership.
• Walks will be added to the website and printed walk routes with nice artwork will be on sale soon.
• A video will be going on Youtube aimed at attracting foreign journalists, and others, to talk about Abingdon during the Olympics and beyond.

Going forward, the partnership are now using management science techniques to plan what projects they should take on next in a more strategic sense. This diagram is my very simplistic understanding of how it works.

Using something called segment analysis they graded 43 projects, according to how they affect various segment groups (young, old, independent traders etc.) with costs and risks against benefits. The high cost / high benefit projects are already underway by councils and Scottish Widows.

That has given Choose Abingdon a new list of possible future projects: those in small print on the diagram.

This evening there was a meeting of the South Abingdon Residents Plan group – chaired by the Neil Boston, and attended by residents and councillors from South Abingdon.

On Saturday, at Reynolds Way shops, there will be a playbus, mobile skate park, free refreshments, information from local groups, and the start of the Planning for Real model for the area. The map based Planning for Real model has been used in other places to capture the aspirations of villages or part of towns – to find out what people want for their area and from that produce a plan for where they live.

As with all things it will only work if people get involved.