Monthly Archives: October 2011

Abingdon Marathon – the leading men

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Abingdon Marathon - Leading Men
10 seconds into the race and last years winner Colin Paton had the lead.
Abingdon Marathon - Leading Men
At the Abbey Gateway, after about five miles, there was a leading group of three … 646: James Pearson from Beverley AC, 464: Stephen Male from Oxford City AC, and 89: James Bolton of Woodstock Harriers.
Abingdon Marathon - Leading Men
At about the half way point 464 and 646 had built up a lead over the following runners.
Abingdon Marathon - Leading Men
24 miles into the race 464 and 646 were still running together up West St Helen Street.
Abingdon Marathon - Leading Men
They were still running together back onto the Tilsley Park athletic track, but then Stephen Male pulled away, and finished with 2 hrs 31.
Abingdon Marathon - Leading Men
The first Abingdon Amblers AC athlete to cross the line had an amazing time of 2 hrs 36.
Abingdon Marathon - Leading Men
Here he is at the halfway point: Paul Fernandez. I think he finished third but am a bit worried I missed somebody in the 5 minute gap between 2nd and 3rd.

Apple Day – at South Abingdon Children’s Centre

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Apple Day
Nicola Blackwood, MP for Abingdon, and Mike Badcock, Mayor of Abingdon, were there at the Apple Day run by Abingdon Carbon Cutters, and the South Abingdon Children’s Centre.
Apple Day
Nicola planted a representative tree as a symbolic start for a future orchard and forest at Caldecott School.
Apple Day
There were a number of stalls at the event… Ruth Ward was there with her book ‘A Harvest of Apples’ and a display of lots of different sorts of apples. As well as apple folklore, and history, her book contains lots of apple recipes.
Apple Day
There was Grow Your Own Allotment advice, from a lady who runs some training allotments on Peachcroft farm. Email on the board in the picture (gyoveg at hotmail.com). And there was a representative from Drayton Road Allotments.
Apple Day
There was Abingdon honey for sale from Virginia Arnott, beekeeper of Abingdon (v.arnott at ntlworld.com.) You can also get Abingdon honey from Radley Road bees – on sale at Added Ingredients, for they were there too.
Apple Day
But the main business of the day was apples…
Apple Day
juicing them
Apple Day
and drinking the juice. TV cameras, for BBC Local News, were there too and here is the link to the video story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-15327064 saying how the people of Abingdon wanted to reintroduce more Heritage apples with a community orchard .

A deer and stagecoach seen in Abingdon

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Deer
Helen saw this deer as she came out of her house earlier in the week in the Northcourt area of Abingdon.

A little way behind the fence and ivy is the Boundary House Public House. The deer was startled and ran. Deer and modern traffic don’t mix well so I hope it got home OK.
Coach and 4
Deer were better suited to the lower speed days of the stagecoach. Elizabeth sent me this picture of a stagecoach passing down East St Helen Street earlier in the week (on the 11th during the Abingdon Street Fair detour).

Two horse-drawn stagecoaches set out on a 113-mile journey from Windsor Castle to Warwick this week and are currently at Kineton. They stayed at Henley, Dorchester-on-Thames, Stanton Harcourt, Hook Norton and Kineton on the way. Not many Public Houses can cater for a stagecoach and four these days, but I dare say the old coach houses of the Kings Head and Bell and the Crown and Thistle, in Abingdon, would have give them a good place to rest over.

The stagecoaches were raising money for Help for Heroes and The Household Cavalry Operational Casualties Fund.

Choose Abingdon Partnership – Annual General Meeting

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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 …
Partnership projects

  • 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.

    • Partnership projects

  • 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 Launch
  • 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.Choose Abingdon website
  • 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.
Abingdon Fair
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.