Sara Thornton , Thames Valley Police Chief Constable, officially opened The Abingdon Bridge’s (TAB) new office, in what was once the town’s Police Station. The opening coincided with TAB celebrating 21 years of working with young people in need of support in the town and the surrounding area. Further details of TABs services are available on their web-site
The event was attended by about 60 people including representatives from local churches, business supporters, local charities and young people using the services.
Seen here are Sara Thornton, Chris Bryan (Chairman of the Trustees), and Beverley Wheeler (TAB Manager and Lead Counsellor) at the ribbon cutting ceremony.
Also a picture of the celebratory cake! (Thanks to Steve for the Report and Pictures)
Its haunted !! well known among the police staff who used to work there !
Really sorry to hijack the article, but wasn’t sure where else to ask…
Does anyone know about there being some Retro Music Festival this weekend, in Abingdon?
Other than “it is happening” ( I assume?) I don’t know anything else about it….what it exactly is, where it is, when it is… Have I missed the adverts, the posters and the articles all summer promoting it? Sounds like it could have been good 🙁
Apologies again.
Daniel – plenty of posters around town advertising this. I think it’s in Abbey Gardens on Sat and Sun this w/e
Thanks craig! Out of interest..where? Not on the barriers at the doubleround about on Marcham/Drayton Road… The Stert Street Barriers – which seem to be for advertising stuff now – so goodness knows what will happen once the culvert is fixed)…these barriers don’t have it on either. That is two of the main arteries in to town…so I just wonder where the ads are; and who they are hoping to attract…?
Anyway – thanks again – and apologies for hijacking the post.
I asked the question on the Abingdonfirst website too – so I’ll update it with what you said, if it hasn’t been done already!
Daniel – I saw flyers all around Abbey Gardens yesterday
So, anyone who has walked around Abbey Gardens is aware, (and perhaps the town centre?) Shouldn’t an event like this be looking to target a much larger audience, i.e. surrounding villages at LEAST? I drive through town twice a day, and live in North Abingdon, and was totally unaware of this event until I saw Daniels post on here and Abingdon First! Why aren’t these town events shouted from the rooftops (so to speak?) The Town Council wonders why we don’t get footfall in the town, and when they have an opportunity to increase the numbers they do as little as possible to take advantage of it! (No doubt someone will be on here next blaming someone else for the lack of awareness…or that it’s my fault for not looking!) My point is, I, (and anyone else!) shouldn’t HAVE to look for events, they SHOULD be blasted at me from every available media so that i cannot fail to be aware of them!
The Vintage Music Festival has been cancelled – it was not being organised by the Town Council – they hadn’t even been told about it so don’t blame them for not publicising it! (The Abbey Gardens belong to the Vale so presumably someone there authorised it). It appears to have been a commercial venture trying to piggy-back on Heritage Weekend which definitely IS happening this weekend and I hope you will all agree has been pretty well publicised – but other than the fly posts which suddenly appeared in town a week ago and leaflets earlier this week nothing much else is known about what was going to be happening. The organisers contacted the TC yesterday to say they were cancelling.
There will of course be Ruby’s Vintage Festival in the Guildhall on Saturday, but no music festival this time.
Maybe they cannot be blamed for “not publicising it”, but did they actively discourage the event organisors from doing so? I am talking from experience when I say that not only do the TC not assist in publicising any events that aren’t their “own”, but actively went round removing banners and posters that were put up a couple of weeks beforehand (the DAY after they were put up!) Surely ANY event is good for the town, NOT just the ones that they organise? (I have also heard some other event organisers that have found this to be the case as well, with the TC being downright awkward instead of assisting in any way that they can).
Cycling Festival, Air Show, Yeah Baby, Splash of Pink, Dragon Boats, Science Festival, Heritage Weekend – none of those are organised by the TC, but all get lots of help in practical ways – and so do many others. The Events section on the town website is set up so that people can publicise their own events there – free – and by the way as the volunteer moderator for community events I can tell you that the Retro Fair organisers didn’t bother to post there; nor, as you can see from other comments on this thread, did they use any of the other regular media routes…
Getting back to the original story…. Excellent to see that the collection of rubbish bins that had been taking root outside this building have now disappeared. A much better welcome to the town.