All those pubs you have been going to for all those years. Now you don't have to drink Coke.

Congratulations!

Love

Alan and Tina

Ross Macmillan Cancer Support Group recently received a bicycle, kindly donated by Mr Rouse of Ross-on-Wye, to help with fund raising. As a result, the group held a raffle at Morrisons supermarket on Saturday 14th October. The bicycle was won by Peter Dowsett, a food hamper by Mrs Hart and a bottle of champagne was won by Mrs Gould.

The committee would like to thank Morrisons for their help and all those who participated in the raffle. The £253 which was raised will be going towards the Renton appeal. Thanks to the generosity of Ross residents, we have sent £15,000.oo so far this year.

Happy Birthday to Nancy Gibbons, who was 80 on Friday, 13th October 2006! Nancy lives in Three Crosses Road and was born in Ross-on-Wye. She celebrated her big day at the Conservative Club with friends and family at a surprise party organized by her daughter, Sandra Ashcroft and Victor Lovery.

Following comments such as, 'I need good quality care from people I know and trust' and 'I want my children to have fun, to feel safe and happy' from parents at Whitchurch School, the Governors committed themselves to promote and develop an extended school care and 'wrap around' services for the local community.

Following a very successful trial during the summer term, an After School care facility called 'P.A.W.S.' was set up and is now available. Mrs Wendy Windridge (BA Hons) and Mrs Kathy Mace took up the positions of Senior Playworker and Assistant. Both have many years experience working at the school and Wendy is working towards NVQ level 3 in Playwork.

At present the club runs from 3.15pm to 5.10 pm, and currently there are sixteen places available. After OFSTED registration the times and availability will be extended.

P.A.W.S. is devised to meet the individual and specific needs of children aged between 4 and 11 years old, who attend Whitchurch Primary School. Good old-fashioned play is the essence of the sessions. Children have participated in many activities ranging from den-making to ice-cream making and play outside as much as possible. A snack and drinks are provided during the session in line with P.A.W.S.' healthy eating policy.

The group welcomes visitors and can guarantee a friendly, fun time! 'In our opinion, as play workers, the greatest gift we can give our children at P.A.W.S. Is the freedom to express themselves in play.'

Thank you to Mike Arnison LRPS for sending in this beautiful photograph of a Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis. Goldfinches can be enticed into the garden with Nyger seed, which is a poppy or thistle seed. It has to be dispensed via a special bird feeder available from the RSPB or from garden centres.

More nature photos from Mike will be appearing in next week's edition of Wyenot News.

Bare Bones embark upon their final touring production of the year at The Savoy Theatre Monmouth on Friday 27th and Saturday 28th October. They will then be taking the production to five other venues in and around Herefordshire.

‘September in the Rain’ is a much loved piece by John Godber. Based upon the lives of the playwright’s grandparents, all of the incidents portrayed are real events, the recounting of which became a background to Godber’s childhood.

Since their wedding, Jack, a Yorkshire miner, and his wife Liz, have spent each September holiday in Blackpool. Now, in retirement, they re-visit the scene of those holidays and re-live the joys, the frustrations, the laughter and tears of an ordinary marriage. Humour and pathos abound in this Godber classic. Here is the English seaside holiday with all it’s trimmings set against a backdrop of Blackpool in it’s heyday. The boarding houses, the Tower, the Big Dipper, donkeys on the beach, the waxworks and of course, the rain!

This play should not be missed by anyone who has taken a UK holiday in September!

Tickets at £5 are available from Bones Box Office (01981-540820) or at the door. Performance dates can be found on the 'What's On?' page.

The well known pianist Alexander Taylor makes a welcome return visit to the Wye Valley on Sunday afternoon, 29th October.

His thoughtful programming starts with a Bach Partita, contrasted against some of Shostakovitch's short, concentrated preludes and back to Bach with a piece from The Art Of Fugue.

The period and the mood change after the interval, to music by Brahms, Grieg and Liszt.

St Briavels brands its concerts to guide the public on the stage its performers have reached in their careers. Alex last played for us five years ago, when he had recently been named Commonwealth Musician of the Year. Since then, he has given recitals at the major concert halls of Europe and Japan, has played concertos with the BBC Symphony orchestras and appeared in leading music festivals, including his own Potton Festival.

This "Pro-Artist" concert will give local music fans a chance to track the progress of an outstanding musician.

The 3pm start time will be a welcome relief the day after the clocks go back and the evenings get darker. Tickets for the concert, at the door, are £12.00 (Members £9.00, Students £2.00).

On every single page of Wyenot News and on many places on the main Wyenot.com web site there is a link to my 'Photograph Information' page. [Here is another link to that page] Copyright notices are embedded into all photographs on this web site which are protected. At the bottom of every single page of the whole web site are more copyright notices and photographs are further protected against 'right click' download by a Java script blocking code.

On 21st July 2006, at the request of the promoter of an 'Evening of Jazz', I went along to the Phoenix Theatre in Ross-on-Wye to take photographs of the musicians involved. I did this to help promote the people involved. I did it completely free of charge in order to help and I used the resulting photograph to promote both the concert and the Phoenix Theatre by running a Wyenot News article. I did not send the photograph I took to any newspapers, so I made no money from it at all - it was purely a one-off Wyenot News Free Promotion to help somebody out!

The article was published in Issue No. 105 of Wyenot News and, as I used theatre lighting, making taking the photograph itself a lot longer process than the usual 'run in and take a flash photo' type of job. Inclusive of processing the photo, editing the article and building it into the news page, the job took me about three or four hours plus expenses but I did it for free.

I don't mind this. I do it all the time for lots of people. In fact, this is the reason I scrape by, counting the pennies to get through every single day of my life but that does not particularly worry me. If I were wealthy enough, I would do everything for free because I am not interested in money for money sake. All I want (need) is enough to live!

What I find absolutely objectionable is when that help is abused. In the case of the Jazz photo (reproduced below). Apparently, the free advertising I gave this particular group was not enough so they have taken my work without permission and have used it on a 'myspace' web page. They have not only bypassed the Java script protection to download the photo from Wyenot News but have cropped off both the 'Wyenot News' and 'Copyright' notices.

Please click here to view. It is a little down the page and to the right. They have mentioned my name but not in connection with the photograph. I am quoted as saying what the press release (which all I did was edit) told me their performance was like. I took the photo during rehearsal and did not go to the actual concert.

Example 2: Here is another example, this time of both of copyright and bandwidth theft. It is perpetrated by Jehovah's Witnesses, who have not only stolen my photograph, they are pulling it from my web server which means that, every time somebody visits their web site, I have to pay for the privilege. I have changed the photograph in an appropriate manner and the result can be viewed here. And there was me thinking that one of the 'Ten Commandments' was: 'Thou shall not steal'.

Example 3: Click here.

I could go on. These are just a few I pulled 'out of the hat', whilst scanning the log for the past few days'!

I can detect photograph thieves within seconds, just by analysing my web server log file! If you steal my work or my bandwidth and use it without permission, you will get caught - even if you crop the copyright notice! Doing that just shows how well aware you are that what you are doing is wrong! If I could afford to give it all away and work as a charity, I would do so, willingly. I am afraid however that I am not in a position to do this just at the moment and I feel inclined to take legal action against the theives, who take away my means of earning a living.

Ross on Wye 24 Kingswood 8

Ross were back in league action on Saturday against an unbeaten Kingswood team from Bristol and were looking to build on their two previous league victories, as a win could see them at the top of the league on Sunday morning.

Kingswood were always going to be a stern test for Ross and they did not disappoint making a determined Ross side work for every yard in an attritional encounter. Ross started the brightest, instantly putting the Kingswood 10 under pressure and winning a lineout on the Kingswood 22. This set the pattern for the first quarter of the game as Ross dominated territory, putting Kingswood under constant pressure. Initially their midfield defence held firm, however after ten minutes the Ross back line moved the ball quickly through the hands and putting Dan Weston into space, he cut inside the Kingswood 15 and scored under the posts. Ali Rees converted putting Ross 7-0 up. Ross continued to have the edge for the rest of the half. However they were unable to breakdown a well organized Kingswood defence and with the half coming to a close, had two kickable penalties. Fortunately for Ross they were only able to convert one of them and at half time Ross went in 7-3 ahead.

The break seemed to have benefited Kingswood as they started the strongest in the second half. With their rolling maul working effectively, it was Ross's turn to defend,which they did manfully and slowly began to gain the upper hand. With the game finely balanced, Ross began to increase the pressure. After a series of driving rucks deep in the Kingswood 22, Alistair Rees picked up and drove over out on the right giving Ross a 12-3 lead with the game moving into the final quarter.

Kingswood however refused to lie down and quickly laid siege in the Ross 22. After a successful driving maul, they moved the ball quickly right to score, closing the gap to 12-8 and setting up a nervous last 10 minutes. Ross however finished the stronger, taking control of the game up front. With all the forwards working hard, tries from Gavin Oates and Alistair Rees crowned a hard fought victory giving a final score of 24-8 to Ross.

Next Saturday Ross have an away league game in Bristol against Ashley Down Old Boys.

Ross-on-Wye Weather Station is located by the tennis courts and bowling green at 'Crossfields' and is one of the important stations around the country which regularly sends data to the Meteorological Office. This is why Ross-on-Wye is sometimes mentioned on the BBC weather reports. It is currently still a manually monitored station and readings are taken twice per day by husband and wife team, June and Rex Swallow.

If you would like to order prints from Wyenot News photographs, please click here.

Prints are only available for photographs taken by Wyenot News (Not of those which have been sent in by readers).

Prints of 'people' photographs are only available to those directly involved in the news event covered. i.e. I do not sell prints of people to the general public.

If you have a local news item or story of local interest which you would like to appear on Wyenot News you are very welcome to submit it by email, telephone or by post.

Please advise as early as possible if you would like me to photograph your local event so that I can put it in my diary. This service is offered strictly on a first come, first served basis.

Many Wyenot News photographs appear in various local newspapers and magazines. This does not imply that Wyenot News or any other part of this web site belongs to those publications. Wyenot News is a totally independent news magazine.

Contacting Wyenot News:

Email: please click here.

Telephone: 01989 763217 - Mobile: 0779 683 4077

Postal address: Wyenot News, 1, Hillview Road, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. HR9 7EY

Although it is fine to submit if you are submitting an event taking place in a pub / shop / restaurant etc., please make sure that your story does have real news value and is not simply an advertisement for your business. It would be unfair to those who support Wyenot.com and Wyenot News by advertising to publish blatant advertisements disguised as editorial material.