Santa was not the only one to give good cheer on Christmas Day. Over fifty lunches were provided for the lonely elderly of Ross and District, or those elderly who would not have prepared a Christmas Dinner, by the Ross Lions, the WRVS, the Ryefield Centre and friendly volunteers. Six lunches were delivered to the homes of some of the intended guests who could not attend the Ryefield Centre for various reasons.

All elderly guests were collected by volunteer drivers and delivered to the Ryefield Centre where they were made welcome with a glass of something to warm them up. After mixing with their friends, having a friendly chat with the volunteers and a few drinks, they were treated to some rousing bagpipe music played by the locally well known Scots Piper Alan Harrison.

Before the meal started the guests were given a warm welcome by the Mayor of Ross, Councillor Phil Cutter accompanied by his wife, Chris. The Mayor wished them a happy Christmas and a wonderful time at the event. A sumptuous meal of Turkey with all the trimmings was served followed by Christmas pudding, mince pies and coffee. The meal was accompanied with wine and soft drinks.

While the guests were eating, soft background music was played by Maggie Pridgeon of Llangrove on an organ, making for a lovely atmosphere. Once the food had disappeared Santa arrived and handed gifts to the guests. Everybody entered into the spirit of the Season and really enjoyed themselves. The lunch finished with the singing of carols accompanied on the organ.

Thanks are extended to all who helped; members of the WRVS, the Ross Lions Club, Dennis Humble and his family for the use of the Ryefield Centre and the organizing of the event, volunteers, Alan Harrison and Ross Lion, Gordon Lucas, who was Santa for the morning. Heartfelt thanks to you all.

Welcome to the last Wyenot News of 2006. The last few weeks have been a very busy time for me and with only one day available for page preparation, I am afraid I have had to rush through writing the text in this issue. I hope there are not too many mistakes.

I have been trying to pick out a couple of personal favourite events covered during the year but I have enjoyed covering all of them during 2006 pretty much equally. I guess if I had to pick just a few I would go for the White Lion Real Ale and Cider Festival, during which not a drop of alcohol passed my lips and the performance by '70s rock band, 'Man' at the Monmouth Festival. The latter for purely selfish reasons of nostalgia which date back to my Dagenham Roundhouse days.

I have enjoyed photographing and filming otters on the River Wye at Ross but now I am looking forward to 29th December. On this date, an event is taking place at which I intend to relax and indulge in far too much beer while watching my favourite local rock band, The Zebras at the Prince of Wales. I hope you will join me! The following night I shall visit the White Lion and then photograph those seeing in the new Year at Ross Market - that's usually one of my favourite events.

The year has been a great success for most accommodation establishments in the area, with the tourist season lasting far longer than expected. Here at Wyenot News the year brought a mixture of extreme highs as well as some extreme lows and for the first time in the six years of maintaining the web site, the lows began to take over in my head and I seriously began to ask myself the question, why bother (dot com)?

The past week has answered that question for me though and has more than given me the will to continue! Support and help to resolve difficult situations has arrived in from all directions. I now know for sure that I am not just writing and uploading pictures every week for nothing. 2007 is going to be the turnaround year for Wyenot News so that as well as bringing business to the area, it starts to earn me a living!

I am going to have to put up advertising costs. I have no choice in this matter but advertising will still be very affordable and extremely effective. By far the majority of those advertising on Wyenot.com have already told me to do this and have said that they would not hesitate with renewing at double the cost. I guess this is concrete proof that the ads really do work.

2007 is going to be a great year for Wyenot News and for my family! I hope it will be happy and prosperous for you and yours also!

As a free additional benefit to those local businesses supporting Wyenot.com, every week Wyenot News chooses one local business at random to feature in the current issue of the weekly on-line news magazine.

After a hard day's work the last thing you want to come home to is a lot of cleaning, dusting and vacuuming. Going out to work is tiring enough as it is. Kay Backwell and Lisa Paskell are well aware of this and have set up a professional mobile cleaning service, 'Dust Busters' to keep your housework blues at bay.

The Dust Busters work in pairs and in no time at all will have your house gleaming. They are fully insured and use their own equipment. They also wear a uniform, so you know exactly who is calling when they arrive. . . . . .

For further information, click here to go to the Dust Busters page on Wyenot.com.

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:

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