'Andy M' provided this week's Saturday night entertainment at the Prince of Wales. Tina and I were out at another event - Jeff's party at the White Lion on Saturday, however we did pop into the Prince later in the evening just to film one song, 'Flip Flop Fly,' for WNTV News before heading off home after a long day. The track can be seen in full at the finish of this week's programme.

This coming Saturday, 'Fig', a three piece rock covers band will be providing the Prince of Wales musical entertainment. We have not seen Fig perform as yet but understand that the bass player is from 'Dad Rock'. All being well we shall be there to film part of the performance.

A special fund raising art auction and wine reception was held at Ross Heritage Centre on Sunday, to raise money for the Ross Community Hospital League of Friends fund. The League of Friends provide Ross Hospital with medical equipment and many other things that make a stay in hospital more comfortable.

The auction was preceded by a brilliant exhibition called Health Care in the Community which displayed many interesting facts about local health care from the 14th century to the present day, along with a very impressive display of old medical equipment. The exhibition runs until the end of this month.

The auction itself was very well attended and most of the artwork was sold, helping to boost the Friends' coffers. In the photograph below are, left to right: Wendy Ing, Chair of the League of Friends, with Cicely Symonds, Jill Ursell, Mayoress, Mrs. Meryl Bedford, Ross Town Mayor, Councillor Derek Bedford, Heritage Centre Manager, Mary Sinclair-Powell, Nigel Morris, auctioneer, Heather Jackson, local historian Heather Hurley, Husband John who provided the wine and Kathryn Roberts one of the organizers of the art auction.

Ross Heritage Centre was packed out with children on Friday, as they attended the second activity session laid on for them there during the half term holiday. This time they were busy making gifts and cards for Mothers' Day which this year falls on Sunday, 2nd March. (Dads, please take note!).

I'm sure that lots of mothers are in for some lovely surprises this year.

Twenty Year 6 students from local primary schools were invited to take part in a language workshop at John Kyrle High School with the aim of enhancing their enthusiasm for foreign languages.

Tracey Tumelty, Languages' Manager at John Kyrle, which was designated 'outstanding' in a recent Ofsted inspection, was delighted to see pupils from Brampton Abbots, the Lea, Gorsley Goffs and Bridstow primary schools attend the event.

The morning started with a French breakfast. The pupils had to 'earn' their croissants and hot chocolate by asking for their food in French. The children's fluency and confidence is testimony to how hard primary teachers have been working towards implementing the Modern Foreign Languages entitlement which will become statutory in September 2009.

Following on from breakfast, the students were given a range of thinking skills activities. These tasks were designed to make sure that the children had fun whilst learning new words. The students made very quick progress because they found these tasks enjoyable.

Even though none of the youngsters had learnt any Spanish before they arrived at John Kyrle, after a half hour session they were able to recognize and name colours in the language. The final section of the workshop gave the opportunity to the students to use state of the art technology in the school's new Language Laboratory with a range of interactive tasks and learning games.

The students all returned to their primary schools with a certificate of attendance and plenty to tell their friends about learning languages at high school.

Samantha Pritchard from Brampton Abbots Primary school said, 'I loved the computers which had language games on. It was great! I loved learning the Spanish colours.' Joshua Street, also from Brampton Abbots added, 'I really liked the Spanish suduko. It was good teamwork. I can still remember the colours in Spanish.'

A new book on food co-ops which is the brainchild of local parliamentary candidate Jesse Norman has been launched this week by David Cameron.

The Conservative leader used his speech to the annual convention of the National Farmers' Union to launch Nuts and Bolts, a guidebook to how to set up a food co-op which has been conceived and edited by Jesse.

Commenting on the book, Jesse said, 'Food co-ops are a great way to reconnect people and food. At present in the UK we have failing high streets, low prices to the farmer, increased car usage to malls and out-of-town supermarkets, lower food security, and a widespread ignorance of what food is and where it comes from.

Local food co-ops, by contrast, bypass the supermarkets. They support local growers and provide good affordable food. They protect the environment. And they build local communities. We should be vigorously promoting food co-ops, both here in Herefordshire and elsewhere in the country.'

The Conservative Co-operative Movement, set up to explore creative ways in which communities can deliver public services, will today call on the Conservatives and other political parties to take new steps to boost volunteer participation in co-ops.

These include:

-- greater relief from business rates for struggling rural shops that turn into co-ops and use people power to grow
-- allowing the tax-deductibility of small donations to co-ops
-- and most radically, Participation Tax Relief, by which start-up co-ops could earn better tax treatment by recruiting new members and putting them to work.

The Conservative Co-operative Movement is headed by one of the Conservative party's leading thinkers, Jesse Norman. Norman is Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange and the Conservative candidate in Hereford and South Herefordshire. He has written several books that discuss the philosophy and possible policies of a future Tory government under the banner of 'Compassionate Conservatism'.

Jesse Norman, Chair of The Conservative Co-operative Movement, said, 'We are working on new ways to empower communities and create greater citizen energy.

Every day we see the limits of the State's power to deliver better public services. Co-ops are a British invention, and we believe they have the capacity to promote better standards in schools and hospitals. Not only that, they can also help develop more responsible citizens, who act in ways that demand the best of them and others.

The ideas we are announcing today spring naturally from Compassionate Conservatism, because they build independent institutions and encourage and reward social responsibility.'

In November last year, Conservative party leader David Cameron said the Conservative Co-operative Movement would be '… a resource for Conservative activists and local community groups of all kinds, wanting to set up their own co-ops to take over the management of local public services. It will campaign for the principles of local, democratic, voluntary, public ownership of public services and public facilities.'

He also said Tory school reforms would create 'a new generation of co-operative schools in our country,' in the same way as Sweden, which has more than 100, and Spain, which has more than 600 and added, 'So I want to explore how we can create a new generation of co-operative schools in Britain, funded by the taxpayer, but owned by parents and the local community.'

Co-operative schools are expected to be among the next areas of research for the Conservative Co-operative Movement.

After a poor performance the previous week at Bream, Ross looked to return to winning ways. However they had the daunting challenge of facing title favourites Southmead. After a bright start and buckets full of endeavour and hard work they eventually fell just short of a powerful and organized Southmead outfit. After any poor performance, you always look to start strongly the next time you enter the arena and Ross delivered on Saturday.

From the off, both forwards and backs looked lively and aggressive and within 5 minutes they had opened their account. From a strong scrum on their ten metre line, scrum half Simon Gwynne moved the ball right to ten Andy Hunt. Some quick hands from Huw Bellamy and Chay Brine in midfield gave Winger TC an early opportunity against his opposite number. He brushed aside his Winger before offloading to Dave Mince who fed his prop Tara Barnett. A great offload out of contact found No 8 Tim Hanks, who outpaced the defence, coasting the last 25 metres to score under the posts. Chris Gage converted. Ross had dominated possession and were 7-0 ahead. An upset was on the cards.

Top teams have a knack of responding and within 5 minutes Southmead had hit back. From a scrum 30 yards out, their nine broke right and chipped a kick for his Winger to chase. A cruel bounce saw the ball roll over the try line for the Southmead Winger to pounce and score. Southmead were back in the game.

Ross however were unbowed, looking strong at scrum and dangerous whenever they moved the ball out wide. However a canny Southmead outfit were able to slow the game down to their pace. This resulted in a fitful set piece encounter and it was from these set pieces that Southmead were able to secure the victory. On two occasions they secured their own lineout throw in the Ross twenty two and on both occasions were able to initially secure possession. They then set up a driving maul that the Ross forwards were unable to legally counter. It was these scores either side of half time that decided this encounter. Ross were the more dangerous outfit when they increased the tempo of the game, however they just couldn't deliver enough quality ball and this resulted in them chasing the game for the last half hour. On another day and with an element of luck, passes would have stuck and the result could have been different. However, Southmead were able to close the game out.

This was a vastly improved performance on the previous week and bodes well for another home encounter against Brockworth on Saturday, 23rd ,February. Kick off is at 2:30pm.

The Techni Plumb man off the match was TC Leech who beat his man every time he got the ball.

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.

DO YOU HAVE A STORY FOR WYENOT NEWS?

If you have a local news item or story you can submit it here
or call Alan or Tina on 01989 763217

There is no charge for publishing either news items or What's On Events
This is a Free Service for the local community!

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

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.