Out & About: The Second Part of Liz's Look Back Over 2017

Big Day Out

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I do hope you had a peaceful and happy one. As I am actually writing this just before Christmas I'm hopeful that I will have had a peaceful and happy one too! While you read this I am probably dragging myself to the gym as the official 16-week countdown to our wedding will have began – yikes!

Skoolszfest

So, leading on from last week's review of 2017 and we are skipping into July with our crazy month. Starting off with the first weekend and I attended not one, but three events with the RedShift RoadShow; Skoolzfest in Nantwich, VolFest in Congleton and the Manchester Bombing fundraiser at Nantwich Town FC.

We celebrated my dear Grandpa's 95th birthday closely followed by my 40th with a super 80s-themed party in our garden which was topped off by the announcement from Michael-John that we had got engaged a couple of days previously. What a whirlwind of loveliness July was! I had so many kind and thoughtful gifts (mostly gin related!) and cards for my birthday and then another flurry of cards for our engagement. I certainly felt very special indeed!

Each July we provide the PA kit for the Aqueduct Marina Open Day, always a lovely family day out. We were also the lucky recipients of a grant from Baker Wynne and Wilson as part of their Community Pledge for our youth activities and I am delighted to say we enjoyed listening to John Baker being interviewed/grilled by Ben and Dan, two of our young presenters. They present Musical Monday which is a fantastic, fun-filled show, broadcast every Monday between 5 pm and 6 pm.  Take a listen to Part 2 of their Christmas Special, featuring John Baker: mixcloud.com/RedShiftRadio/musical-mondays-with-ben-dan-181217.

July of course is Nantwich Show and with Michael-John as the Chairman and me

RedShift Community Garden
at Nantwich Show

organising the RedShift Community Garden on Show day and the Big Day Out (see photo top) which takes place on the Sunday after the show, we are like ships that pass in the night during that month, ensuring that our events are planned and executed to the best of our ability. Thankfully, despite the weather being pretty grotty, both events went ahead but both saw a dip in income as attendance was down.

Richmond Village Dog Show

August involved some more #ClimbKili2017 training, this time all on the flat and involving a few drinks with our 18 mile pub crawl. August also saw the Richmond Village Dog Show, another walk up Snowdon and a rather wet Willaston Social Club fun day in aid of the Royal British Legion. 

My August highlight has to be the launch of our Back to the Future inter-generational project, which saw a group of 13 over 70s and 9 under 20 year olds, all enjoying afternoon tea and a quiz whilst getting to know each other. This project continues in 2018 so please call 01270 440 750 if you would like to join.

The #ClimbKili2017 Team

September was another big month: our much anticipated and trained for walk up Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in Africa. 14 walkers departed and thankfully 14 walkers returned having had the experience of a lifetime. Thank you so much to each and every walker who took part to help raise nearly £20,000 which was split between our youth activities at RedShift, the Wingate Centre, CRY for Matthew and the Dementia Care Appeal at Mid Cheshire Hospitals.

October was thankfully fairly quiet allowing me to fully recover from Kilimanjaro whilst November included hosting two firework displays and the Chamber Business Awards and even an attempt at wedding dress shopping.

December is always a lovely month, starting as ever with the Weston Christmas Lights in

aid of the Donna Louise Hospice and our Christmas Community Hub drinks at Residence in Nantwich. The RedShift PA kit was put to good use at the Richmond Village Traditional Christmas Market, the Tatton Yule Yomp and the rescheduled Hope House Santa Dash in Nantwich. Finally, my father-in-law's donkeys Betty and Anne had three trips out to put a smile on the faces of people at the Wingate Centre, St Mary's Church in Nantwich and on Christmas Eve, St Margaret's Church in Wrenbury.

In addition to the myriad events attended on behalf of RedShift, I have also trained 16 new presenters and work experience students, interviewed 43 people on the radio and been to 38 aerobic classes (60 is the target for next year!) ... oh, and I have climbed nearly 6,000 metres to the top of Africa! I think that deserves a large G&T! 

This article appeared in Crewe Chronicle on 27th December 2017.  Please look out for my "Out and About" page each week in the Crewe Chronicle. For more information about any of the items in this article, please email us here at RedShift or call us on 01270 440 750. 

OUT AND ABOUT BLOG: It's Begnning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Friday will be 1st December so I officially have an excuse to talk about Christmas! Put your hand up if you're ready for it?

OK, so I may not be ready for Christmas but I am actually looking forward to it. I will be cooking for 13 people and each time I mention that to anyone, I am reliably informed we need to put a teddy at the table to make it 14! Either I have never cooked for 13 or this is a Cheshire thing and being a southerner, I have never heard of this superstition before. Either way, Jasper our dog now has an excuse to sit at the table with us!

Local Christmas Markets

This weekend you will find me at the Richmond Village Traditional Christmas Markets with two hats on: I will be blasting out the Christmas tunes from the RedShift van whilst also manning my Tropic Skincare stand in the warmth of the main building. Please do pop along and buy some lovely unique gifts and enjoy a mulled wine, or three, whilst browsing.

Also this weekend there is a Christmas market in Nantwich and the ETSY handmade market at Reaseheath so really there is no excuse to not at least start your shopping!

Red Hair, Red Dress Affair

Last week I ventured up to Knutsford to attend my dear friend Sue France’s “Red Hair, Red Dress Affair” event at the Courthouse. Sue runs a fantastic ladies' networking group called Creative Connecting in Cheshire. We had a lovely meal and listened to a great guest speaker called Nikki Pattinson, an inspirational woman who gave a hilarious, moving and insightful speech. The event raised over £700 for a charity called Gift of a Wedding, an incredible charity that stages weddings within weeks, or even days, for terminally sick people.

I met Sue France on 6th September 2010, the day RedShift began broadcasting and we have been friends ever since. Her events (ladies only, sorry chaps) are always unique and well attended with business women from across Cheshire and Sue has been such a wonderful support and encourager to me over the last seven years.

South Cheshire Chamber Business Awards

Friday night saw me hosting the South Cheshire Chamber Business Awards for the 7th year, and 5th year with my fabulous co-host Paul Boniface.

Paul and I both love this event and seeing how much it has grown in size and calibre of entrants and finalists over the years is great. I am looking forward to hosting the Chamber Awards radio show this Friday from 10am - 2pm with all the winners and sponsors so please do tune in at www.redshiftonline.org.

Back to the Future Project

A quick mention for our Back-to-the-Future inter-generational project again. We are looking for people over 70 to join us on Saturday 9th December from 2-4pm at Nantwich Museum. We will be making Christmas table decorations and singing carols by candlelight. We have several young people booked on and we have four spaces for under 20 year olds and seven spaces for over 70 year olds. To book onto this fun and free inter-generational project, please call 01270 440 750.

Volunteer of the Week
My choice for Volunteer of the Week has to be the lovely Paul Boniface who has been with us for six years. Paul presents Easy Like Sunday Morning and really does put his heart and soul into it. He plans his show theme, features and songs so carefully and he has a loyal following of regular listeners.

Paul’s commitment to, and support of, RedShift goes far beyond producing and presenting his show.

Paul frequently supports me at events and over the last six months he has raised an incredible £3,464 as part of the #ClimbKili2017 campaign, a quarter of which will be coming to RedShift to support our youth activities.

Thank you Paul!

Out & About: Respect to My Ancestors on Remembrance Day

Liz looks back at her family's roles in wartime and appeals for Poppy sellers for next year
I am writing this on a very chilly Sunday evening in front of a roaring fire watching Countryfile as they tour our fabulous countryside sharing news of projects to support our veterans across the UK.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance is always an important time for me. It is a time that I give extra thought and consideration to my ancestors who fought in each of the World Wars. My Grandpa, who passed away in August aged 95, spent time in Italy and Egypt whilst my Grandma was stationed at Bletchley Park as a De-coder. My Great-Grandfather was awarded the Military Cross (MC) and a Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in the First World War.
Thankfully, my late Dad spent years putting together our family history and in more recent years, Grandpa and I spent hours recording interviews and capturing his memories on audio. I am now working on migrating all of my Dad’s work onto a new website along with Grandpa’s recordings as I think it is so important to remember and for my nephews, the next generation, to learn also.

Back to the Future

This is where the inspiration for our inter-generational “Back to the Future” project came from and on Saturday 9 December we will hold our second of four events welcoming people under 20 and over 70 to come together to make friends and learn from each other.
Please do get in touch if you would like to join this project as we have a lovely Christmas afternoon planned at the Nantwich Museum. We will be making Christmas table decorations with our newest Community Hub member, florist Janet Wright and we will enjoy some Christmas treats and a short sing-song, all funded by Cheshire Community Foundation. Find out more on our Facebook event page: facebook.com/events/142312076523924.

Selling Poppies

I have been able to make time in my diary to help with the Poppy Appeal and I thoroughly enjoyed a couple of shifts up at Bridgemere with volunteers from the local Royal British Legion. I know the Legion are keen to recruit more Poppy sellers for next year so please do consider this as a very practical way to help. Anyone interested in helping in the next Poppy Appeal should contact the Poppy Appeal Organiser, Bea Rigby on 01270 651160 or email beatricerigby@aol.com.
I met some really lovely people, including one lady who had a collection of Poppies spanning 40 years! The photo at the top this week is of Elaine King (who celebrated her birthday selling Poppies) and Janet Thompson who came up from Northampton to lend a hand. Even Jasper my dog joined in modelling the reflective Poppies that hang on zips (or dog collars!)
Remembrance was wrapped up for Michael-John and me with a service at St Margaret's Church in Wrenbury, and then hot-footing it over to Nantwich to see the wreath-laying procession. Always a moving sight and proud to see my nephew Ben parading in his Cub’s uniform, something I used to love as a Brownie and then of these willAir Cadet.

Volunteer of the Week

I am launching a new feature this week called Volunteer of the Week. This is a short introduction and thank you to our volunteers, some of whom are from RedShift and some from the wider community.
My first one is THANK YOU to Kelly-Ann Jones who has been a wonderful addition to the RedShift team since being a guest on our “Teachers News” show about six years ago.
Kell is one of our volunteers who often goes above and beyond: she helps me with our outdoor events (pictured here as “Witchy-Kell at Wistaston Fireworks), training new presenters and she presents a great Sunday afternoon show called Wellbeing Weekly.
Aside from RedShift, Kell teaches at Adelaide School and is also very involved with the Scouts and specifically the Crewe Gang Show. As volunteer marketing coordinator for the Scouts, I know Kell would love to hear from any local business who could sponsor the very special 80th anniversary which comes to the Lyceum in May 2018.

The Floorman

My final shout out this week is to John Sims our lovely floorman. We have been having some work done on the house and in order not to hold up our builders, John kindly gave up his whole weekend to finish our dining room floor. He has been here for 10 hours today (Sunday) and we are so grateful and not to mention, thrilled with the result! Thank you John. If anyone is looking for a new floor, please contact John on 07711 129 920.
Please look out for my "Out and About" page each week in the Crewe Chronicle. For more information about any of the items in this article, please email us here at RedShift or call us on 01270 440 750.

This article appeared in Crewe Chronicle on 15th November 2017.