Community News: Get Your Thinking Caps On for the Wingate Centre's Quiz on 20th April

The Wingate Centre is once again hosting its ever-popular Quiz Night on Friday 20th April, generously hosted by Nantwich Cricket Club.

Gather your friends and colleagues together and pit your wits against other teams.  You’ll have a fabulous evening of quizzing whilst helping to raise funds to support disabled children & young adults right here in Crewe & Nantwich.

The cost is £9 per person with teams of up to 6 players. There will be refreshments served during the evening and there are some great raffle prizes to be won.

Doors open at 7.30 pm for an 8.00 pm start.  For tickets, call the Wintage Centre on 01270 780 456 or email catherine@thewingatecentre.co.uk.

Out & About: It's Been Full Steam Ahead for Christmas All Week This Week!

Volunteer of the Year: Steve Bebe
RedShift Radio's Production Manager

I am writing this on Monday morning, looking out at a stunning landscape, trees covered in inches of snow with the sun glistening. I have decided to have a snow-day and enjoy the view from my warm house while I plough through lots of catch-up computer jobs. Topping up the bird feeders and having a snowball fight with my snow-loving dog Jasper will be my only reason to leave the house today!

Wingate Winter Wonderland

On Saturday Michael-John took one of his Dad's donkeys to the Wingate Centre Christmas Fair which was lovely, Betty enjoyed meeting lots of children and having her photo taken dozens of times! Ann, the other donkey was being a little madam and wouldn’t get in the trailer … hopefully they will both be feeling more festive this Sunday as we will be taking them to St Mary’s Church in Nantwich for the nativity service.

Acton Christmas Tree Festival

I have decorated two trees as part of the Christmas Tree Festival at St Mary’s in Acton; one for RedShift and one for my Tropic skincare business. The latter is covered in Hawaiian garlands rather than tinsel, but it works! Please do pop up to Acton Church and enjoy the trees, they look (and smell) stunning!

Tatton Yule Yomp

On Sunday I crawled up to Knutsford for the Tatton Yule Yomp, an event organised by Stewart Bailey from Hibberts Solicitors, and one for which we have provided the PA Kit for the last six years. Initially it was a really hairy drive from Burland but by the time we approached Middlewich the snow seemed to disperse and upon arriving at Tatton, we had nothing more than a light dusting of the white stuff. The cold weather certainly didn’t put off the 1,500 Tatton Yule Yompers who came dressed for the festive 10km dash through the park.

Nantwich Round Table Float

I will be out with the Round Table Float on Friday night in Nantwich, so if you see us please bring out the port and mince pies! On Saturday our friend Chris Meredith will be leading Santa around Wychwood Park and I know both evenings are in need of some extra volunteers. Please call me on 01270 440 750 if you can help from about 5.30 - 9pm on either Friday or Saturday.

Christmas Parties

It’s been a week of Christmas parties, with the annual festive networking event hosted by the South Cheshire Chamber and sponsored by Rookery Hall again last Friday: always a great event. On Saturday night, MJ and I enjoyed the 41-Club Christmas party and I even coped with sitting next to Dave Birchall all evening (he dared me to mention him in my article!)

Last Wednesday we hosted our RedShift Christmas Jumper party and our guests of honour were the Kilimanjaro Walkers who helped to raise funds for our youth activities. The evening was completely organised by five of our young volunteers, Orlanda, Harvey, Daniel, Ben and Lauren and they did a superb job. We enjoyed a quiz, buffet, awards and competitions and it was lovely to see my fellow walkers again.   

Volunteer of the Week

I presented some of our volunteers with awards and this week, my Volunteer of the Week has to go to our “Volunteer of the Year” the fabulous Steve Bebe. Steve splits his time between RedShift as our Production Manager and the NeuroMuscular Centre in Winsford and I for one, couldn’t do without him. Steve is always a breath of fresh air. His (occasionally dodgy) humour and positive attitude always makes me smile and it's fabulous knowing that I can rely on him to manage our playout system, that he has pretty much taught himself how to use.

Steve often logs in remotely from home to fix problems and beavers away editing our shows and interviews so we can sell one of our great products, an AudioCast. This is an edited interview where Steve will removes guests um’s and er’s to help them sound as confident, clear and concise as possible. This is a really popular service for our local businesses and charities to use on their websites.

Hungerford Academy on the Radio

My final shout-out (and photo) of the week goes to the lovely children from Hungerford Academy who joined me in the studio for a Junior School Run taster session, kindly paid for as part of the Baker Wynne & Wilson community grant we received for our youth activities.

The children were superb. All nine of them were squished into the studio and spoke clearly and politely about a broad range of topics. We even had them all playing their ukuleles. Please do have a listen here to the AudioCast of the show.

This article appeared in Crewe Chronicle on 13th 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. 

Santa's On His Way to Nantwich!

Nantwich Rotary Christmas Sleigh with santa aboard will be touring Nantwich between 7th and 21st December

The Nantwich Rotary Christmas Sleigh with Santa aboard will be making its annual visit to the streets of Nantwich covering over 3,000 houses from December 7th to December 21st.

Look out for Santa on these dates:
Thursday 7th - Salt Meadows and Kingsley Fields - from 5.30pm
Friday 8th - Morrisons - 11am till 5pm
Monday 11th - Queens Drive and Malbank Waters - from 5.30pm
Tuesday 12th - Manor Road - from 5.30pm
Wednesday 13th - Stapeley Estate - from 5.30pm
Thursday 14th - Shrewbridge Road - from 5.30pm
Friday 15th - B&M - 11am till 5pm
Saturday 16th - Market Square - 10am till 4pm
Monday 18th - Queens Drive and Salt Meadows - from 5.30pm
Tuesday 19th - Wellington Road - from 5.30pm
Wednesday 20th - Cronkinson Farm Estate - from 5.30pm
Thursday 21st - Market Square (with Brine Leas Choir) - 10am till 4pm
Thursday 21st - Hawksey Drive - from 5.30pm

Said Rotary President Tony Hoy: “Last year the residents of Nantwich generously gave nearly £6,000 to our Christmas collection. This year we hope to beat that amount, and all donations are given to local charities.”

Charities benefiting from this year's collection include:
St Luke’s Hospice
Nantwich Museum
Wingate Centre
Donna Louise Hospice
Cheshire Young Carers