Archives April 2020

Firstly I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and well in these unprecedented times.

Despite the many concerns we all have, it’s been fantastic to see that as always, Aldbourne has risen to the challenge with so much help being available and offered. There is a huge amount of information on our local websites and on social media. I’d certainly recommend the Parish Council and Village websites, who have lots of local information and advice.

We are also incredibly lucky that both our local Aldbourne Stores and Coop remain open, and we’re very grateful to them for all the extra work they have done to look after us all. 

ARC Update

Needless to say, a lot of our plans have been put on hold at the moment, but I can assure you we are still doing a lot of work in the background.

Thanks to Alex Lambert and Eleanor Williamson, we have been conducting more formal community engagement over the last few months, to supplement the feedback we have gathered over the years. This is ongoing and although our face to face engagement has been curtailed, we would encourage you to complete our online questionnaire. This will really help us for future planning and fundraising. You can do it by clicking on this link:-

Your Views

Palmers Field

Following government guidance and discussions with the Parish Council, we have closed the equipment on Palmers Field and Southward Field. You may have seen this notice:

As you can see, although we have closed the zip wire and the exercise equipment, we are still encouraging people to use both fields for exercise, provided you observe social distancing. 

You are very welcome to exercise your dogs too, but please do clear up after them. 

We conduct regular rounds to ensure the area is safe and tidy, but if you see anything we should be aware of please let us know straight away. We are so very grateful to Tim Beattie who made the wonderful yellow Bicycle Bin and voluntarily empties it regularly. Please think of Tim and remember, the bin is only for rubbish and not dog mess – please take that away with you. 

Stay in Touch

If you have any questions or suggestions, please do get in contact with us at:

info@ARC-Aldbourne.org.uk 

Also, please do let us know if there is anyone else who would like to receive our newsletter, and don’t forget we are active on social media, so please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Again, we’d like to thank all our supporters for all their continued

Many Thanks

Malcolm Pryce, 
Chairman, Aldbourne Recreation Centre

Despite all the rain and terrible weather, ARC has had a great start to 2020 with lots going on. Firstly some very exciting news….

Aldbourne Lawn Tennis Club 

You may have heard that recently Aldbourne Lawn Tennis Club (ALTC) held an EGM to look at the possibility of joining the ARC project. We are very pleased to report that the ALTC members voted in favour of taking the first step towards this, with a second EGM later this year being planned to fully commit to the project. We’re very much looking forward to working with the Tennis Club over the next few months towards the next stage.

The Chairman of ALTC, Milly Goddard said: ”We are very excited to be participating with the ARC team to fulfil their dream of developing Palmers Field for the benefit of the village, and to be offering ALTC members the chance to play tennis at brand new facilities in the future”.

Meanwhile, our discussions with the other key stakeholder groups are still taking place and we’ll report on these as soon as we have any news. 

Curry and Quiz Night

We held a great fundraising evening a couple of weeks ago and I’m pleased to say it was a huge success. We raised nearly £700, so my thanks to all the ARC team who were involved especially to Simon and his kitchen team for producing such a delicious meal, and of course our quizmaster Alastair. Also a special thanks to Mark and Sue at the Post Office for giving up their valuable time to run the bar and for donating all the profits to ARC. 

The atmosphere was second to none it was great to hear how people really enjoyed the friendly ambience of the night. It looks like this will be an annual event!

Community Engagement

As we’ve mentioned in previous newsletters, we are busy gathering views and opinions from as many groups and individuals in the village and surrounding areas as we can. We have now launched our official questionnaire on our website, so we’d really appreciate you spending a few minutes completing it. 

Your Views

This feedback is essential for our planning and will also go in a report that we will present to the village and grant funders later in the year. 

Friends of ARC

We will be launching the Friends of ARC campaign in the next few weeks, where you’ll have the opportunity to donate to ARC on a regular basis from as little as £2 a month. This is an important aspect of our fundraising and we are grateful to everyone who has already expressed an interest in helping us raise much needed funds. 

Stay in Touch

As always if you have any questions or suggestions, please do get in contact with us at:

info@ARC-Aldbourne.org.uk 

Don’t forget we are active on social media, so please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by clicking on the links on the home page

Many thanks 


Malcolm Pryce, 
Chairman, Aldbourne Recreation Centre