Great news. The project to re-roof the church and fit solar panels is now nearing completion.
The solar panels and battery storage are in place and operating. This will benefit both the church and the community shop by substantially reducing electricity bills. Thanks to everyone for putting up with the disruption caused by the work and the scaffolding.
No Thanks to BT
Last year we were told that Plusnet were closing their business accounts and that the shop should transfer to BT. This was duely ordered in October. Nine months later, after 70 emails, hours on the phone, five failed connection dates, the shop was still not connected. In the meantime Plusnet switched off the broadband on 24th May. Fortunately it was possible to run a temporary cable across the churchyard from next door.
Finally it was decided in the middle of August to give up on BT and place an order with SKY. No problem they said, we have a dedicated UK manager who will see it through to completion. Two weeks later an engineer turned up at 8.15 and everything was done by 8.45. The shop and the church now have faster broadband and phone for £10 less a month than BT.
We are very pleased to announce the Grindleford Goat Charity is now open for bids. The latest edition of The Grindleford News will carry an article explaining who we are, what we are about and how we hope to benefit residents of the Parish of Grindleford, including community groups that work and play within our environs. Have a look at our Goat webpage for full details: www.grindlefordgoat.co.uk
The latest edition of the Grindleford News is online: Grindleford News March 2023
It should be delivered to your door in the next few days.
I have been asked to look after the village website. The first thing that struck me was that it had a lot of out of date information on it. The second is that things have changed since the website was first set up. News is now more likely to be shared on Facebook or Whatsapp and many of the village organisations now have their own websites. I see the website as being a point of reference for people wanting to find out about the village. As such, it is important that the information is reliable and up to date and I am in the process of going through the content to bring it up to date.
In addition to this, I am aiming to simplify the design and introduce a range of new security features. One of these is to replace visible email addresses with links to code that will call your email program.
If you have up to date information that you would like adding or news, please email us:
A new management team has taken over at the community shop. Kaori Carter and Fiona Outram are now managing the shop on a job share basis. They took over from Peter Ragdale who has managed the shop with great success for the two and a half years. Peter is continuing to volunteer at the shop and giving support to the new team.
Grindleford Playing Field Association have sited a new Public Access Defibrillator at the Pavilion funded jointly by the Association and the Parish Council. It has been fitted adjacent to the Pavilion main entrance facing the main road. A PIR light has also been fitted to illuminate the area to enable access at night.
The defibrillator has been registered with the Circuit – the national defibrillator network. We are now waiting for East Midland Ambulance Service to provide a training session in the Pavilion to demonstrate how the defibrillator works in an emergency. The session will be open to all those interested. Look out for details on the village website and Facebook page.
The defibrillator is fully automatic with audible and visible real time instructions at each critical stage of the process. Clear graphical instructions show where to place the pads. The unit recognises when a shock is needed and delivers what is required without manual input. The defibrillator is ready to use.
If you need to use the defibrillator call 999 who will give you the key code to access the box. Then follow the instructions from the defibrillator. The defibrillator must be returned to the box at the Pavilion after use as we need to ensure there is a defibrillator in the box when needed.
Well, what a lovely weekend , we planted 800 new trees in Grindleford over four days!Twenty-two villagers came along to help, our biggest turnout yet. Thanks.Many thanks to the core GTPG Team 🌳We also had people coming along interested in what we were doing and all were enthusiastic.
As you know, we have been trying to create some more wildlife corridors in the village by planting mixed native trees as hedging.Over the weekend we extended the hedging, again mixed natives ( oak, beech, silver birch, hazel, hawthorn and alder) along the fence from the fishermen’s hut towards the cricket field boundary fence. We also planted some interesting plots behind the Multi Use Games Area (MUGA). A stand of silver birch ; an arc of spindleberry ( please look it up, very interesting!); two areas of aspen surrounded by goat willow then surrounded by hazel; a low hedge of hawthorn, dog rose, alder and hazel around a wet ditch; and a secret enclosed space encircled by rowan and hazel where we plan to site some benches for you all to come and sit and listen to the birds and soak up the nature. We are going to see what wild flowers emerge in the open areas and we will cut some paths through and around these areas so that everyone can enjoy them. We also plan to enhance the wet ditch area in the autumn to encourage insects, dragonflies, frogs, toads, newts and maybe water voles.I think it will be great in just a few years’ time; but already it is a lovely spot with lots of birdsong.
We will continue to maintain the area in collaboration with the Playing Fields Committee to whom we are very grateful for their permission and encouragement to undertake this project.Many thanks to The Conservation Volunteers who gave us really excellent trees to plant along with guards and canes.Please come and have a look!
Take carePaul
Grindleford Tree Planting Group: our aim is to plant trees to enhance our local habitats; to provide more wildlife corridors in the village that in turn attracts insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals; to make an effort to address climate change at a local level; perhaps to help prevent flooding; and to bring people together to learn about and care for our environment and to have a good time!
Anyone who wants to do something to slow down the dangerous speeding through Grindleford, can get in touch with PC. Neil Carter. He is the local PC who is co-ordinating teams to operate hand held speeding cameras. There needs to be 6 people to make up a team. More than one team would be great, so that different parts of the village can be covered.
Training, equipment and support is provided by PC Neil. If you want to do your bit to make our village safer from speeding motorists especially in the late afternoon and early evening, please contact Neil to ask questions or volunteer. Neil Carter’s email address is: neil.carter.17593@derbyshire.pnn.police.
Derbyshire Alert is a two-way messaging system which can be used by Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNT’s) and the force Media Team to make contact with the public via email or text message. The messages are sent to specific targeted areas where a crime has been committed. The system can also be used for information appeals of less urgency, for crime prevention advice and the advertisement of police engagement events.
Short, succinct targeted messages are created by SNT’s and the media team to give out warnings regarding scams and crimes, alerting the public. Messages can also ask for assistance from the public by requesting CCTV camera footage and dash camera footage in an area of interest, saving hours of police time in the collection of evidence, and in turn speeding up the criminal justice process.
Users of the system are grouped into areas of interest. Some examples of the groups are CCTV owners, dog walkers, church watch and school watch. By creating groups, we are able to refine our target audience. For example, a dog walker will be out walking during the early hours of the day and later on in the evening. Past experience has told us that this group of people can be helpful with our enquiries.
A message can be sent to residents in real time, allowing the public to look out for evidence and report it back immediately to the officer concerned, or via other force communication channels. This system gives officers more time to spend gathering good quality evidence, as is asks the public to help in areas where they can.
Derbyshire Alert works with other agencies including local authorities, Action Fraud and Crimestoppers to get messages out. This spreading of messages via other agencies results in huge coverage throughout Derbyshire of a single relevant message, such as missing persons.
Users are able to log on and join Derbyshire Alert via the website. This allows them to manage their own accounts. They can opt out and change the settings as and when they require. Users have a guarantee that their information will only be used for a policing purpose and not shared with agencies that do not have a vested interest in public safety.
Derbyshire Police use other social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to communicate with the public. These media channels help to build good, strong trusting relationships with the public, as engagement tools. Derbyshire Alert is a more formal method of communication and asks for assistance with specific criminality. All the media channels work together to complement each other.
The forces aim is to increase the users of Derbyshire Alert by signing up more residents to use the alert system, making it a main channel of communication between the police and the public.
You can sign up by logging onto the website and completing your details on line at www.derbyshirealert.co.uk or by filling in a form from your SNT representative and sending it to the address given.
Help us to improve our communication and work together to provide a better police service for the residents of Derbyshire.
For more details, contact Carole Woodall, Communications and Engagement Team, Police HQ, Ripley, Derbyshire, DE5 3RS.
You can also contact us via the below methods:-