Looking for antique, vintage or retro goods? Well look no further, St Gemma’s Hospice’s award-winning Vintage Fairs are well established amongst vintage enthusiasts and collectors in Yorkshire and beyond. In addition to picking up something great you will also be supporting the work of St Gemma’s Hospice.

They sell plenty of Antique, Vintage and Retro goods that have been donated to St. Gemma’s charity shops throughout the year, as well as playing host to a wide variety of specialist stallholders.

The goods on sale can range from one-of-a-kind vintage clothes and books throughout the eras, charming pieces of sought after furniture, classic records, plus plenty of timeless pieces of jewellery and artwork, all dating from 1920’s – 1980’s.

If your feet are hurting from all that shopping, you can sit down and treat yourself to a hot beverage and sweet treat at their Vintage tea rooms and relax in the atmosphere of yesteryear.

So whether you are interested in vintage clothes and collectables, fancy enjoying the sentiment of going back through the ages or just want to see what’s on offer and pick up a bargain, make sure you come along to St. Gemma’s Hospice Award-winning Vintage Fairs!

Where?

St Gemma’s Conference Facilities

329 Harrogate Road, Moortown

Leeds, LS17 6QD

When? 

25th & 26th May – 10am to 4pm

Entry by donation

View the poster or their website for more info! http://www.st-gemma.co.uk/?page_id=287

By incorporating the forums into the main site w’re now able to allow users to search once across everything we have in our posts and any comments, and the forums and their replies. There’s not much in the forums yet obviously, and I don’t know yet how much we will be able to port over easily, so for now the archived forums are still available.

I hope you find the new forums useful and you’ll be checking in on them regularly for news and opinions.

And maybe the odd bit of gossip.

The other method of communication has been through email updates sent straight from this website, which sends an email after new articles have been posted. This has always been on the website, but has been a bit difficult to configure for what we want and requires KVCA members to subscribe to the email updates separately.

The main problem with this is that the tool we were using (Feedburner) only allowed emails to go out daily and at if we post multiple articles over a few days this can be a bit overbearing. I’m pleased to say that we’ve now moved to a new tool (Mailchimp) which will send a weekly digest of latest articles which I hope is more appropriate. We have some ideas on how to improve this further in the future such as an upcoming events list, and would of course welcome other ideas.

Our aim is to communicate widely with the local community, to let everyone know what is happening, what the issues are that we face as a community, and how you can get involved. To join our new and swish email list, you just need to put you email address in the “subscribe” section of the website. If you are already subscribed for website updates your email address has already been moved over and you should not see any difference apart from the weekly frequency and a new stylish format!

I wouldn’t be able to end this without thanking the (enormously helpful) local Charlotte Walker in showing me the Mailchimp ropes, we’ve been meaning to do this for ages and we couldn’t have done this without her.

Kirkstall Online has secured a voucher that can be used at Frankie and Benny’s restaurant in Kirkstall Cardigan Fields until the 31st of May. Simply print off the voucher and present it to the restaurant staff. Click the link to download: £5 Off Voucher

Hollybush Conservation Centre will be open from 12noon until 4.00pm offering people the chance to see the vegetable gardens, take inspiration for their own growing projects, ask advice and have a go at doing some projects.

There will be a chance for adults and children to build a scarecrow to take home with them, make their own planter from recycled materials or build a window box. There will be other craft activities for children, a nature trail and seed sowing. We will be running a cafe serving soup, homemade cakes and drinks.

Entry is free but there will be a charge to take part in some of the activities. Money raised is used to support activities at the Centre. Please see our website for more information.

Volunteers and members of staff will be on hand to answer any questions that you may have about the work that The Conservation Volunteers undertake, and growing queries you might have.

‘Hollybush is a little oasis in the city. My children always have great fun at the events – there’s always plenty to make and do’, says one mid-week volunteer.

Hollybush in Kirkstall is a well-known environmental volunteering centre that has been running for over 30 years. Our volunteers help to manage important green spaces across Leeds and beyond. We work with around 500 people each year to help them take responsibility for their immediate environment whilst also providing vocational training opportunities. We are a registered charity and rely on financial donations and the good will of volunteers to enable us to continue our work in ensuring environmental and social wellbeing in Leeds.

For directions, more information, or contact details please visit our website at www.tcv.org.uk/hollybush.

Horseboat Elland on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal
•   Wed April 10: Leeds to Armley Mills Museum
•   Thurs April 11: Armley Mills Museum to Rodley (near Pudsey)
•   Friday April 12: Rodley (near Pudsey) to Saltaire
•   Sat April 13 and Sun April 14: boat at Saltaire World Heritage Site Celebrations
•   Sun April 14: harnessing and horseboating demos (Sat April 13, no demos.)
•   Sun April 28: Saltaire to Bingley via the Bingley 3 Rise and Bingley 5 Rise Locks (one of the 7 Wonders of the Waterways)

See http://www.horseboating.org.uk/ for more information.

Thanks to the headingley,org chat list for passing on this information.

Please find below an article I have missed from the last edition of Kirkstall Matters. My sincere apologies to Duncan Elsey who took the time to put this together! Read on to find out what the Burley RUFC have been up to since the last edition of KM….

League games of which 6 were victorious and 7 resulted in defeats. This started with very good home wins against Hemsworth 34-5 and Hessle 64-0 however these were split by a closely fought 17-12 reverse at Goole.

Through November and on to Christmas we had a rather barren spell only picking up one victory in convincing fashion against near rivals Aireborough in a 42 – 27 home win which would have been a wider margin had a very late try not been conceded. This spell did include a heavy away defeat at the hands of Hemsworth 46-12 in the Yorkshire Silver Trophy. The league defeats were mainly close games, but late points conceded game results a false representation of some matches, a 31-17 loss at Leeds Medics being a case in point. This spell ended with the cruellest of defeats in a 6-5 loss at Northallerton where had Burley opted to go for goal with a first half penalty instead of kicking for touch then the final outcome may have been totally different.

After Christmas we started 2013 with a good victory against York RI completing a season double with a 29-3 win, unfortunately the following week we went down 32-10 away at Thornensians. The weather then played its part as 2 weekends were lost to the snow before the season resumed with a tremendous 16-8 home victory against Rotherham Titans being the first of back to back wins as the following week in the local derby game vs Old Modernians we ran out 29-10 winners again at home. Our next and latest two games have unfortunately produced consecutive reverses in away games at Hemsworth 20-19 after leading 19-0 and Old Rishworthians 25-6.

At present we are just below midpoint in the league but should be safe from relegation. The table below.

We also run a second team at Burley whose fortunes have not fared too well for most of the season as the more experienced players get first team call ups, however this team continues to play with plenty of spirit and enthusiasm and have picked up 3 victories since October, two of which were local derby games against Bramley at home 10-3 and away at Old Modernians up at Cookridge 24-19. Recently they gained a very creditable 10-10 draw with a useful Cleckheaton 4^th team containing more senior players on the way back from injury

Our remaining fixtures this season are.

2 nd March     Goole                          Home  League

9 th March      Hessle                        Away  League

16 th March    Osset                          Away  Friendly

23 rd March    Leeds Medicals       Home League

30 th March    Yarnbury                  Away  Friendly

6 th April        Aireborough             Away  League

13 th April      Baildon                      Home  League

20 th April      Bramley                     Away  League

We are always on the look out for new players for both First and Second Teams, training is from 7:00pm on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

Recently it was reported that the Save Our Surgery has won its challenge to the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) against the Safe & Sustainable consultation over the future of paediatric cardiac care.

The review has revealed some of the fundamental flaws and failiors in the initial evaluation by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trust (JCPCT). As reported in KM111, the main concerns for all those against the closure are as follows:

- Concerns over the vailidity of the data collection and decision making process.

- Concerns that the comparision criteria and level of scruitiny of the services in each hospital was not fair.

- Concerns that the distance critically ill children would have to travel was not taken into consideration.

None of the councils were represented at the High Court. This is because local authorities across Yorkshire and the Humber have an alternative statutory remedy through their Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee (JHOSC) and the Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP) which is still ongoing. MPs and councilors from the region have been encouraged to submit their arguments to the IRP, but in order to be taken seriously, they need to be able to submit supporting evidence. Kirkstall Councillor, John Illingworth has been gathering this important data.

It would appear however, though every step of the way in their communications with NSCT (The National Specialised Commissioning Team) who are employed to host the information for the review of children’s heart surgery units, that they have been met with opposition and setbacks. It would seem that John has been ignored when requesting essential information that would help them to gain a better understanding of how the decision was made and hopefully answer some of the concerns above. Councillor Illingworth has since had to resort to requesting the information using the Freedom of Information Act, which again has largely been met with opposition and disregard.

The main issues/irregularities arising are:

1. “Word of mouth” recruitment to the assessment and advisory panels, which left Leeds, Leicester & Brompton largely unrepresented on the various decision-making bodies. The “successful” units had a large and unrepresentative caucus in support.
2. Documents removed from some competing bids so that the assessment panel did not see all the papers that the hospitals submitted. Additionally, the self-assessment documents submitted by each hospital were not entirely received or viewed by the panel. This incomplete review of documents has the potential to invalidate the entire Kennedy process and all the subsequent consideration by the JCPCT over the last three years. The JHOSC are trying to find out which of these documents, exactly, were considered by the Kennedy panel, and which of them were not.
3. Apparent bias among some members of the “Kennedy” expert assessment team, for example, Mr James Monro was excluded from the panel because he lent his name to the defeence of the paediatric surgical unit at Southamoton Hospital, however, by the time this came to light the scoring had already taen place and so his scores were still counted!
4. Decisions made on the allocation of Nationally Commissioned Services without the assessors achieving a quorum or visiting all the units that they were supposedly assessing.
5. Unlawful exclusion of the press and public from the meetings of the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT). It would appear that the “Safe and Sustainable” JCPCT operated almost entirely in secret, ignoring the provisions of the Public Bodies Admission to Meetings Act 1960. All the other JCPCTs that managed the reorganisation of the London NHS had respected this important legislation and apparently published their agendas and reports before their meetings, welcomed patients and public to their meetings and rapidly published their minutes on the Internet after each meeting had taken place.
6. Whether some of the supposedly “secret” Kennedy sub-scores were in fact known to members of the advisory team.
7. Serious arithmetic errors in the re-allocation of patients to “successful” hospitals which means that Newcastle, Southampton and Bristol are unlikely to achieve “mandatory” national standards. Namely, a table in the Health Impact Assessment purporting to show the numbers of patients transferring between different hospitals under the various options considered by the JCPCT. This table does not add up correctly and in fact contains various arithmetic errors. John states: “We suspect that this reticence may reflect the fact that a corrected version might also show that under the favoured “option B” three centres: Bristol, Newcastle and Southampton would struggle to reach the 400-procedure target that was previously supposed to be inviolable.”
8. That the JCPCT had little idea where the patients lived, and consequently failed to properly evaluate the adverse impact on the health of the most vulnerable patient groups.
9. Selective publication of reports on the Safe & Sustainable website making it difficult for objectors to follow the debate and respond at the most appropriate time. John has requested information time and time again regarding the location of the information he needs. The NSCT have responded by denying access to the information because sourcing it (from their own website) would be too time consuming.

Statements from NSCT / JCPCT have suggested that “children will die” or that patients from Yorkshire and the Humber will receive worse treatment as a result of our “emotional” or “irrational” opposition to their proposed reorganisation. This point was taken up during the Judicial Review, and NSCT / JCPCT were invited to provide evidence in support of their claims. They failed to respond to this explicit challenge.

As this case in ongoing, we will report further on any progress over the coming months.

As part of our 5 week dance project with the great Northern Ballet, we were asked to write a blurb for their website covering the week’s event. Here is our week 5 blurb.

We were so eager to start, that we had got changed and we were warming up even before our instructor and director Sophie had arrived. The project was over 5 weeks; this week was our final session! We were so excited because today all of our parents were going to attend as we performed our routines to them and the whole school. We worked with our Y5 class in producing a show for the whole school and parents based around our Science Topic: The Earth, The Sun and The Moon.

After a warm up – we prepared for our show. We had a final practice covering the 3 different routines we had put together. We had created movements to show how over 24 hours the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Thus it had to reflect the shadows that are formed throughout different parts of the day.

We then added ‘earth’ dances to orbit the large sun, before finally adding the moon orbiting the earth. Thus it was a whole class dance! The inspirational part was added to by the brilliant David. David is the piano player who needed no music. Just by watching us move – he changes the tempo and the loudness depending on how we move. Furthermore, David took the piano to bits so he can actually play the strings (sounds like a harp) that allow the keys to play. Wow!

The show began with children introducing the topic and each and every dance. Our hearts were beating like a drum as we sat nervously waiting for our cue to start…. The Y5 began before our group got into position to start. Right on cue we majestically moved, turned and twisted symbolising the earth, the sun and the moon. It was fantastic. The parents and Head teacher sat in awe as we worked as a team putting on our show for 25 minutes. It was an amazing feeling when we finished. The parents, grandparents and carers gave us a brilliant round of applause.

What a great project and what lovely people and coaches they are at Northern Ballet. They encouraged and supported each step of the way. It’s great being at our school.

By Daniel

 Civic Hall

The amazing children of year 6 had an excellent debate about whether girls should play in mixed teams after their 13th birthday! Leeds stood still at 2:30pm, on the 10th January, when the fantastic children had an amazing debate.  The children  began with a tour of the posh Civic Hall. The children enjoyed the history of Ark Royal, also the generosity of the  towns people.

The children began with a tour of the Civic Hall-”the place was literally covered in gold and had gifts from around the world!” stated Maedeh the Chair. The children were fascinated by the old dates, and historic antique’s around the place. It was like an Aladdin’s Cave!

The awe-inspiring children at H.W.P.S wowed the un-expecting councillors at the council chambers. The issue the children were debating about was: if girls over 13 should be able to play football in mixed teams. “The children put their skills to use, and I must say I was very impressed!” said Councillor Yeadon.

Then came the debate, as Maedeh– (the Lord Mayor) sat down and began the process. “I was very impressed by Maedeh, she had nerves of steel!” said the head teacher. The children split up into two sides; For and against. Finally it was decision time, of course the For team won! “it wasn’t a good idea to put a girl who loves football as the chair!” A councillor remarked.

“We loved it!” “It was an experience like no other!” “I hope I can do it again one day!” The  children were all very interested! Could they be the future councillors of their generation?