Art Show
Local Cononley artists are preparing for their popular annual exhibition at the Village Institute, Main Street, next weekend, Saturday, 26 and Sunday, 27 May. On show, and for sale, will be original watercolours, oil and acrylic paintings, pastels and mixed media works and a good selection of members own greetings cards. Club members will also be demonstrating their skills and different techniques.
As well as painting, members of the Cononley Art Club are also busy baking as refreshments are served all day. And there will be a children’s corner where young artists can create their own works of art and even win prizes. Over the years this has proved to be a much loved event with a good selection of reasonably priced flower, bird and animal studies, local landscapes and abstract images. Admission is free – doors open at 10am and close at 4pm.
The Cononley Art Club attracts members from the village and local area and meets every Monday afternoon for workshops, demonstrations, and painting sessions – the Club also arranges outings to exhibitions and recently visited the Walker Gallery in Liverpool.
Scarecrows
A few images of the 2012 Festival of Scarecrows here.
Evening Classes
For more details of classes at South Craven School, click here.
Cononley Walking Group
Annual Coach Trip to Whitby
Details
Cross Hills Naturalists’ Summer Programme 2012
Cononley Gala – needs you
Volunteers needed – call James Moorehouse
01535 959109
jamesh-m@hotmail.co.uk
Cononley Village Survey
Many thanks to all those people that completed a village questionnaire. After a bit of a delay all the responses have been put together into a short report, which also highlights the ideas that people would like to see taken forward. You can download a copy of the report by clicking here.
Cononley Gala
Some images from the day
Alan Parker
St.John’s Churchyard – A Wildlife haven?
St.John’s churchyard has over the years been well used for burials and interments. It is still open for any village resident (or someone with a significant connection to the village) to be buried or have their cremated remains interred there. We hope that it is a valued resource for the whole community, as a peaceful and refreshing place. Our two priorities in managing the graveyard are, first and most important, enabling safe access to graves, for families to visit and lay flowers; and, secondly providing a beautiful and fitting environment which can be a resource for the community.
A few years ago much time, energy and money was spent on a large scale renovation of the churchyard, making safe graves which had become unstable, and removing dilapidated kerbstones, thus facilitating the mowing of the grass. Unfortunately the task of mowing the grass is a little like painting the Forth Bridge – as soon as one section is finished, another section needs tackling. We have been very fortunate in the labours of David Clarke, who heroically mows the grass and keeps the churchyard in a state which older members of the village community say is better than ever before.
The most important area for maintenance and upkeep is the area around the gravestones, especially the newer graves. This leaves a very large area in the north western corner of the churchyard, where there are no graves, and where there is a large open area of grass. The Cononley United Church Council has suggested that this might well be made into a wild flower area. This would not simply be a case of leaving it uncut and allowing nature to take over, but would mean preparing the ground and seeding with appropriate flowers. We have had a visit from representatives of the Yorkshire Living Churchyard Project (part of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust) who have given advice and, by the time you read this, will have visited again to do a survey of the flora and fauna of the churchyard.
The Church Council recognise that making such a wild flower area is beyond its present capabilities, and wonder if there is any individual, group or organization within the village (or beyond) which might like to take on the task of establishing a such an area in this part of the churchyard. If anyone is interested, or has any ideas, please let me know.
John Peet
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