A charity that supports desperately ill children and their families will benefit for the fourth consecutive year from a fundraising event staged by Ripon cafe owner Tina Whincup.
Ms Whincup, who owns Caffe Tempo in The Arcade, will be hosting story time with Santa on the evenings of December 13 and 14, to raise money for Yorkshire Children’s Trust.
The popularity of the event is underlined by the fact that tickets sold out within days of going on sale.
Santa will be reading Christmas stories at Caffe Tempo next month to raise money for Yorkshire Children’s Trust.
Ms Whincup told the Stray Ferret:
“We are going to raise a record of at least £700 this year through ticket sales and a silent auction being conducted online for an exclusive Caffe Tempo jumper, made for us by The British Christmas Jumper Company.
“The trust is a wonderful charity that helps families across Yorkshire and I would encourage people to support them in whatever way they can.”
The auction for the jumper lasts until Sunday (November 20) and anybody wanting to make a bid can find out more details by clicking here.
Yorkshire Children’s Trust was founded by two sets of parents after their daughters were diagnosed with leukaemia. The charity helps children and their families cope with the emotional and financial strain of many life-changing illnesses, something the founders of the charity understand after dealing with their own children going through the long and harsh treatments for cancer.
The charity doesn’t receive any lottery, NHS or government funding and relies heavily on voluntary donations.
Halifax closure leaves Ripon with one remaining bankFollowing this afternoon’s closure of the Halifax, Ripon will have one remaining bank and no access outside shopping hours to city centre cash machines.
The closure comes less than three months after the long-established Barclays branch closed its doors on August 25, leaving HSBC – which has no external cash machine – as Ripon’s only bank.
The Barclays bank Ripon branch closed in August.
Cash machines are available during shopping hours at Sainsbury’s on Market Place East and Booths at the Marshall Way Retail Park.
Announcing its branch closure in July, Halifax said in a statement:
“Like many other high street businesses, we’ve seen people using our branches less frequently in recent years as more customers choose to do most of their everyday banking online.
“We’re responding to the way our customers use our branches. We’ll continue to invest in our branch network, but we have to make sure our branches are where customers need and use them most.
“As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to close this branch because customers are using it less often. In addition the majority of customers are also using alternative ways to bank.”
A report produced by Barclays in May to explain the rationale behind its closure decision, showed that more than 3,000 customers visited regularly for personal or business banking purposes in the last year.
But the bank added that only 121 customers use the branch exclusively for banking. Eighty percent of customers also use online and telephone banking.
The report said 41% of Ripon customers also use nearby branches, such as Harrogate and Thirsk.
Ripon Racecourse has finished ahead of a strong field of entrants to become a winner at the 2022 Racecourse Association Showcase & Awards event.
Ripon, known as Yorkshire’s Garden Racecourse, beat Hamilton Park, Go Racing in Yorkshire, Scottish Racing and The Jockey Club to collect the Racing Connection Award.
Their winning entry was the Goodbye Flys Stables Championship, which saw a total of more than £14,000 going to stable staff over the course of the 2022 season.
The showcase & awards, held on Thursday at Pontefract, is the marquee event of British racecourses and celebrates excellence and innovation in racecourse operations and raceday experience.
The Racing Connection Award celebrates initiatives that enrich and extend the reach of the sport to customers, including racegoers or colleagues from the thoroughbred group (professionals connected with the horse).
Entrants were asked to demonstrate the passion, enthusiasm, knowledge and skill of those who work in the sport, enhancing both customer enjoyment and education of horseracing.
Wilf Walsh, chairman of the RCA, commented:
“Congratulations to Ripon Racecourse for their fantastic initiative to bring stable staff into the heart of the raceday experience.
“In what has been a challenging year for racecourses, I was buoyed by the quality of the initiatives on show, not least this one which I hope will act as inspiration to other racecourses in future.
“The RCA will share the best practice arising from this year’s Showcase Awards amongst all racecourses in the year ahead.”
Jonathan Mullin, operations and marketing manager at Ripon Racecourse, said:
“We’re delighted to win our second showcase award, keeping our place in the winners’ enclosure after winning the spotlight award with our green scheme in 2019.
“We felt it was important to highlight and acknowledge the great work that stable staff do in the industry. Together with our sponsor, Goodbye Flys, we found a good way of rewarding them and it is fantastic that it has been recognised.
“We’re looking forward to bringing the championship back next year along with some other initiatives and it would be fantastic if we could make the finals at the 2023 showcase and awards at Aintree.”
Thousands pay their respects as Ripon remembers the fallen
Thousands of people gathered at Spa Gardens and on nearby streets, as Ripon remembered the dead of two world wars and other conflicts this morning.
Services were held at the war memorial and in Ripon Cathedral, with both attended by the Bishop of Ripon the Rt Revd Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, the Dean of Ripon the Very Revd. John Dobson (pictured below) and clergy from the cathedral.
Spa Gardens, which like all other parts of the city has been decorated with thousands of red hand-knitted poppies created by the Ripon Community Poppy Project, provided a fitting backdrop for the ceremony at the memorial.
It was here that Andrew Cowie, president of the Ripon branch of the Royal British Legion, read out almost 400 names that appear on memorials at the gardens and in the cathedral.
Following a two-minute silence, wreaths were laid, including one on behalf of Ripon City Council, put in place by the Mayor of Ripon Councillor Sid Hawke (pictured below).
Wreaths were also laid by other dignitaries and representatives of all branches of the armed forces and the emergency services.
The service included hymns accompanied by Ripon City Band and the Last Post and Reveille played by Linda Graham, while lone piper Peter Spencer, of the North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service Pipe Band played the lament Flowers of the Forest. which preceded the two-minute silence.
Royal Engineers from Claro Barracks, were present, alongside retired service men and women and members of the Ripon Branch of the Royal British Legion.
Following the service in Spa Gardens 60 soldiers based at Claro Barracks led a march to the cathedral, passing Ripon Town Hall, where the mayor took the salute.
New call for action on Ripon eyesore site
Ripon councillors are calling for further action to smarten up a derelict site on one of the city’s key tourist routes.
The former Express petrol station and convenience store on Skellbank, has been empty for years.
It is located in a largely residential area of the city, on the route to Fountains Abbey and diagonally across the road from Hugh Ripley Hall, named in honour of Ripon’s first mayor.
In early 2021 Harrogate Borough Council planning enforcement officers instructed the owner to tidy the site, cut back vegetation and leave it in an acceptable manner prior to any further development.
The site as it looks today
However, as it remains in a derelict and overgrown state, city councillors at Monday night’s full meeting agreed to call for further enforcement action to be taken by HBC.
Councillor Stuart Flatley’s request for HBC to serve a Section 125 notice on the site owner was unanimously supported, after he said:
“This area is on the route to the Fountains Abbey World Heritage Site and has been in this unacceptable condition for many years and we can’t let this continue.”
City council leader Andrew Williams who seconded the proposal, said:
“As well as supporting this, I would like to go a step further and look at a compulsory purchase order for the site, so that it can be cleared and used for much-needed additional car parking spaces that can serve visitors to the city, hospital and Hugh Ripley Hall.”
Section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides a local planning authority with the power to take steps requiring land be cleaned up when its condition adversely affects the amenity of the area.
If it appears that the amenity of part of their area is being adversely affected by the condition of neighbouring land and buildings, they may serve a notice on the owner requiring that the situation be remedied.
Bid to save bus linking Ripon, Thirsk and NorthallertonRipon councillors are bidding to save the number 70 bus service that links the city with Thirsk and Northallerton.
They have agreed to contact North Yorkshire County Council and call for a re-think following an email to the city council that said funding for the service will come to an end from April.
The news from the passenger transport authority was met with disappointment at Monday’s full city council meeting, at which leader Andrew Williams, said:
“The loss of this service will mean that people from Ripon will not be able to use public transport to travel to Northallerton and go to North Yorkshire’s new seat of local government.
“This seems a ridiculous situation at a time when the COP 27 conference is being held in Egypt and world leaders are talking about the need to reduce carbon emissions by using more environmentally-friendly means of transport.”
Ripon residents can currently travel on the 36 bus to attend Harrogate Borough Council meetings or deal with matters such as planning applications.
Cllr Williams said:
“With devolution, this will all change from April when the new North Yorkshire authority comes into being and Harrogate Borough Council ceases to exist.
“That’s why we need to both protect and promote the valuable number 70 service and encourage more people to use it and make it viable.”
Cllr Julie Martin-Long said:
“The service is also a means of accessing mainline trains for travel to the north of England and onward links to airports in the north east.
Ripon museums secure more than £400,000 from Arts Council
Ripon Museum Trust has secured three-year funding from Arts Council England worth more than £400,000.
The trust operates the Workhouse, Prison and Police Museum and Courthouse museums, which welcome around 30,000 people per year.
The grant means the trust will continue to be funded through the Arts Council’s national portfolio scheme. It will receive £142,576 each year for the years 2023-26.
The funding will help pay for jobs as well as a programme of community engagement, creative programming and improvements.
Last week Harrogate Theatre , which had received just over £140,000 a year from the national portfolio scheme since 2015, announced it had missed out on an award this time.
Richard Taylor, chair of the trust, said:
“This crucial grant funding allows us not only to continue to provide a range of inspiring experiences but to also look ahead to how we can find new and innovative ways to inspire and engage our visitors both digitally and in person.
“This is good news for Ripon and the wider community of North Yorkshire. It will help to raise the cultural profile of our city and everything it has to offer.”
Applications for funding were determined against criteria laid out in the Arts Council’s Let’s Create strategy, which requires organisations to demonstrate how the work they do will contribute to the principles of inclusivity and relevance, ambition and quality, dynamism, and environmental responsibility.
Trust director Helen Thornton said:
“It is hugely exciting to be part of Arts Council England’s next portfolio and to be able to respond to Let’s Create. It’s a vote of confidence that what we are doing here has real impact and potential to grow our cultural offer.
“We hope to be able to reach out to and work with new communities, strengthen and develop what we do for our local communities, our volunteers and the general visitor – to ensure they have a really creative and inspiring time in our museums”.
End in sight for Kirkby Malzeard’s long-awaited wall repair
More than 32 months after part of St Andrew’s Church wall in Kirkby Malzeard collapsed, repair and reconstruction works costing almost £500,000 are ongoing.
In addition to rebuilding and reinforcing the 10-metre section that fell onto Church Street following heavy overnight rain in February 2020, a further 30-metre length is being refurbished and reinforced.
The road, which runs past St Andrew’s and is part of a route from the village to Masham, has remained closed since the collapse.
Harrogate Borough Council initially earmarked £250,000 to fund the project, which was given planning approval in February this year.
However, the final bill will be almost double that amount at £491,670 after council officials said the cost reflected the “volatile nature of the construction market at the moment”.
The increased cost is set to be funded from the council’s investment reserves.
The collapsed section of wall, which is being rebuilt and reinforced.
A report to the council urgency committee in May said:
“The work was not able to be contracted until the planning process was concluded and permissions put in place.”
The repair works which have followed came after residents and parish councillors frustrated by more than two years of delays, urged the council to end the “farce” of the church wall.
Community groups in Ripon are being invited to apply for funding up to a maximum of £3,500.
Ripon City Council has reviewed its partnership funding scheme to allow more organisations to apply for assistance covering an extended period, rather than making repeat annual applications via the council’s small grants scheme.
Funding will be approved for the council’s current term of office and will be subject to agreed outcomes defined in service level agreements and a regular review.
The partnership funding scheme will no longer be limited to those organisations who have previously benefited from it on a year-on-year basis.
Local not-for-profit, charitable and community organisation are invited to submit applications by November 30.
The partnership funding scheme, which was launched in 2016, was designed to provide core annual funding to a number of local organisations.
It has previously run alongside the small grants scheme, for which the council has regularly received repeat applications from other local groups and organisations that require additional funding to allow them to carry out their work.
The partnership funding scheme is designed to be a medium-term pledge of financial support to local organisations.
It is open for applications from any Ripon organisation which has charitable status or which runs as a not-for-profit, community organisation where membership is open (i.e. no discrimination on the grounds of gender, race, religion or sexuality).
Funding applications must clearly be of benefit to the people of Ripon as the scheme is funded by the precept money collected through the council tax levied on Ripon residents.
Blessing ceremony is held at Ripon Garden of Remembrance
Ripon’s week of events to remember and honour the dead of two world wars and other conflicts, began today at the Royal British Legion Garden of Remembrance next to the cathedral.
Canon Ailsa Newby led prayers at a ceremony of blessing for the garden, which was created by the Ripon branch of the RBL in 2018.
The event, attended by the Mayor and Mayoress of Ripon Councillor Sid Hawke and his wife Linda, saw representatives of all armed forces gather, along with standard bearers (pictured below) veterans and members the Ripon branch of the Royal Engineers Association.
Canon Ailsa said:
“In this coming week tokens of remembrance will be placed in memory of those who fell in the cause of freedom for our country.
“In the name of the Royal British Legion we pledge ourselves to help, encourage and comfort others and to support those working for the relief of the needy and for the peace and welfare of nations.”
The ceremony included a two-minute silence and afterwards small wooden poppy crosses, were placed near the RBL plinth in the garden by a number of attendees.
A serving officer with the Royal Engineers puts a poppy cross in place
Attention now turns to Ripon’s Remembrance Sunday service, which will be held on November 13 at the war memorial in Spa Gardens.
There will be a two-minute silence before wreaths are laid in honour of the fallen, by civic dignitaries, members of the armed forces, the RBL and representatives of other organisations.
Those planning to attend are asked to arrive by 10.30am.
On completion of the service at the war memorial, the civic party will proceed to the town hall where there will be a march past and salute.
The march past, including members of the Royal Engineers, standard bearers, veterans, Ripon City Band, cadets, scouts and guides and representatives of other organisations, will head down Kirkgate to the cathedral, where a service will be held.