If you’ve ever driven past a large concrete bunker as you leave the village and thought “that’s nice, I’d like to own that” then now’s your chance because Severn Trent are selling it off.

It’s one of 50 sites the company have just put on the market. “Mainly smaller ones with likely values of between £25,000 and £50,000 – the sort of thing you’ll buy to add to your garden. “They pose an opportunity for buyers to improve their own properties, or for smaller investors looking to increase their land holdings.” said Ted Pearce, Severn Trent Water’s director of property services.

So if you fancy a large concrete water feature or maybe a bunker in which to wait out the recession, here’s your chance. You can register an interest by emailing propertydisposals@severntrent.co.uk or get the full story from the Birmingham Post

Compagnia d’istrumenti - A Venetian Carnival

Compagnia d’Istrumenti is based in York, where
it has recently been appointed Ensemble in Residence at the
University of York.
It made its enthusiastically received debut in the area last
June in this same series Concerts in warwickshire Churches…  more here

This concert is dedicated to the memory of
Charles and Hilda Bottoms.

Tickets £10 and £1 for schoolchildren and students from Shirley Clayton tel 01564 794760 or
from
Bridge House Theatre Box Office
01926 776438

I’ve been looking for a decent way to put notifications of all the upcoming village events online before they happen (rather than several months after) for a while… and have finally got round to it.

Go to http://ullenhall.net/?page_id=32 (or click the  “Ullenhall Calendar” link on the right) and you’ll be taken to our new Google calendar page.

You can view by week, month or as an list of events (agenda) and if you’re so inclined you can even get your Outlook or mobile device to download and amagamate the events automatically (help with that here).

Hope you find it useful. If you want to submit events then email me here.

A successful slideshow and archive day was held in the Village Hall on Saturday 4^th April.  It was a chance to find out about the history of Ullenhall and look at items from the past, such as the inscribed prize-winners cups from Ullenhall School, old tiles from Barrells Hall and an old bottle labelled ‘Allcott’s Table Water, Ullenhall’.  This business was run by Mr. Allcott, baker and grocer, who had the premises now known as ‘The Old Bakery’ in the first half of the 20^th Century.  The Village Books were also on display and proved very popular.  A DVD of photos was shown four times during the day; these included Fetes that were held on the Vicarage lawn, interior views of Barrells Hall as it used to be and the redevelopment of St. Mary’s Close.  It would have been nice to have seen a few more faces both old and new; however it was an enjoyable day.  It was lovely to see several former residents and thank you to all who came. 

As we speed rapidly into January it’s long past time to reflect on the Christmas Celebrations that took place way back at the start of December.

Firstly on Saturday the 8th the Christmas Dinner went off well. The event was as packed as ever but with three long lines of tables filling the hall rather than the usual four, navigation to serve and sell raffle tickets was a lot easier. Turkey was eaten, wine was drunk and Carols were sung (though talk was of different entertainment for next year… time will tell). In general a good time was had by all. Thanks to the David and Catherine Waller, the village hall committee and all those who attended for a great night.

Sunday 9th saw the Children of the village replace the adult population for the Children’s Christmas party. After the success of last years party entertainment was once again provided by Joe Ridgely (CreativeShows.co.uk) who kept the over 40 children - ranging in age from a few months to early teens - enthralled for over an hour. Magic and Disco were combined with team games like Mummy rapping with toilet paper and silly string hair dressing. A huge party tea was devoured the Santa arrived with presents for all. Once again a great success and lots of thanks to Rachel Tipping for organizing, all the mums who made and brought such delicious food, and everyone else who helped and attended for making it such a fantastic success.

Saturday saw 2008’s church fete go off with a bang (or a wang, splosh or crack depending on where you were standing).

A full day of sun brought out record crowds (IMHO) to enjoy Skittles, Welly Wanging, a Coconut shy and Penalty shootouts among many other entertainments. Last years Nintendo Wii competition was repeated with great success with the winning score at Wii bowls being about 250! The Reverend Ganjavi was a great sport spouting scripture through out his several hours locked in the “Soak the Vicar” stocks.

The Cake and plant stall did a roaring trade as did the Tombola and Bottle stall - the latter having a queue to buy tickets throughout the day.

Another fantastic day, so thanks to everyone who helped to make it such a successes. Here are a few photos to give you a feel of the day and you can see the full stream by clicking here.

It’s been a busy weekend in the village’s social calender, with the Christmas dinner taking place on Saturday night and the children’s Christmas party on Sunday.

Both events were very well attended. The dinner was filled to capacity, quite how the waiters get between the tables on these events I don’t know and the ability to stand at my verse of “the 12 days of Christmas” without decapitating the person behind is a skill I still have to master. Thanks to the David and Catherine Waller, the village hall committee and all those who attended for a great night.

Whether a children’s party with 40 children in attendance is quite what I needed after the festivities the night before, I am not sure, but I am sure that it went off like a dream and was one of the best events I have been involved in. Again very well attended, the entertainer was brilliant (Joe Ridgely - CreativeShows.co.uk) and can definitely be recommended. The tables where groaning with party food and the visit by Santa was the icing on the cake. Thanks to Rachel Tipping for organizing, all the mums who made and brought such delicious food, and everyone else who helped and attended for making it such a fantastic success.

Ullenhall.net has been around for about 4 years now and I was getting fed up with updating (or more often not updating) the same old pages. What it needed is a face lift and what it’s got is… a face lift. I hope you like it.

The site is now based on a Blog which not only means that updating the site is easier and quicker, but also that we have gone interactive. You can comment on anything you read and your comments will remain for all to see. You can also subscribe to the site using a news reader, which means that rather than having to visit the site on a regular basis to see what’s new, your computer will automatically go and get updates for you as they happen.

So let me know your thoughts on the new look by clicking the comment button at the bottom of this post. As ever, if you want to help with the site, please get in touch. You can either write something and email it to mike@ullenhall.net or become a regular contributor and update the site yourself.