Category Archives: Congratulations

Congratulations from SHARE to South Hill Connection 


100 editions of the newsletter – what an achievement! SHARE is proud to be a regular contributor to the Connection since our early days in 2015.  We registered as a Community Benefit Society that year, and together with the Parish Council, installed our first solar PV array on the Parish Hall roof.  This continues to supply power for the Hall and will do so for years to come.

45 years service to our Parish Council


When Tom Brewer started as a Parish Councillor, meetings were held in the Sunday School rooms adjoining the old chapel in Golberdon, now named Batts Chapel, as there was no parish hall. Tom helped with the construction and fund raising of the current parish hall.

More recently Tom had the responsibility of regular safety checks of the play area equipment and instigated the alteration of the safety barrier so children now face oncoming traffic when leaving the park onto the road.

He requested a bench be put at the top of the recreation field so people could enjoy the fabulous views and proposed that wildflowers be planted alongside the far edge of the football field.  He also campaigned to improve parking and reduce speeding through our parish villages and was always asking for updates on the state of our drains and road surfaces.

At the Parish Council meeting on December 22nd, a special Thank You was given to retired Cllr. TOM BREWER for his service to the community over the 45 years he served as a parish councillor.   Tom was accompanied by his daughter Elaine, as our P.C. Chair Dennis Hicks unveiled an inscribed plaque displayed in the Parish Hall meeting room.  Tom joked and gave a few words of wisdom and advice to the new councillors present, instilling a sense of commitment and to have fun. He smiled as he said he wasn’t always in favour of decisions that have been made. 

South Hill Bat Project Update – helping bats and humans share their space


South Hill Bat Project was thrilled to be nominated for an award from the Bat Conservation Trust, for work with Bats in Churches.  Church Warden Miranda Lawrance-Owen stated how affirming this was for the work being done with our bats.

The campaign to help local bats keep the roof over their heads, was launched in August and has had an amazing response. 

An article in the church Times stated:

Just before the £30,000 project to repair the roof began at St Sampson’s, South Hill, in Callington, near Saltash, it was discovered in May that two families of bats, pipistrelles and regionally rare Natterer’s bats, had set up a maternity wing in the roof. Work was suspended for a survey, and subsequent alterations to the plan to accommodate the legally protected animals.

Judith Ayers, project coordinator said:

“The £6,000 target is becoming a reality with £3,700 already secured through our sponsor a bat campaign.  We now have bats named Eeyore, Sampson, Daisy, Brent, Acrobat, Batman and many more.  Supporters are from all around the globe, with intertest as far away as Melbourne!”

There has been welcome support from celebrity Chris Packham, well know naturalist.  He has personally sponsored a bat and named it Botham, as he said in his Tweet “he was quite handy with a bat.”  His support and sharing on his social media has considerably increased the amount raised and the profile of the campaign.

St Sampson’s Church, South Hill where the project is situated, has recently received it’s bat mitigation licence and the urgent roof works have now begin, being sensitive to the resident bats who have finished breeding for this year.  Some bat boxes have been sited to house any bats found in the roof, whilst works are being done, with an ecologist to oversee their safety.

The first bat talk has taken place with local bat expert Tony Atkinson telling the packed church all about the amazing habits of bats.  There was even a special fly by of two bats as he was finishing speaking.  The whole evening was bat themed with bat cakes and crocheted bats to buy.  And to make the evening extra special it was announced that Tony had won an award from the Bat Conservation Trust.   More talks, a bat walk and a bat box building workshop are planned for the spring.

You can donate on our Just Giving page South Hill Bat Project -helping bats and humans share their space. – JustGiving  then send an e mail to stsampsonssouthhill@gmail.com  to receive your certificate or, by sending a cheque made out to ‘The Rector and Church Wardens of South Hill – to Judith Ayers, Southview Barn, 83 Launceston Road, Callington, Cornwall PL17 8DS.

For further details of South Hill Bat Project, helping bats and humans share their space.

 contact Judith Ayers  judithayers@yahoo.co.uk or  St Sampsons Unlocked | Facebook   or  St Sampson’s, South Hill – A Church Near You

Halloween Pumpkin Competition


A pumpkin competition was organised for Halloween by Jemma Hames (Jem’s Book Shop). There was a wonderful response all around the parish, and prizes were donated by Meaders Cabinet Works, Helen at the Chutney Shed, Astrid Fischer, Eversfield Organics, Callington Tesco and Jem Books.

Photos were submitted to Facebook and in the end they were all so good that everybody had a prize!

Recycling for Charity 6 months in


We have just redeemed our 1st 6 months of recycling and have earned 76,811 points (£768.11) for Kicks Count charity.

Points Earned via the 13 programs we were signed up for:- Crisp Packets 16,590 Toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes 4,900 Sweets 3,808 Bread Bags 4,443 Biscuits, crackers, cakes (inc mini chedders) 27,940 Personal Care and Beauty 1,780 Home Care (triggers, wipes) 1,490 Disposable Gloves 2,257 Pringles® Cans 2,776 EllaCycle baby pouches n snacks 3,584 KP Snacks Nuts, Popcorn, Pretzels 6,781 ACUVUE® Contact Lens 462 There is no PET FOOD recorded, as I use another KICKS COUNT collector, but we have gained over 14000 pts (140 quid.)

MOVING FORWARD: CONTACT LENSES can only be recycled through opticians now. BREAD BAGS should be recycled at TESCO and other major supermarkets with carrier bags and all other stretchy plastics .THANK YOU ALL, and please stick to the accepted items, if you’re not sure, we probably dont take it.

COME TO A SORTING SESSION, see what we do every Friday morning 10am till 12 noon at GREEN MEADOWS Golberdon email SHARE@south-hill.co.uk or text Ali 07305 044049

If you want to set up your own collection point or help with an existing site please let us know !!

SHARE will be promoting our project at LAUNCESTON TOWN HALL Nov 12th 10am – 4:30 and TAVISTOCK TESCO Nov 14th from 10am. PLEASE pop along and say HI.

Tregaver One Year On


It’s been a year since I moved to Golberdon, and I can honestly say I’ve loved my time here so far! 

The village is so friendly and helpful, my neighbours are always wonderful. I’ve had a bank card drop back into me that my boiler engineer dropped on the street…. I’ve had Dick helping to try and jump start my truck when it wouldn’t start… I’ve traded eggs for a bag of kindling, rhubarb for recycling bins and another neighbour “stealth dropped” some wonderful tomatoes on my doorstep! 

I’ve not had to take anything I no longer need to the tip – I’ve rehomed a table, a mirror, shelving units and numerous other bits and bobs by dropping them to the free corner, and also acquired some gems too – a great little shelf unit, a fabulous casserole dish to name just a few! 

Business and farming wise, it’s been an amazing year too. I lambed for the first time ever this year, by myself (remember the freeze in April? I camped at the field and my tent was like an igloo one morning when I woke up with ice burns on my eye lids!). 

I only have 2 ewes and borrowed a tup back in November. He did a proper job, and we were rewarded with 4 marvellous lambs (Branok, Bryan, Brea, and Beryan) to add to our fibre production crew at Tregaver – 3 boys, now castrated, and a ewe lamb which will be bred when she’s of age. 

I also bought 2 valais x lleyn lambs (Byghan and Ballow) a few months ago – their fibre is superb, perfect little locks which are much softer than pure valais black nose! 

And one of the most exciting things… We finally have goats at Tregaver, making it a genuine “place of the goats”. We welcomed 5 gorgeous angoras from Devon. So we’ve now got a Boudicca, Barvus, Bolitho, Barthek and Baya.

As you can see, all of our livestock have Cornish or Celtic names – Bolitho is my family name back to 1611!

So here’s to another year in Golberdon, and here’s hoping our fibre business continues to grow! 

Caroline Rimmer     https://etsy.me/2nC60Vk                

https://etsy.me/2nC60Vk

From Madison, Year 9 Callington Community College


Dear Principal Ainsworth,                                                                         
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I write to you today to draw your attention to improvements I think would make Callington Community College a more environmentally friendly school and staff and pupils more environmentally aware and responsible.
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I was pleased to read in issue 34 of ‘The Voice’ Callington Community College is now part of the green charter for schools initiative and are committed to promoting environmental awareness. I have also been encouraged by initiatives like Oceans Day, but I am concerned these measures do not go far enough.
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As I’m sure you are aware, our planet is facing a climate emergency. 67,000 acres of rainforest is destroyed every day ¹. Over 8 million metric tons of plastic are thrown into the ocean annually ². Of those, more than 236,000 tons are microplastics ³. It is thought 10,000 species go extinct each year ⁴ with thousands more listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature ⁵ as threatened with extinction or critically endangered. I feel the school currently contributes enormously to the ever growing environmental problems and have identified key areas I feel we should be taking more direct action.
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1. Excessive Plastic Consumption. Almost all the plastic used in the school is single use with little effort being made to reduce the use of items such as plastic cutlery in the canteen, drinks bottles in vending machines and pens. Did you know Plastics kills approximately 100,000 sea creatures and 1 million sea birds each year? ⁶
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2. Recycling. There were not enough recycling bins around the property up until recently. I’ve noticed that now the awareness of plastic and recycling has been raised you have now added a few bins, but there is no signs. Did you know many items such as crisp packets, sweet and biscuit wrappers can be recycled through Terracycle allowing charities such as Kicks Count ⁷ who operate local collections to financially benefit from packaging which is not currently recycled through kerbside collections? I think it would be great if our school rubbish could raise funds for charity.
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3. Excessive energy consumption. I have noticed lights, computer monitors and whiteboards being left on in empty class rooms. The school could also save money of utility bills as well as reducing carbon footprint just by turning electrical goods off when not in use.
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4. General recycling. I am worried the school is not doing enough to recycle common materials such as paper and card. Some classrooms have no provisions to recycle these products and I am concerned they are being unnecessarily disposed of in general waste.
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We are taught if we try, we can achieve anything. We can all do something to help our planet and our school could be leading the way in encouraging staff and pupils to make “refuse, reduce, re-use, recycle, repair, re-gift, recover and re-cycle” commonplace.
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I would like to suggest the school forms a student environment committee (which I would like to be part of) to share and implement ideas to make our school more environmentally friendly. We could even start by designing posters and leaflets to make sure everyone uses the recycling bins!
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I hope you will consider my points and then we can all start to make a difference.
[1] Rainforest alliance (2019) https://bit.ly/2klcmH9 
[2] Plastic Waste Inputs from Land into the Ocean (2015) https://bit.ly/33BqXjN
[3] A global inventory of small floating plastic debris (2015) https://bit.ly/2kEIE0c
[4] World Wildlife Fund (2019) https://bit.ly/2IXm8ty
[5] IUCN https://bit.ly/2TRpCkn
[6] Ocean Crusaders (2019) https://bit.ly/1LSU9CX
[7] Kicks Count https://www.kickscount.org.uk/

South Hill Connection October News Roundup


Saturday Nov 10th 2:30pm Remembrance service at the Parish War Memorial Golberdon.

  Sunday Nov 11th Remembrance Service at St Sampson’s church and exhibition the week before. Bring your memorabilia & add your family names to the book south-hill.co.uk/parish-war-exhibition

Linkinhorne History Group WWI display at Sterts until the end of November, plus for the ongoing recording of graves visit www.cornishgraves.org.uk/st-melors-linkinhorne

 Monday Nov 26th 7:30pm ‘Cherished, Restored or Locked and Lost-  No pub. No school. No shop. Let’s keep our church at South Hill open!’ All welcome at the Parish Hall, Golberdon, to show your support, share ideas and enthusiasm. Group photo so bring all your friends from near and far.

 Tuesday Nov 27th 7:30pm Old School Stoke Climsland History Group. Stories behind the names on the Stoke Climsland War Memorials with Deri Parsons. A booklet detailing the information gathered on the names will be available for purchase, all profits will be shared equally between the British Legion and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

 Sunday 16th December  3 – 5pm Free Community Christmas Party, for all ages, with traditional games for children & adults, afternoon tea & Father Christmas,  in the parish hall. More details to follow. Please let Judith Ayers know if you would like to come, names and numbers to judithayers@yahoo.co.uk  or 01579 384617

 Parish Hall News

 A year ago SHARE launched “Power The Night With Sunlight”, to gain votes for an M&S Energy grant to install a battery to store the energy produced by the PV panels all day around.  Thank you to the 1000s that voted and pledged money for gifts, BUT despite the huge support, we came second. However, this summer M&S Energy asked if we could complete our project by the end of September 2018. We did, despite a scare on the deadline when the installer’s wife went into early labour! The data produced by the battery storage so far is really interesting and it is encouraging to see the savings. Within the budget SHARE are also installing new low energy light fittings throughout the hall.

 The Parish Hall committee and the Parish Council have just secured grant funding for further improvements at the hall and planning in underway for new flooring, heating and hopefully more.

 If you think you have the skills to help with this project, in particular advice is needed on costing the various ways the insulation and heating could be improved, from a quantity surveyor for example. Contact David Skelton 382397 dave@pencashna.com

 SHARE will be given the old floor boards, what can we/you do with them? If you’d like a piece of history, let Astrid know. SHARE@south-hill.co.uk 383620

 Recycling for Charity. Biscuit wrappers and more can be put in the collection bins, placed at the Parish Hall, St Sampson’s church porch, Trevigro, Green Meadows, Callington Tesco and the Tamar AONB centre at Drakewalls. A list of recycled items is on the collection points and available on line.

 Firewood. SHARE is delivering a mixed trailer load for £120 and dumpy bag full for £60. Call 384544 or 382397 NO deliveries between Nov 12th – 26th so book now. Thank you and keep it local.

 Allotments available at Golberdon, £15 per year. Contact the parish clerk  southhillpcclerk@gmail.com or speak to Cllr. Jim Gale  07974 786066 

 Residents are encouraged to contact the Parish Council regards local matters and attend meetings  held at the parish hall in Golberdon on the 3rd Tuesday of each month starting at 7:30pm.

Did you go to Callington Schoolhttp://south-hill.co.uk/ex-callington-school-students/

Stroke Befriending Service … http://south-hill.co.uk/stroke-befriending-service/

 Christmas Wreaths Workshop, contact Jane’s Floral Designs on 01822 833435 or 07532292814

 Macmillan Biggest Coffee Morning! Held at Polhilsa Farm on Friday 28th September, had wonderful support in raising money for Macmillan cancer support enjoying coffee, cakes and good company!

With a vast array of sweet treats, a raffle and games; a fun morning of catching up with friends was had by all. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the event; baking, eating and donating!  We raised over £500! An amazing amount of money for a very worthy cause.

 Callington Young Farmers Club were awarded a trophy in recognition for the most increased membership in the year. After all the hard work put in, it is well deserved. Photo on line. PLUS Claudia the Callington Y.F.C.  cow can be seen on Saltash Rd, Callington.

 There are other interesting sightings around the parish, posted online. (If you’re a den maker, you may want to collect your coat).

 The Hall committee Harvest Supper. I didn’t have Ellie McCall’s friend’s name for the last newsletter, but her name is Jodie Statham.  If you would like to book these singers call 01822 870221

 To Hire the Hall is £12 a session am/pm/evening, with special all day/weekend rates. Main hall and/or the meeting room or all together with kitchen. To hire the field is additional and can be with/without the hall. Don’t delay, book your event today. Call Andy  389328 or email hallbookings@south-hill.co.uk 

Late News…

On Saturday 18th August the 59th South Hill Horticultural Show was held at the Parish Hall. There was a good number of new entrants this year and we would like to thank the committee and all friends of the show for their help in running and organising the event.

The Callington Young Farmers had a dog show in the playing field, some stall holders set up under the awning and our cream teas were available for all to enjoy.

Next year is our Golden 60 years! The show will be held on Saturday 17th August 2019 and we are hoping to make it bigger and better than ever. To make this happen we do however need even more help and support. We are looking for any stall holders, organisations, clubs and groups to join us. If you are interested please get in touch.  To keep up to date with events and information please join us on Facebook; South Hill Horticultural Show. www.facebook.com/southhillshow/  Lucy Penney (Joint Secretary)

 Please support our advertisers and finally …

Please send in your photos, articles, events for the next newsletter covering Dec 2018/Jan 2019  to newsdesk@south-hill.co.uk  by Nov 15th

Thank you and see you on FB www.facebook.com/SouthHillParish 

Ali Humphreys, South Hill Connection Editor

SHARE Oct update


David Skelton has stepped down as Chairman but stays as a Director, Geoff Hardman has taken over as Chairman, Graham Beven Finance Director. Astrid Fischer Company Secretary and Sue Skelton Treasurer make up the Directors, with Mary Hardman membership secretary and Ali Humphreys PR making up the Management team that meet every month.

A year ago SHARE launched “Power The Night With Sunlight” led by Ali and Astrid and supported by the hall committee with Nick Easton as chairman, to gain votes for a M&S Energy grant to install a system to store the energy produced by the PV panels put on the hall roof 3 years ago, in short a battery . Thank you to the 1000’s that voted,(and got their friends to vote) BUT despite the huge support, we came second and lost out. BUT this summer, M&S Energy asked if we were still pursuing our project, and could we complete by the end of September 2018. We did and had a scare on the deadline when the installer’s wife went in to early labour!

The battery has been installed and tested and the data produced so far is really interesting and encouraging to see where further savings may be made. Within the budget SHARE are also installing new low energy light fittings throughout the hall.

Looking at other projects, the firewood sales continue to be a success and we’re searching for ways to be more sustainable; encourage coppicing and we’d still love to have a Parish Woodland. Continue reading