Blogs

This week's special offers at Jenkins Bakery shops -

It's probably been more than 18months since I ventured on this site, so I was surprised to view all those birthday wishes. I should do it more often.

Thanks for all the birthday greetings, though it's beginning to become frightening, being reminded that that you are headed for the knacker's yard. Anyway, thank you again, your hearts are in the right place. A piece of good news received on my birthday yesterday, was that during my current role as an Az. Real Estate agent (16 years), after a particularly grueling 4 months of crossing swords with a listing agent, finally it was confirmed that I achieved my highest price home sale of $1,480,000. Yippee! We eat again! Strange it should happen on my birthday.

Best wishes to all.

Byron, or my real name Raymond William Godfrey

The Secret is out: BBC 2 choose Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod Pavilion stage to hold the Grand Final of Gareth Malones BBC 2s The Choir - Sing While you Work.

DelicaTon (Germany) winners of the 2012 Choir of the World competition

BBC 2s The Choir - Sing While you Work chose the home of World renowned Choir of the World competition as its stage for Gareth Malones Grand Final, televised October 25 ^th BBC 2 9pm. Choral animateur, singer and presenter Gareth Malone was guest of honour at Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod 2012, but organisers had to keep the Grand Final filming top secret.

Best known for his success with BBC Twos popular television series The Choir (produced by Twenty Twenty), Gareth Malone who was honored by the Queen in the Diamond Jubilee Birthday celebrations, addressed the audience before the Grand Finale Concert on the Sunday evening, which featured performances from John Owen Jones, Wynne Evans, Mark Llewellyn Evans, Fflur Wyn, Cr CF1 and many more.

Llangollen International Eisteddfod Musical Director Eilir Owen Griffiths, says: Part of my responsibility as Musical Director of LLangollen International Musical Eisteddfod is to attract new choirs from all over the World to come and compete at the festival, continuing the 65 year old tradition. The fact that the BBC and Gareth Malone have chosen the Llangollen Pavilion stage, made famous for staging Choir Of The World competition to be the platform for the grand final is a fantastic seal of approval for Llangollen Eisteddfod. I am delighted to be able to say that THE final of THE Choir was on THE World Stage known as the LLangollen Eisteddfod Stage.

Gareth Malone says, The Llangollen International Eisteddfod has such a rich tradition of choral music and the prestigious Choir of The World Competition and the Pavarotti Trophy has elevated its status to a global recognition. Its a great privilege to be Guest of Honour at a festival which has such a rich choral tradition and is so well supported by locals and visitors from four corners of the world.

Eilir Owen Grifiths added: In light of Gareth Malones contribution in recent years to Choral Music we felt that it was a fitting tribute to invite him to be our Guest of Honour. He has elevated and popularized this choral tradition through his dedication and hard work.

Appearing simultaneously in Ninnau & Y Drych

by Mona Everett

It is hard to believe, but it's that time of year again! Once again, the Briceville, TN, Public Library is asking people to send holiday cards to the children of Briceville. Lynette Seeber, the librarian, puts them all in a basket and the children can each open one. If there is a little gift inside, the child keeps it, if there is money inside, it goes in the summer reading program fund. (You don't need to put anything in the card, though.) Lynette has all the cards they have received from all over, including Wales, in notebooks that she happily shows visitors. If you have a Welsh or coal mining connection and can include a short note to the children, that is really great, but all cards are gratefully received and mean a lot to the children.

Briceville was settled by Welsh coal miners and was a real boom town in its day. Regular readers of Ninnau & Y Drych will have seen several articles about the Welsh coal-mining heritage of this area. There is also a wonderful website that showcases the many preservation activities regularly undertaken by the community. The Coal Creek Watershed Foundation http://www.coalcreekaml.com/ continues to work with school children to reclaim the creek for fish and also planted chestnut trees again. They have sponsored an Eisteddfod at the school for a couple years, too, and have preserved the Welsh church and much of the mining history of the area.

Here's the address:

Briceville Public Library

Children's Christmas Card

Lynette Seeber, Library Director

P.O. Box 361

Briceville, TN 37710

USA

Be sure to put 'Children's Christmas Card' on the envelope so Lynette doesn't open it.

The need is especially great this year. On a recent visit to Briceville, I was thrilled to hear that the funding for the new library had been approved and they hope to move in by next summer. Lynette graciously had asked all her 'regular donors' to direct their money to the building fund, but that has left her without funds to support her extra programs for the children, so she has been bearing most of those costs herself. She works very hard to help the children keep reading all year long and provides school supplies that they can just come in and take when they need them.

For anyone traveling in the vicinity of Knoxville, I highly recommend stopping in Bricevilleyou will find a very gracious welcome and history lesson at the library, and I guarantee you will come away with a warm feeling for the dedication of people like Lynette!

Thanks!!

Splendid picture story in the Llanelli Star about the Ashburnham golf club ladies golf centenary dinner staged at Parc y Scarlets stadium.
Smashing picture story in the Llanelli Star about Llanelli Rotary Club's newest member - Cerith Owens, of Loud Applause Productions.

Subsequent research has established that the winner of this year's Portland Lovespoon is none other than JANE BUCH of Florida who purchased her tickets at this years North American Festival of Wales in Scranton P.A.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jane and thank everyone who contributed to the West Coast Eisteddfod. If you were not the lucky winner this year fear not, 2013 is just around the corner and we will be announcing new and exciting plans as the WCE goes into its fifth year.

We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to Dave and Laura for their continued support and for creating such a unique and beautiful work of art. Special thanks are also due this year to Jen Delyth and Chris Chandler for their invaluable contributions.

The spoon this year has been the result of artistic collaboration across state and national boundaries and the result is little short of breathtaking. For pictures and a full account of the process please see David Western's Portland Lovespoon Blog

Howl Griff Fragile Diamond (album)
Release date: 15 October, 2012
Label: Dockrad Records
Catalogue No. Dockrad CD028
Distribution: Online iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp etc

Anglo-Welsh-American psychedelic rockers Howl Griff celebrate the Mon 15 Oct release of their album Fragile Diamond with an MPfree Fortnight.

Starting on that Monday, the band will allow one track per day to be downloaded free of charge for 10 minutes only. The time of free availability will be announced simultaneously on their Twitter feed http://twitter.com/HowlGriff and Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/HowlGriff .