News Update : 29-SEP-24

Since the last news update, we have:

a) Continued with our twice monthly litter picks :

11 volunteers met at Summerfields on Wednesday 04-SEP-24 including some volunteers from Wates Builders who are refurbishing the fire station. We covered the surrounding area collecting at least 11 bags.

9 volunteers met at The Farmers Arms (Chapel Lane) on Saturday 07-SEP-24.  We headed off to cover a wider area than normal including Altrincham Road, the town centre and the Alderley Road bypass roundabout.  This was because the immediate area had undergone a solo pick during the week. We collected 12 bags and some recyclables (which were taken to home and put in the silver bins)

b) Continued with our solo picks.

c) Explored a funding opportunity from Tesco.

d) Lent some equipment to “Praetura Group” (a financial services company with offices at Barons Court on Manchester road).  6 of their volunteers did a litter pick as part of “World Litter Day”.

e) Provided some bags to residents of Colshaw Farm.  Riverside now own Colshaw Farm estate and the land in the valley. Some volunteers are getting involved with a tidy up exercise. They are also in discussions with Riverside management to provide funds and resources to repair a footpath and a couple of footbridges in the valley.

f) Reported some fly tipped tyres to ANSA

 

News Update : 01-SEP-24

Since the last news update, we have:

a) Continued with our twice monthly litter picks :

5 volunteers met at The Honey Bee on Wednesday 07-AUG-24.  We covered Altrincham Road collecting 9 bags of litter and 1 bag of recyclables.

Only 2 volunteers were able to attend the Bank Square pick on Saturday 10-AUG-24. We collected 3 bags around the Bollin Link, Grove St,  Alderley Rd, Swan Street and the top half of Church Street.

b) Continued with our solo picks.

c) Moved our website to a new hosting provider.  We started off in 2014 with a hosting company called TSO Host. They were very good for a long time but were bought out by a large American company called GoDaddy. Since then, support has become almost non-existent.  They moved our website onto a new platform earlier this year and broke our email functionality. They took a long time to fix that issue.  Our website broke again a few weeks ago. This time there was no response after 2 or 3 weeks despite various chases on the support ticket.  Having finally run out of patience with TSO/GoDaddy, we bought a hosting package at a new company. The new company has been excellent so far. They migrated the website across for us free of charge.  It all basically just worked – with very little work required by us.  Since then, a further support ticket has been raised with TSO Host to cancel the old service.  Again, this request has gone into a black hole.  We are pushing for a refund but not holding our breath.  Hopefully, some other TSO Host customers will report them to Trading Standards.  There are dozens of frustrated customers/companies who are struggling to operate.  These are their most recent TrustPilot reviews :
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/tsohost.com?sort=recency

 

News Update : 04-AUG-24

Since the last news update, we have:

a) Continued with our twice monthly litter picks :

6 volunteers met at Lindow Common on Wednesday 03-JUL-24.  We covered the surrounding area including Altrincham Road as far as the Jim Everson playing fields.

5 volunteers met at The King’s Arms on Saturday 06-JUL-24.  We covered the surrounding area including Alderley Road down to the bypass and parts of Knutsford Road.

b) Continued with our solo picks.

c) Continued support for a local student, Joe, who is doing his Duke of Edinburgh award. He has now completed the required number of volunteer hours but intends to continue picking. He has done amazing work over the past few months – so huge thanks.

d) Held a committee meeting where, amongst other things, we judged some posters created recently by the high school pupils and agreed to give Amazon vouchers to the best entries.

e) Responded to a contact from Praetura Asset Finance who are planning litter picks, in September, in all the towns where they have an office – which includes Wilmslow.

f) Manned a stall at The Wilmslow Show

Wilmslow Show Stall - 2024

 

News Update : 29-JUN-24

Since the last news update, we have:

a) Continued with our twice monthly litter picks :

Only 2 volunteers were able to meet at Summerfields on Wednesday 05-JUN-24.  We covered the surrounding area and collected 3 bags.

6 volunteers met at Bank Square on Saturday 08-JUL-24.  We covered the town centre and collected at least 6 bags

b) Continued with our solo picks.

c) Reported some fly tipping to ANSA

d) Continued support for a local student, Joe, who is doing a fantastic job as part of the volunteering section of his Duke of Edinburgh award. This month he has covered Sainsbury’s / Hooper’s car park and Broadway car park.

e) Scheduled a committee meeting where, amongst other things, we will be looking at the litter posters created recently by the high school pupils.

f)  Survived a migration exercise enforced up on us by our web hosting company.  The website seemed to survive OK but they broke our emailing capability. This was finally repaired a week or so later – and so hopefully everything is now up and running normally again – albeit at a much higher cost

News Update : 01-JUN-24

Since the last news update, we have:

a) Continued with our twice monthly litter picks (which formed part of our “Spring Clean” 2024 week) :

There was a small turn out on Wednesday 1st May despite the nice weather.  We met at The Parish Hall and collected 4 bags.

Once again there was only a small turn out on Saturday 4th May.  We met at The Honey Bee and collected 6 bags.

b) Held an extra “Spring Clean” pick.  We met in Sainsbury’s car park on Monday 29th April.  We collected at least 15 bags.  We then went to the Coach and Four for some drinks and a chat.

c) Continued with our solo picks.

d) Reported some fly tipping (at the rear of Broadway Meadow car park) to Cheshire East

e) Continued support for a local student, Joe, who is doing a fantastic job as part of the volunteering section of his Duke of Edinburgh award.

f) Stuart attended the annual town meeting and represented the clean team – presenting information about our activities.

g) Received notification about the “Wilmslow In Bloom” judging day – which will be on 02-JUL-24.  We normally try to clean up the town and the judging route in advance.  We will send out a request for help nearer the time.

h) Received some poster designs from Wilmslow High School pupils.  We will be reviewing these and potentially using them in some signage around the town.

i) Received information from Terry Burgess at CETRA (Colshaw Estate Tenants and Residents Association).  They have re-arranged their big clean up weekend in early June.  We have a schedule pick in the Summerfields area on Wednesday 05-JUN-24 but Terry has asked if we could also help out on Sunday 09-JUN-24 – even if it is just for an hour or so.

j) Had confirmation from our web hosting company that the website will be migrated sometime before 05-JUN-24.  There may be some disruption as part of this exercise – and it is possible that we may struggle to send/receive emails whilst any issues are resolved.  Fingers crossed that the website carries on working !

News Update : 28-APR-24

Since the last news update, we have:

a) Continued with our twice monthly litter picks :

We met at Lacey Green on Wednesday 3rd April and collected 6 bags.

10 volunteers met at Bank Square on Saturday 6th April. We covered the town centre, the station, the Leisure Centre, the car park behind BP, the Bollin Link and the Carrs playground. We collected at least 12 bags and some recyclables.

b) Continued with our solo picks.

c) Continued support for a local student, Joe, who is doing a fantastic job as part of the volunteering section of his Duke of Edinburgh award.

d) Reviewed the information from the company that hosts our website. The website will be migrated at some point. We initially thought this was going to be on Thursday 11th April but that was the date that they are starting the migration work – so it could be any time over the coming months.  There may be some disruption as part of this exercise.

e) Started to plan the next committee meeting.

f) Started to consider applying for the Tesco blue token scheme again.

 

News Update : 29-MAR-24

Since the last news update, we have:

a) Continued with our twice monthly litter picks :

A nice morning saw 12 volunteers meet up on Wednesday 6th March at The Farmer’s Arms.  We were pleased to welcome 2 new volunteers. We collected at least 10 bags.

4 volunteers met at Summerfields on Saturday 9th March. We collected 6 bags of rubbish and 2 bags of recyclables.  It was noted that Colshaw Drive seemed surprisingly clean compared to previous events. We reported some fly tipped rubbish and some CEC highways equipment.

b) Continued with our solo picks.

c) Received a further update from the chairman of Colshaw Estate Tenants and Residents Association (CETRA) to say that they are postponing their big clean up exercise of the valley area on Colshaw Farm estate.  This was originally going to be on Saturday 13th April and Sunday 14th April but will now be later in the year.

d) Provided guidance and equipment to a pupil who is litter picking for the volunteering section of their Duke of Edinburgh award.

e) Renewed our website hosting and domain registration.

f) Liaised with the fire station regarding the impact on our equipment bunker during works.

g) Heard from ANSA regarding the date for the clean-up of the A34 bypass.  This is now scheduled for the week commencing April 15th.

h) Started to discuss the possibility of taking up a free stall at the Wilmslow Show.

i) Responded to Alderley Edge In Bloom. They are doing a big clean of Melrose Way on Sunday 21st April at 11:00.   They would welcome some help from Wilmslow Clean Team.  If you can help, then they are meeting at Chelford Road bridge.

j) Thanks to Elaine who has contacted Deputy head teacher Mr Mark Vincent at Wilmslow High School regarding a poster campaign to help our group and promote less littering   He has passed the request onto the art department apparently and hopefully something will be forthcoming soon.

i) Heard from the company that hosts our website that they will be performing a migration exercise on Thursday 11th April.  Fingers crossed that the website continues to function normally but there will be a small outage on that day.

j) Planned our Spring Clean events

News Update : 03-MAR-24

Since the last news update, we have:

a) Continued with our twice monthly litter picks :

7 volunteers met on Wednesday 7th February at Bank Square.  It was great to see 2 employees of Pets at Home who had worked with us before as part of their firm’s community service. We collected 10 bags in the town centre.

8 volunteers met at the Honey Bee on a dry and sunny morning on Saturday 10th February. We covered Altrincham Road from Waters down to the airport tunnels and the old road from the Airport Hotel to the Styal entrances .  We were delighted to welcome 2 new volunteers who helped us collect a big haul of 18 bags and some recyclables.

b) Continued with our solo picks.

c) Made an initial response to the chairman of Colshaw Estate Tenants and Residents Association (CETRA) about potentially assisting with a big clean up exercise of the valley area on Colshaw Farm estate on Saturday 13th April and Sunday 14th April.

d) Asked ANSA if they could litter pick the verges of the A34 whilst they were cordoned off for a separate exercise.  Unfortunately this was not possible at that time – although it looks like it might happen in April.

e) Started to plan the renewal of our website hosting and domain registration.

News Update : 03-FEB-24

Since the last news update, we have:

a) Continued with our twice monthly litter picks :

Despite the drizzle, 4 volunteers met at The King’s Arms on Wednesday 3rd January. We covered the surrounding area and collected 8 bags.

The sun was out on Saturday 6th January. 8 volunteers met at Lindow Common. We collected 11 bags. 1 bag of recyclables was taken home and put in the grey bin. We covered the surrounding area including Chapel Lane.

b) Continued with our solo picks.

c) Held a very successful “10th Birthday” get together in the King’s Arms on Tuesday 30-JAN-24. At least 17 volunteers came along.  It was good to catch up with everyone and lovely to see some old faces. Many thanks to Stuart for organising.

Clean Team Kings Arms - 1

Clean Team Kings Arms - 2

 

 

 

 

d) Collected our new trolley – which we have named “The Howden Trolley” after the insurance company in the town centre (formerly A-Plan) that paid for it. We are very grateful for their support.

News Update : 30-DEC-23

Since the last news update, we have:

a) Continued with our twice monthly litter picks :

Unfortunately, the weather was against us on Wednesday 6th December as it was very cold and frosty.  Only our chairman Chris braved the conditions and turned up at Bank Square.  He picked the Bollin Link and collected 1 bag and a hub cap.

Despite heavy rain, 3 volunteers met at Summerfields on Saturday 9th December. We collected 6 very full bags in the surrounding area.

b) Continued with our solo picks.

c) Booked the venue for our 10th anniversary celebration

d) Started to plan a committee meeting to discuss some anti-littering signage.

e) Held further discussions with one of our sponsors : A-Plan Insurance (now a $9 billion US company called Howden). The upshot is that they have agreed to donate £200 to buy a new trolley.