As today, Sunday 2 December, was the last tea and chat meeting of the Society for 2018, the members presented Carol Cockerill and Margaret Truran with early Christmas presents in grateful thanks for the delicious tea and cakes they provide for the meetings throughout the year and which are such a well known feature of these events!

The next regular meeting of the Society will be on Sunday 6 January, from 2.00 to 4.00pm in the Updale Reading Room – all are most welcome and in the meantime a very Happy Christmas and a stimulating New Year to everyone.

The coffee morning held on a cold, wet morning at the Coach House Inn, courtesy of Dave Oakey, in aid of the Rosedale Community Fund and the Parkinson’s Society raised £226.

Thanks as always to Dave and his team at the Coach House and to Carol, Janet and Margaret for organising the raffle.

The next coffee morning will be on Saturday 5 January 2019 – more details later. In the meantime a very Happy Christmas to all our readers.

The very popular auction in aid of the Updale Reading Room was held in the Coach House Inn on Saturday evening. As usual, the event was packed out and became livelier and the bidding more extravagant as the night went on! The magnificent sum of £2010 was raised, the most this event has ever achieved.

The organisers would like to express heartfelt thanks to Sue Foster for all her work in helping set the event up in what was a very trying time for her. Also thanks to Dave Oakey and his great team at the Coach House and to Dave Seller, Lori Westwood, Ena Dent and Trevor and Lorraine Dale for running the auction. And, of course, to all those who donated lots for the auction and who gave so freely in bidding for them.

The standard has been set high this year, so the challenge is to do even better in 2019!

The now customary singing of carols, quaffing mulled cider and munching on mince pies in aid of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance will take place on the village green from 6.30pm on Saturday 22 December.

Please note the event for your diaries and pass the time and date around your friends. This is an important charity for us here in the dale and the Air Ambulance needs our best support.

The famous Rosedale Christmas Auction in aid of the Updale Reading Room/Village Hall will be held in the Coach House Inn on Saturday 24 November 2018 starting at 8.30pm sharp. The Coach House will be open for donations of auction items from 6.00pm.

All are very welcome to join us on this fun evening, when you can top up on your Christmas presents and contribute to local charitable causes by competing to pay outrageous prices for bottles of pickled onions, for example!

The War Memorial in Rosedale Abbey’s churchyard has been cleaned for the first time in decades and work is underway to re-paint the names of all those commemorated on the plinth who died in the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War.

Short biographies of all those who fell in the Great War are on display in the church, especially poignant this year as Remembrance Sunday coincides with the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. Details of local commemorations will be published shortly.

It’s that time again – time to cut and rake the conservation area in the Rosedale Abbey churchyard. A team of volunteers from the National Park will come on Friday 5 October at around 10.00 am to cut and rake the conservation area, but local volunteers, with any strimmers, rakes etc, would be very welcome. As an incentive, refreshments will be provided!

If you can spare an hour or so, please come along on Friday – no need to book! This will be the last time that the NYMNP volunteers will be cutting the conservation area and from 2019 onwards it will be purely a local task.

The Angel on the Celestial Ladder on the side of St Mary and St Lawrence Church has been moved up a notch as a result of the outstanding £5000 raised at the the recent Flower Festival.

The fund raising effort continues as can be seen from the height of the ladder. Cards, notebooks and the Rosedale 2019 Calendar are available from the Abbey Stores, Graze on The Green tearooms, the Coach House Inn, Gillies Jones Glass and the Caravan Club site shop. Also keep a look out on this site and on social media for further news about fundraising events for this vitally important cause.

Some more images from the festival in St Mary and St Lawrence Church, which has now concluded after a very successful ten days, as indicated in the amounts raised below:

So far over £4800 (and rising) has been raised through donations and sales, a tremendous result and a fitting tribute to all the hard work of the volunteers who set up and helped throughout the festival and especially to the astonishing generosity of all who donated money to the Appeal – it is hoped that the Angel can now be raised a few notches up to the £20,000 mark on the Celestial Ladder (see the exterior wall at the east end of the church).

A preview evening was held for the Flower Festival on Friday 14 September 2018 in aid of the Save Rosedale Abbey Church Appeal. Close to a hundred people, visitors and locals, attended and enjoyed a very convivial event and were royally entertained by the Eskuleles ukelele band.

Over £600 pounds was raised from donations and sales of Appeal related merchandise, an excellent effort by all involved. Thanks go to all who helped set up the the displays and who who contributed to the Appeal on the evening.

Please remember the church will be open to view the wonderful displays by local groups from 10.00am to 5.00pm each day through to Sunday 23 September, with the Harvest Service followed by a Bring-and-Share supper on Saturday 22 September starting at 6.00pm. All are very welcome to St Mary and St Lawrence Church.