Happy ‘coming to the end of school half term’ Friday
I hope you’ve all had a good week, being out and about? We went to visit family in North Wales, we were lucky that the weather was on our side as we pranced about on the beach in the warm wind; we even felt the earth rumble under our feet, yep, we heard the mini earthquake. To add to the quake, my feet were banging on the floor in frustration, this is down to the crazy thing about being on any coast, the lack of connection of any kind, I’m lucky to get an E for Edge; ironic being on the coastline! They can put a windmill out to sea, but internet connection….nah. Anyhow, all back to full time office work on Monday and hopefully adding a few more members to our site – watch and see, a possible new unique business on our doorstep coming on board.
A lovely story
For those of you not lucky enough to have read on Facebook, here is a story that touched a lot of hearts in our community this week, all 5,952 of them with 187 likes and 18 shares – spreading the love
A lovely local chap I have met, called Des who runs the Garforth Library Computer Club wanted me to share this heartwarming story with you all about how lovely and thoughtful our traders actually are
I want to tell you a little story which will gladden you heart and illustrate the power of ‘community’: a story which is, I think, ‘grist to your mill’.
A little background will help in the storytelling.
Rita (my mother-in-law) lives with us on Wakefield Road, is 93 and in an advanced stage of dementia. My wife, Betty, takes her mother shopping on Main Street every Saturday morning. Same weekly routine; visiting the butcher, the greengrocer, the Coop, the clothes shop, Ladycare etc. They have their hair done at Scream and, consequently, a fair number of the traders on the Street know Betty and Rita.
The story:
Last Saturday (23rd May) early morning, there was a knock on the door and there stood Lee from the Greengrocers. “Are you missing anybody?” he said. With horror I realised that he could only be referring to Rita. She’d quietly escaped.
She was spotted coming out of Halliday Court beside Ladycare and walking straight out onto the road, oblivious to the traffic. Realising that there was something wrong because Rita was alone, Lee brought Rita into the shop where they settled her down with a cup of tea and biscuits and tried, unsuccessfully, to get some information from her.
Now, although, they’d known Rita as a regular customer for a couple of years they didn’t know her second name nor where she lived and she was unable to tell them. She had no identification with her. So they called the police. The postman came in delivering mail and said that he knew where she lived. At which point Lee, the Greengrocer, left the shop and went around to Wakefield Road to tell Betty where her mother was.
Louise at the Greengrocers then remembered that Rita goes to Scream to have her hair done so they phoned Scream and explained the situation. Tracy from Scream, who always chats to Rita, was between appointments so she dashed up to the Greengrocers to see if she could help and she had Betty’s phone number. Meanwhile two policemen had arrived to sort the situation out. They phoned Betty, who was answering the phone just as there was a knock on our door and it was Lee from the Greengrocers saying, “Are you missing anybody?”.
Everybody rallying round to help someone in need ….. A great example of community spirit!
Many thanks to all concerned who took trouble in their busy lives to ensure that a confused, elderly lady was safe.
Word on the Street
Garforth Christmas Committee is now fairly official and there is a small team of us working together to help step up it up a gear for the Christmas lights switch on this year. The team consist of the wonderful Garforth & District Lions, Mark Dobson and Andrea McKenna a handful of Traders and a one or two people from the community. By wall working together, we may be able to add to the fireworks
In the next couple of weeks you will see The Main Deal signage goes up on a barrel I have sponsored outside The Miners Welfare Hall. A little addition to an empty tub, this time next year it would be great to have a patch, but we’ve all got to start somewhere and it’s all going to the wonderful volunteers at Garforth in Bloom who also today, received acknowledgment from the caring people at Cielo Coffee House that £300 worth of funding is coming their way to purchase more flowers – happy days. Along with
£750 to Garforth Flood Group for flood defence bags
£500 to Garforth Tigers U12’s & U17’s for new kits
£750 to Leeds Faith in Schools for work at Garforth Academy
£500 to Garforth Churches together, Messy Church for Flyers/Banners & Games
£200 to Micklefield Gala Community event
These projects were all voted by you, the community. So as well as drinking great coffee your money gets to do great things too, look what it can achieve year on year. Well done you and Cielo coffee House
This morning I met a like minded local chap who goes by the name, Phil Barrett, he and I had a great chat in Cielo about future projects he wants to undertake in Garforth, both ideas are fabulous, needs planning and help and volunteers to create a team would be even better. If we want things to happen in our street, we need more than one person to do it. If you would like to create a group as I have requested in the past, an Events Team, please get in contact with me. Most towns have a Volunteers group that help out the Town and other promising projects that brings so much to the town we all live Christine@themaindeal.co.uk – please get in contact with me
Kirsty White one of very own local ladies will be playing on Sky 117, Made in Leeds on Monday 1st June at 7pm – rescheduled as per last week’s blog – support local bands
Jingle – yes I am soon to have a jingle, again, this has been produced by one of our fabulous local musicians Tim Manion from DayDreamer – It’s a fun element to add, especially for Garforth Hour on Tuesday evenings, I always like to add a fun element to things and get people listening, watching and smiling as well as reading all the good things Garforth has to offer.
This week we’ve had 20,320 hits to the website the biggest monthly hit to date with nearly 6,000 hits in this month alone – it’s growing each week. You can help by telling friends and family to use The Main Deal first, for shopping. – keep it local and support your town.
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