Boldon - Down Your Way

The event workshop oversaw students utilise Dan Donnelly’s expertise to develop their lyric writing as well as composing tracks on ipads using Garage Band. As well as being guitarist with Wonderstuff Dan Donnelly, who manages ‘the Academy of sound’ in Gateshead where both the academy and workshop allow students to express themselves creatively and turn their musical ideas into fully-fledged, professional songs. Mr. Cameron Leckie at the school commented that the event provided invaluable insight into the world of the commercial world of music. The success and positive response to the workshop has resulted in the planning for further workshops in the near future.

South Tyneside Positive Activities & Targeted Youth Support Group (Boldon Youth community Project) were successfully awarded almost £10,000 from Awards for All to run a pilot project for their Junior Youth Club. This will run the course of 2017. The youth club will be available for anyone between the ages of eight and 11. Boldon Junior Youth Club is aiming to work with this age group to allow the children to develop their personal and social skills. Youth club sessions will include crafts, games, health and fitness, including regular sporting activity. In addition, the children will be able to visit the project’s allotment plot, which will allow them to learn about how to grow and tend to plant’s needs. The children will cook various meals in a safe welcoming environment with the produce grown, allowing them to develop and learn new skills. The opening times of the club, which will take place in the Village Hall next to the Asda complex in Boldon, is Monday 4pm to 5pm, Thursday 4.30pm to 5.30pm, and Sunday 4pm to 5pm. Contact 0191 519 3631 for further details.

The Boldon’s History Society will meet in the function room at The Grey Horse in East Boldon on Tuesday, January 31, at 7pm. Old and new members and visitors welcome. At this meeting John Gibson will give a talk and presentation on ‘The Bismarck’. At the February meeting, which will be held in the same venue on Tuesday 28, Geraldine Straker will give a presentation about the ‘Remaking Beamish Project’.

West Boldon Residents’ Association has planned the following social activities for the coming months, which will include an Italian meal night out in February at Leonardo’s above the Wheatsheaf in West Boldon and a fish and chip supper and Dutch Auction in the Wheatsheaf in March. Plans are in place to hold the annual Band on the Green concert on the village green on Rectory Bank on Sunday, June 25, from 3pm, which will feature a programme of popular music by a brass band and also the children’s choir from Hedworth Lane Primary School, who will perform a programme of songs. The event will also include a tombola stall, raffle and home-made cake stall. Anyone interested in being a member of the association who is interested in West Boldon village and the surrounding area is welcome to join them at any of their meetings, which are held on the second Wednesday of each month at 10am in the Wheatsheaf in West Boldon.

West Boldon Lodge Environmental Centre will start a new Forest Playschool from this Friday until Friday, February 17, from 10am to noon. The Forest Playschool is suitable for ages one to five, costing £25 per child block booking. To book visit www.westboldonlodge.co.uk They will be exploring and investigating winter in the forest and doing lots of fun activities to go along with it. How to help the local wildlife in the winter, exciting scavenger hunts, creative arts and crafts, campfires and marshmallows, and much more to help your child’s development in the natural environment.