March Newsletter

On the community front, Wellbeing Wednesdays continued, now with the backing of funding for the remainder of the year. Community Cafes ran between 12 midday and 2pm as well as the ever-popular Chair Yoga sessions. These events will continue to take place at the Library whilst the Shambles is closed as part of the Guildhall renovation work.

The next two Community Cafes have been scheduled for 3^rd April and 1^st May.

We actively engaged with International Women’s Day, which was officially on 8th March. The event promoted a more gender-equal world, without ‘bias, stereotype or discrimination’. Barnstaple held a number of local events, and these are referred to in further detail below, in the Town Clerk Chronicles section.

It was a thrill to be working with our partners for this event and a huge thanks goes out to our collaborators Down The Rabbit Hole, The Gardeners Co, NDADA, One Barnstaple, Libraries Unlimited, and the North Devon Council Flourishing Barnstaple initiative.

The Flourishing Barnstaple initiative is a project we are very keen on collaborating with. A lot of effort is currently going into reinstating the annual Carnival. It may not be ‘our’ event as such at the Town Council, but our town was proud to host it for many years and we’re glad to be engaging with its reinstatement. It was good to see so many turning up at the Pannier Market last month for the Carnival workshops.

The Carnival is very much a community driven event, and although there are modern day challenges to hosting it, it looks like the goodwill and enthusiasm of local people will overcome this. The latest news we have is that it is full steam ahead for the main event on Saturday 21st September.