The BBVA (Black Bourton Village Association) organises volunteers throughout each year to keep the village tidy and initiates new projects to enhance the village’s facilities and environment.
Here are some highlights:
2023
Graveyard maintenance!
Run by the indomitable Nick Holmes, the mowing teams deserve a name check! On behalf of the village, many thanks to Al Cartwright, Alec Jones, Bobby Dearman, David Harding, David Hart, Mick Hallums, Pete Hughes, Terry Pope, Jeremy Lane and, of course Brian Webb and his tractor!
2021
Tennis Season!
Many thanks to the BBVA who have done running repairs on the village tennis court fencing in preparation for the start of the tennis season! Wires have been retensioned and additional netting has been added to reinforce various sections as well as to ‘try’ and prevent the balls running under the fencing.
Churchyard Mowing Teams
Many thanks to the Churchyard Mowing Teams who have been keeping our churchyard looking so attractive now that the grass is growing in earnest! Team Six is about to step up to the plate! You know who you are!
Churchyard maintenance
Nick and Nikki Holmes had a really good tidy in the churchyard over the past two days … they found Wendy Taylor’s fathers grave! … cleared that area plus around the yew tree … cleared the front entrance, cleared the drainage gullies and burnt all the detritus including all of the branches that were along Ahdy’s boundary. Dave Nixon, with Terry Pope’s Bob-Cat, helped remove the five TIMMS bags of wet leaves to Terry’s compost.
Tree planting
The Black Bourton Parish Council have been working hard behind the scenes to improve our village for the whole community. I am sure that you will have noticed that several trees have been recently planted along Alvescot Road. We would like to thank all the people who were able to come down and help plant in a Covid safe way, from the three Black Bourton bodies, the Parish Council, the BBVA and the Parochial Church Council.
These trees were planted partly to replace those that had to be felled some months ago and partly to improve the appearance along the road. The trees are called Acer Celebration and Acer Autumn Blaze, they should give spectacular colour in Autumn and will also help towards offsetting our carbon footprint. (The picture shows what to expect over the coming years – the trees can reach a height of 20 metres!) The trees were purchased using money from a very generous grant awarded to the Parish by Councillor Ted Fenton from the Councillor Priority Fund.
Please refer to the Parish Council trees appeal for funding more trees.
2020
The year of lock-down and ticking-over was the year of keeping things tidy.
BBVA volunteers, with wood chippings supplied by Terry Pope, set to and covered the path behind Church Close with a deep bed of chippings. The path is less like an ice rink and a great boon for dog walkers!
Meanwhile, elves from the PCC got onto the church roof to clear out all the leaves. A head for heights is a prerequisite and preferably mountaineering skills to get to the top. The rewards are unique views that few people have seen. The total tally was 8 large sacks.
This year also saw the inauguration of the BALDies WhatsApp group – Black Bourton Against Litter Dropping. Check out its first achievements. The reward at the end in the pop-up café – mulled wine, fresh coffee, tea, Christmas cake – made it all worthwhile!
2016
The year of major restoration of our churchyard. In this PDF ‘Church Yard Restoration Sept Oct 16‘ you’ll find photographs of the story so far – after many hours cutting and chipping branches and bushes, strimming overgrowth, levelling the ground, stripping ivy from headstones and undergrowth, pressure washing stone work, removing grass/moss from graves and disposal of all the waste in one form or another! And not forgetting – sowing more seed! Many new headstones have been revealed.
The roll call of volunteers includes:
- Bill Taylor and formally Fred Alexander, for their tireless efforts prior to this make over for all the
many years they cut the grass on their own - Team organiser Nick Holmes
- Team 1 – Dave Nixon, Pete Hughes, Neil Graham.
- Team 2 – Terry Pope, Martin Page, Ross Pateman.
- Team 3 – Nick Holmes, Jeremy Lane, Julian Perry, Alec Jones.
- Team 4 – Ahdy Gerges, Bob Dearman, David Harding.
- Team 5 – Richard Betteridge, Pat Sears, Al Cartwright.
- Team 6 – Mick Hallums, Gary Davies, David Hart.
- Bill Taylor who still maintains his section of the graveyard.
- Bryan Webb who also maintains the North section of the church now – after years of effort by Terry Pope.
If you would like to be a part of the team please contact Nick Holmes or any member of the PCC or BBVA using the contact form.