Kingsway Villagers

It is confirmed that the new Primary School at Kingsway will open to pupils on 3rd September 2008.

For Reception class, the closing date for admissions by the normal route is 31st January 2008, so please get your forms in as soon as possible. At present 34 children have applied for places, we will be able to take 105.

Interviews for the new Head Teacher take place on 24th and 25th January, ready to be in post in April, in good time to oversee the setting up of the new school.

The building was 5 days behind program when the contractors broke up for the Christmas holiday, due to bad weather, but they are aiming to catch up during the next 8 months.

The school will be a first class learning environment, with top quality, brand new facilities.

Julian Powell
Chair of Governors, New School, Kingsway.

This post was submitted by Julian Powell.

I happened across a notice for ”Pink Ladies Night”, a pamper evening in aid of the Breast Cancer Campaign which takes place on 22nd February from 19:30 to 00:00 at the Hardwicke Village Hall.

I thought it might be of interest to our female residents as a fun night out, an opportunity to meet people in the area and - of course - a way to contribute to a very worthy cause.

Advance ticket price is £4 (will be £5 on the door) which includes entry to a prize draw and a goody bag and entertainment will include a hair show by C14, treatment stalls, a raffle and a bar.

Tickets will be limited due to hall capacity and they sold out last year so it’s worth booking early to avoid disappointment.

Tickets are available from: Karen Stacey (01452 722023), Karen Jellyman (01452 729162) and Maggie Heath (01452 728159).

With 5 children, we need a large car to get around. Sadly large vehicles are a little expensive (to buy and to run), so our Toyota people carrier was a little ”long in the tooth”!

Last year we had some serious problems with it, so we booked it into Autovalue 2000, who checked it out and said that they suspected a cracked cylinder head

They removed the head and sent it away to a third party company for pressure testing, pointing out what they thought looked like the suspected crack.

It took a while for the company to return the head but they said that it tested OK. So it was refitted (with a new gasket) and the car was returned to us. The total cost was just under £700.

A week later we took the children to Devon on holiday; on the way home we had some trouble but managed to “limp back” to Gloucester with smoke pouring from the car.

We returned the car to Autovalue 2000 and were given a free courtesy car whilst the problems were investigated. The test company took a long time to look at it and - eventually - came back to us with the sad news that the head was cracked after all.

In my experience the garage would normally insist that - since the prior tests had been fine - this must have happened whilst we were away (and in fact that was exactly the response from the pressure-testing company, who refused to refund the cost of the initial test), but Dave from Autovalue said that he wasn’t happy about it and added that - because he had suspected a cracked head originally - he thought the initial test results were wrong, so he would refund the entire £700 to us even though he would not get his costs refunded!

Not only did he keep his word but he allowed us continued (free) use of the courtesy car whilst we searched for a new one, and he paid us in cash so that we could get it quickly and easily without waiting for cheque clearance.

We are now the proud owners of a (fairly old - lol) Ford Galaxy which (so far) has been a joy to drive, and is very popular with the kids.

I was so shocked and impressed by the kindness and honesty demonstrated by Dave and Autovalue 2000 that I’ve added a page to the site to advertise his services… here

Thanks Dave

2008 will most likely be the first full year as Kingsway Residents for many of you…

I hope it’s as pleasant for you as 2007 was for us…

Happy new year all