Following on from the positive announcement made by the First Minister we are pleased to announce that we will be opening our gym, swimming pool facilities, Indoor Exercise Classes and swimming lessons at all four Leisure Centres and the Toning Suite at Monmouth on Tuesday 4th May in line with the Welsh Government guidelines.
Prior to this on the 26th April we will also be launching the Les Mills Body Pump series which will see the start of our outdoor classes, we will be launching our outdoor timetable over the next few days so keep a look out on social media for further updates. There will be a maximum of 30 adults (including instructors) that can attend these sessions.
As before when we open up the gym, swimming pool and indoor group exercise classes for your safety there will be limited numbers. These sessions will be bookable online for members and launched over the next few days.
Membership payments will resume from the 15th May and will be adjusted accordingly. All accounts will be automatically unfrozen with the exception of Swimming Lessons, please contact the membership team it you wish your account to stay frozen.
We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for
your support and kind messages during this difficult period and we are all looking
forward to welcoming you all back safely.
We would love to hear about your experience being back in your MonLife Leisure Centre so please let us know.
Despite the difficult times that we have all faced, we were delighted that after 6 months of hard work the newly refurbished Tearooms at Old Station Tintern is now open!
Now managed by MonLife, we have launched a complete new menu and high quality light lunch offer with a huge emphasis on local quality suppliers, with even our coffee being roasted in Wales!
Tearoom Supervisor Ellie Thomas – “It’s really been an outstanding success to date we have only been open a month and already attracted our 2000th customer this week, who between them all have drunk an incredible 3000 cups of coffee. It is however our local cakes that everyone has been raving about! I guess we are so lucky here in Monmouthshire to have so many excellent local producers and suppliers that we can keep adding more and more local items week by week”
The Tearooms at Old Station Tintern are open daily 10.00 am – 4.30 pm and offers a varied menu of snacks, sandwiches, paninis, hot and cold drinks.
It has even been a huge success with the many dog walkers who frequent the site who cant seem to resist the doggy ice cream and free dog biscuits available.
Connectivity to the world around us has become something of a daily necessity. Our phones, tablets and laptops, are never far away from us, meaning that we can check up on local community news, travel, weather, what our family and friends have been up to and more – all before stepping foot out of our door. For most of us we thrive off the convenience of connectivity and there’s no denying that the past year has taught us new ways to keep in touch with our loved ones and work colleagues.
Whether you took part in a live Facebook workout from one of the MonLife Leisure Centres, liked and commented on a MonLife Twitter post, clicked a link from MonLife Heritage or shared a MonLife post to your personal social media page to spread the word, we can all agree that we have recognised the importance of a good platform over the past year.
In March, we at MonLife Heritage decided to join the wonderful world of Instagram – www.instagram.com/monlifeheritage to see what all the fuss is all about, we’re glad we joined as it’s an incredibly connective place to be.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with Instagram, it’s a global photographic and video sharing platform, that can be used for both personal and commercial purposes, to network with others through liking, sharing, commenting and following. So far, the main focus of our Instagram page has been to promote our new Collections website – www.monlifecollections.co.uk that went live at the end of March and we’ve recently been posting about the reopening of our museums at Abergavenny and Chepstow.
As with our Facebook and Twitter page, all of the latest updates on MonLife Heritage news and events are posted to our Instagram page, along with our new feature – Record of the Week, where we share details and photographs of an object from our new Collections website.
We are always looking for new ways to bring informative content to our followers and expanding our reach on Instagram, so we’d love it if you could head over to our page and tap the follow button.
MonLife Heritage Museums are proud to announce the launch of
a brand new collections website at www.monlifecollections.co.uk The new
website provides free access to search
hundreds of records, allowing users to read material and view images for items within
the collections from across Monmouthshire. The Museums team will continually be
adding more to the website, so we recommend that users keep coming back to see
what’s new.
Discover historical objects, works of art, photographs
and documents cared for by MonLife Heritage.
Search for special people, explore notable places,
travel through time and discover different themes.
Hundreds of Monmouthshire records are already on our
collections search.
Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, MonLife Heritage have been researching new ways to diversify our offer – between January and March 2021, with thanks to a Welsh Government Local Government Cultural Recovery Fund grant, members of our team have been able to dedicate their role to the creation of the collections website. We have worked alongside Digital Heritage Consultants, Orangeleaf Systems Ltd to build our bespoke website.
Lydia Wooles, from the Museums online project team said “We really hit the ground running with the project, as a team we’ve learnt a lot in a short timescale. Records have been carefully selected to provide users with a flavour of the wide variety of artefacts and documents that we hold. It’s been such a rewarding experience working on this project.”
All of the records on the website relate to the story of
Monmouthshire and include the nationally significant Nelson collection. From
archaeological finds, extensive costume collections, to photographs and
postcards – there is something for everyone.
DUE TO HIGH DEMAND, THESE SESSIONS HAVE NOW BEEN FULLY BOOKED
Open Access Play Opportunities empowers children and young people to engage in a wide variety of play activities in a safe supervised environment.
Children will
have access to a range of play based activities which will all be based
outdoors for the Easter holidays.
The MonLife
Open Access Play provision will take place at Abergavenny, Monmouth, Caldicot
and Chepstow Leisure Centre. All sessions are FREE and your child will
learn new skills through a range of different activities and develop their
confidence through meeting new people.
Following the
current Government guidelines these sessions will take place outside and will
be 1 hour and 55mins long. There will be a maximum of 30 children per
session per day and will run from 10am – 11:55am. These sessions are for
5 – 11 years only.
To register your interest please complete the following form – you will then receive a call from the relevant Leisure Centre to confirm your booking.
Please be
advised that if there are any changes following the Welsh Government
announcement and guidelines we will communicate the cancellation of sessions.
Monmouthshire County Council is to consult over plans to
encourage nature to thrive around Monmouth’s Rockfield estate. It follows a grant from the Welsh Government’s Local Places for
Nature fund to undertake a study that involves residents in developing nine
community nature spaces and designing enhancements for nature at four
neighborhood play areas across Overmonnow.
Community nature spaces include areas for growing
vegetables, flowers and fruit trees and tree planting as well as re-wilding
areas into mini meadows, offering opportunities for residents to enjoy nature
and for children to play. In addition to providing benefits for
residents, they also present valuable habitats for pollinators and other forms
of wildlife.
The council has appointed specialist environmental
consultancy Pegasus Group to carry out a detailed survey of the sites, public
consultation, planning and design works. This study will enable the
community nature spaces to become a reality during the 2021/22 financial year,
subject to further funding approval from Welsh Government.
The project is likely to involve transforming some of the
smaller and less well-used amenity play areas into community nature
spaces. Meanwhile, the council will expand the playground at the central
open space next to the Rockfield Community Centre to cater for children of a
wider age range and provide more accessible play equipment.
Councillor Jane Pratt, Monmouthshire’s cabinet member
with responsibility for parks and open spaces said: “Among the lessons that the
pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have taught us is the importance of a variety
of good quality and easily accessible open spaces so families and individuals
can spend time together outdoors experiencing nature on their doorstep.”
Councillor Richard John, cabinet member with
responsibility for bio-diversity added: “This project is another step in the
council’s journey to improve local environments and benefit pollinators.”
In addition to engaging with local residents, the council
will involve other project stakeholders including the local county council
member, Monmouth Town Council, Transition Monmouth, ACE (Action on Climate
Emergency), Gwent Wildlife Trust, Rockfield Community Centre and NRW (Natural
Resources Wales).
A
short questionnaire about the project can be accessed via the following link:www.monnaturespaces.co.uk– also, anyone wishing to
comment on or become involved in the project can forward an email to:naturespaces@pegasusgroup.co.uk
In order to keep Caldicot Country Park an enjoyable and a safe place for you to walk, you may have noticed that we are currently doing work on some of our trees in our beautiful park. Don’t worry, this is all timed to avoid the bird nesting season and the trees have all been assessed for bat roosts (but none have been found). We won’t be long finishing this work, so please bear with us.
Here’s why we are doing, what we are doing…
An increase in pressure from footfall and more frequent flooding has
placed a lot of stress on some of our trees, and their health is now starting
to suffer. Some of the trees we are working on have become a safety risk with
branches, and in some cases, whole trees starting to fail.
As the canopies of trees planted close together are co-dependent,
changes in one tree can affect the life of another. So when we need to carry
out essential tree work of this nature, we tend to do so in groups of trees
rather than individually. This is why we have currently cordoned off a large
area of the avenue in the park.
A lot of these trees that you can see along our avenue today, were
first planted at the same time almost 150 years ago, which means that
inevitably, they will all start to decline at the same time many years later.
This time is now, so for us to ensure that the avenue retains its special value
as an important habitat and landscape, we are adopting a phased approach to
replacing trees rather than waiting for major failures to occur. We do this
through a programme of selective tree removal to create gaps for
replanting, and some careful pruning of other trees to reduce the risk of any
failure. This all helps prolong their life and the special nature of the
avenue.
Any new trees that we plant may be of a different species to the ones
they are replacing. This will improve resilience against tree diseases, and
help manage any stresses that may emerge in our country park in the future.
Thank you for
your understanding and for helping to look after our country park so that future
generations can enjoy it too.
Meet our new Old Station Tintern mascot. This lovely little Dormouse can be found between the pages of our brand new family activity pack – Explore and Create at Old Station Tintern.
The only problem is, our Dormouse doesn’t have a name! We’ve come up with all sorts of ideas but we bet can you can do better than us so we’re launching a competition called ‘Name that Mouse!’
• A free copy of our new family activity pack • A free ride on the Old Station Tintern train • Free Family drinks and cake at our newly refurbished café
Deadline for entries is Friday 12th February 2021
Winner to be announced Wednesday 17th February 2021
This project is funded by The Sustainable Development Fund, a Welsh Government initiative supported by the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership.
MonLife is launching an exciting new scheme offering support for people aged 60 and over to become more physically active. MonLife’s 60 Plus Fit4Life membership scheme provides six months’ free access to online classes to include yoga, pilates, tai chi and gentle exercise with virtual coffee catch-ups – and guidance and motivation to help achieve increased fitness are included in the package.
The service is currently available online but
as soon as the county’s four leisure centres at Abergavenny, Caldicot, Chepstow
and Monmouth re-open, participants will receive one month’s free membership
followed by the attractive offer of a reduced £16 monthly fee. In
addition, MonLife will give away a starter pack including resistance bands,
dumbbells and an exercise mat to the first 85 people who join.
MonLife will join with other Welsh leisure
providers to deliver its 60 Plus Fit4Life initiative, made possible thanks to
funding from Sport Wales and the Welsh Government.
Sport Wales CEO Sarah Powell said: “We want
people in Wales to have a lifelong enjoyment of sport and by working with
partners to help provide additional or supplemented offers that aim to
specifically meet the needs of the over 60’s locally we hope that we see even
more individuals from this demographic staying or getting active.
“Over the past year we’ve all had to think even
more about how we keep ourselves healthy, probably in different ways to what we
would have done prior to the coronavirus outbreak. We know that being
physically active is one way to help keep us mentally and physically fit, while
providing a brilliant way to connect with others. So I urge people to
take a look through their local authority at the different opportunities that
are available to help them do this.”
Councillor Richard John, Monmouthshire’s cabinet member with
responsibility for MonLife added: “Our 60 Plus Fit4Life sessions will offer
people over the age of 60 the opportunity to become more physically and
socially active as we know how important it is to stay well, especially during
this difficult time.
“Our committed staff will offer support, advice and guidance
every step of the way to help keep up motivation. We will continue to
offer a wide range of digital fitness programmes for people of all ages to keep
their minds and bodies active. We look forward to welcoming the public
back to our MonLife leisure facilities when conditions allow.”
Monmouthshire
and Newport Local Nature Partnership has been established to build on the
successful work of the previous Newport Biodiversity Partnership and extended
coverage of coordinated action for nature to include the neighbouring county of
Monmouthshire. Moving to a single, joint-authority Partnership will
deliver projects and share expertise to promote action for nature and will
allow the partnership to work at a larger than county scale and deliver more
for wildlife and people.
The
Monmouthshire and Newport LNP will carry out informed and targeted local nature
recovery action to deliver multiple benefits, including contributing to
well-being objectives and supporting a Green Recovery from the COVID-19
pandemic by providing expert advice and support and ensuring the best action is
carried out in suitable locations to provide multiple benefits for people and
wildlife.
The partnership
has been strengthened by the Local Nature Partnership (LNP) Cymru project which
is a nationwide network of partnerships covering every local authority and
National Park Authorities in Wales, collectively constituting the LNP Cymru
network. The project is funded by Welsh Government via the Enabling
Natural Resources and Wellbeing Grant (ENRAW) which started in 2019 and will
run until 2022.
The
Monmouthshire and Newport LNP includes a broad range of partners including
statutory bodies, public bodies, environmental charities, friends of and
community groups, academics, wildlife recorders and interested members of the
public. The partnership also works in alignment with the regional Area
Statement and the Natural Resources Wales people and places teams.
The role of the
LNP Coordinator (Sali Palmer) and Support Coordinator (Lucy Arnold-Matthews) is
to establish local priorities for action and compile a Local Nature Recover
Action Plan (NRAP). The partnerships input in to other strategies and plans and
will run events and activities raise awareness, highlight locally distinct
nature based culture and participation in citizen science projects.
The LNP has
already supported a project at Barrack Hill Site of Importance for Nature
Conservation to restore the grassland and woodland at the site which will enhance
the area’s ability to support nature recovery. There has been increased active
conservation management, communication and engagement with local residents.
Local residents will have better accessibility to well-managed, high quality
natural green space which improves and supports health and well-being.
In
Monmouthshire, the LNP have supported the Neglected Grasslands project
restoring grasslands in three publicly accessible sites in Abergavenny, which
have become even more important to the local communities during the recent
coronavirus crisis.
Deputy Leader of Monmouthshire County Council, Councillor Richard John said: “I’m delighted to announce this collaborative venture aimed at protecting one of our most important assets – nature. We have a wealth of beautiful wildlife across Gwent which helps our county thrive. This initiative is just another excellent piece of work ongoing in Monmouthshire to protect our natural environment, to ensure we can continue enjoying the benefits it creates for generations to come.”
Cllr Roger
Jeavons, deputy leader of Newport City Council, said “We’re pleased to be
partnering with our neighbours in Monmouthshire on this exciting project. The
new local nature partnership allows us to expand our biodiversity work, and
will deliver wider benefits for wildlife and people within our two counties.”
ENDS
Notes
to editor:
The
Local Nature Partnership is a vital resource in enabling public authorities to:
Play a
part in nature recovery through increasing ecosystem resilience and
restoration.
Act as
a delivery mechanism to help address climate emergency commitments through the
use of nature-based solutions.
Contribute
to meeting the Biodiversity & Ecosystem Resilience (Section 6) Duty under
the Environment (Wales) Act 2016.
Contribute
to the Well-being for Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 duties including
delivering objectives of the well-being plan.
Harness
technical expertise and evidence to input into plans and relevant strategies
e.g. Green Infrastructure Assessments and strategies.
Increase
capacity to engage and recruit volunteers, businesses and non-traditional
groups in nature recovery.
Flexibly
work at the appropriate scale; regional, landscape, ward-level and individual
site level.
Cross-boundary
working between LNPs is facilitated by the Wales wide approach.
The
local NRAP for Monmouthshire and Newport, will convey the aims of Wales-wide
plan to: embed biodiversity through decision making at all levels; safeguard species
and habitats of principal importance for species conservation; increase
ecosystem resilience by restoring degraded habitats and new habitat creation;
tackle key pressures on species and habitats; and, improve our evidence,
understanding and monitoring.
Engaging
with the LNP will help people, communities, public bodies, and businesses in
Monmouthshire and Newport to reap a diverse range of environmental, social,
economic, and cultural benefits based on collaborative nature recovery. Through
the project we will aim to make more organisations and people are aware of the
extent, and role, of the local nature on their patch. More nature recovery
projects will benefit from specialist data, advice or support. More
partner organisations will be engaged in LNP activities. More people will be
able to access, contribute to and benefit from nature-based activities.
Nature recovery and the benefits provided will be embedded in to local and
national policies and decision-making at all levels.
Barrack
Hill SINC is located in a northern suburb of Newport and designated for its
large mosaic of semi-improved wet and dry natural grassland, scrub, bracken and
woodland. Neighbouring a small open space which boundaries a
large housing estate managed and owned by Housing Associations, the site is badly affected by
invasive non-native species and fly-tipping. The LNP supported project to
restore the site will enhance the area’s ability to support nature recovery,
through increased active conservation management, communication and engagement
with local residents. Local residents will have better accessibility to better
managed, high quality natural green space which improves and supports health
and wellbeing, which will lead to positive and responsible use by the community.
The
three publicly accessible sites in Abergavenny are at Ross Road, Ostringen
Close and Old Hereford Road Cemetery; they have become neglected with poor
management and large areas of species-poor scrub (predominantly bramble and
snowberry) encroachment. The scrub encroachment reduces the land available for
the priority grassland habitats. The project will remove scrub, invasive
species and carry out tree works, as well as agreeing appropriate grass
management regimes going forward. At the old cemetery, works have an
additional heritage benefit as scrub will be removed from around monuments
currently completely obscured by bramble.
