Category: Community Affairs

The Autumn term was fun and busy for the Beavers with a focus upon the Community. The Beavers assisted the Cubs with the firework display. Also, in November, they actively participated at the Act of Remembrance at Kippen Cross and the Church service following. They also co-hosted a Re-engage afternoon tea and performed at the Community Christmas Concert. Trying to make the most of the dark and often wet evenings, the Beavers have been working towards their Safety, Explorer, International and Collectors badges and enjoyed visits from both the Police and the Trossachs Search and Rescue teams.

This term three of our long-standing Beavers will move on to Cubs and we look forward to receiving three newbies next term. Many thanks to Ellen Larson Davidson, Annabel Gaywood, Jeeka Jarvis, John Warttig and Neil Stewart, who voluntarily help and support each meeting allowing the Beavers to have fun and learn.   We are always looking for more parent helpers so if you are interested, please contact: adrianjchamberlain@gmail.com for more info on Beavers.

Adrian Chamberlain

Pouring rain and wind didn’t stop the team preparing the tubs for the Spring display!

Thank you to the intrepid planters and, as always, the Kippen folk who fill the collecting box in McNicoll’s.

Naomi Hirst

 

 

In terms of major project achievement, 2019 has been a quieter year for Kippen Reading Rooms, compared to our original expectations. However, in terms of day to day activities, solid progress has been achieved in developing the use of our facilities for the people of the village.

The exterior front of the building has been repainted, including the front door, which has greatly improved its appearance. External piping has been painted, together with door frames and soffits. Window sills have required attention, and rotted woodwork has been replaced.

The front door now opens easily, and safety rails have been installed at the front steps. Lighting has been installed above the Defibrillator and above the front door step and we now have an operational front door bell.

During the year, the new upstairs accommodation for the Heritage Records was completed, and the installation of the village archive records, donated by Winnie Dunlop was finally achieved. These records are now safely under lock and key in the new office, when not on display in the main hall.

Many thanks are due to John Walsh, whose persistence with contractors has been essential.

Although many of our activities were covered in the September ‘Wee Vine’ we are anxious to reach new readers to increase participation in the Rooms. All our activities need more support and participation.

The Kippen Cuppa has been highly successful as a social event, bringing people in to the rooms every Thursday afternoon. Also, the Children’s Library started well, although we are in need of more helpers to manage it.

The Aldous family have continued to manage our garden, and also the installation of the children’s outdoor library (on a summer basis), and a new container for books has now been built.

In addition, Kippen Heritage, in the Reading Rooms, present, on our walls, their photographic displays for both the Old Cemetery and Bell Tower and the Archaeological Dig at Keir Hill of Dasher.

Our upper rooms and main hall have continued to be used for a wide range of committee meetings, both for clubs and for councillors and members of both the Scottish and Westminster parliaments.

The WRI continues as a faithful user, and hold most of its indoor activities in the rooms.

The Quilters have also remained active on Saturday mornings.

The Film nights, presented by Mike Flint have continued successfully, fitting snugly into the Main Hall.

The building remains as a potential operating base for Kippen Risk and Resilience operations, in the event of activation of a disaster plan.

The main hall is in regular and almost daily use, both for Keep Fit and for the more mystical activities such as Callanetics and Qi Gong and Under Five Ballet classes.

Summer Ice has not been active during the year, but it is believed that a number of “retired” ice curlers wish to set up a new weekly group. Could anyone who is interested in participating please initially contact the Reading Rooms Committee or Ian Leith who is the “summer ice skip”. Other villages in the area have revived their participation on their rinks, so that the tradition of inter-village competition could easily be revived to form a social network.

Our hardworking Secretary has been working on a computer based booking system and has contributed hugely to the day to day running of the whole operation, and we thank her for all this work.

Following the news that we had been awarded a project grant from the Windmill scheme, it was made clear that much work had still to be done in order to seek the funding level necessary for commitments to be made in launching our kitchen project.

There has also been has been the realisation that both the Mitchell Trust and Kippen Reading Rooms must review their legal positions in order to achieve the Charity Status necessary to qualify for major grant funding and to avoid penal Water Charges.

Our committee therefore interviewed a professional fundraiser and called in the services of George Craig to steer us through the legal complexities which need to be addressed.

The next biannual jumble sale will take place at the end of March. The Committee is very grateful for all the “treasuries” which are donated and hope very much that that support will continue.

 

Jeremy Gaywood

 

We must start by thanking everyone who came to, and helped with, our Christmas Market again this year – the amazing array of stalls, the delicious selection of home baking, the magical Santa’s Grotto and the record-breaking raffle helped us to raise over £3,600. We are an independent group who get all our money from fundraising, so this amount will be critical to help us continue into the next decade!

Despite the obvious celebrations at this time of year – our Hallowe’en party, Christmas party and visit to the Cumbernauld theatre – our kids have been equally excited by animals and mud in the last few months.

Our Playgroup children have formed close bonds with animals around the village and during a trip to Castle Rednock (whether the animals wanted it or not!) – ponies, donkeys, chickens, birds and, obviously, the dinosaurs of Kippen woods. Any wildlife residing in the woods or Church garden has been disturbed quite regularly on Tuesday and Friday mornings with games of hide and seek, rolling down hills and investigating their habitats. In other news, mud depths reached new heights recently and easily managed to breech welly boots, much to the delight of the kids (and horror of those cleaning them up afterwards). Hosepipes had to be used….

With increasing amounts of research being published about the benefits of outdoor play, we are so grateful our kids can enjoy exploring the natural environment, with the support of Morna and Pam. If your 2-5 yr old would like to join the fun on a Tuesday and/or Friday (9.30am – noon), please get in touch via KippenPlaygroup@gmail.com to arrange a free taster.

Babies and Toddlers welcome anyone under 5, with their parent or carer, to come to the Village Hall on a Thursday (10.15am – noon) to explore new toys, have a healthy snack and give their adults a break from any cabin fever that might be setting in, over tea and cake. Please join us!

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P1, 2 and 3 Nativity

The 2019 Kippen Primary Nativity was called ‘Everyone Loves a Baby!’ Pupils had lots of fun performing this upbeat Christmas Nativity and enjoyed learning the lyrics, lines and dance moves. They told the story of six children who live with their parents, two kind innkeepers who have just had a new baby. The children were also involved in designing programmes, posters and tickets for the performance. We are very proud of all the pupils who worked hard for many weeks before it. Thank you to all who attended. We hope you enjoyed it!

I liked all the costumes, especially the camel costume. (Jamie)

The nativity was really good, and we all tried to sing nicely. (Emma)

I really liked the innkeeper song. (Campbell)

I was a bit nervous first but then I felt just fine. I liked being on the stage and doing all the actions. (Isla)

Primary 2/3 investigate owl pellets

As part of our work based on the story, ‘Owl Babies’, Primary2/3 dissected and investigated owl pellets.

We got to use magnifying glasses and microscopes to find out just what the owls had been eating. Using our identification chart, we think we spotted the jaw of a vole, some mouse bones and lots of other bits of fur and feathers. These were hungry owls!

“I enjoyed digging into the pellets and finding out what different things were in it.” – Harry

“It was great using the magnifying glasses. It made it easy to see all the little bones.” – Cara

 

Primary 3/4

P3/4 had a new class member this term – The Butterfly Lion! After reading the story, the children wrote to the lion keepers at the Safari Park to ask how to look after lions. As soon as the lion cub arrived, the children wrote instructions to explain how to take care of him. Having such an important, and cuddly, member of the class inspired the children to write poems, stories, posters and dances. They wrote news reports and carefully considered their own opinions about aspects of the story. Finally, they made models of the lion in clay to celebrate the end of an exciting term!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In P5/6, our topic this term has been the Titanic.

We have been learning all about what life was like in 1912, how the Titanic was made, what happened on the journey, how the Titanic sank and what happened after the sinking.

We have investigated these questions through a number of activities such as building circuits to practice Morse code, creating timelines of the journey, re-enacting the journey through drama and even writing our own survivor diary entries. We have even had Titanic memorabilia sent to us from the Belfast Museum to help us understand how some passengers may have dressed.

Our favourite part of our topic was being able to build a 3D replica of the Titanic by designing our own shoe boxes to represent parts of the Titanic.

P6/7 Topic: The Global Village

We have been learning about our world through our topic ‘The Global Village’.

Through our topic, we explored numeracy, including fractions, percentages and graphs. We found out a lot of interesting things about the world we live in, and the similarities and differences between different countries.

“I liked doing all of the bar graphs. We all got a different topic such as religion, age, language etc. Mine was religion and I found out that there were many more religions in the world than I had thought.” Lomond

“I really liked doing my line graph because I had never done a graph where you could compare something over time and see the patterns as easily. Some of the results were quite shocking. There are a lot of chickens in the world!” Ailie

We even used our lines graphs, which showed sunset and sunrise over the year in Kippen, to create an art project which showed our changing seasons and how the world outside changes across the year.

We also used science to help us to explore challenges in some countries, such as finding fresh water.

“We had very dirty water and we all had to get into groups to make the water clean by making filters from different materials. The materials which worked best were the cotton wool and paper towels. I think that this was because they didn’t have any big gaps in them, so they caught all the dirty bits in the water.” – Emily

Through art we explored diversity by creating our own versions of the ‘Diversity Hands’ painting.

“We had to look at our hands and try to copy them in pencil. After that we created a good copy and added detail, then coloured them in using lots of different colours of pencil. I think that the message of this was that you are the same no matter what colour you are.”

 

 

 

 

 

The Wee Whist takes place in the Reading Rooms on the second Wednesday of each month at 7.30pm. All are most welcome.

 

Last October Rainbows has started in Kippen. For those who are not aware of what Rainbows is, it is part of the Girlguiding organisation and is for girls age 5 to 7. The meetings are held in the Village Hall on Wednesdays, during school term time, from 4.30pm until 5.30pm

From the beginning there has been a strong interest from girls in the village, the group has already got 9 members and we are hoping more girls will join us in the new year.

During the meetings the girls work towards badges. This first term we have been working and completing our Drawing and Storytelling badges. A few of the activities the girls have undertaken have been drawing a big Rainbows banner, drawing themselves full size and making sock puppets to tell stories.

Rainbows would not be possible without the support of the girls’ parents and guardians helping at meetings and behind the scenes. I would like to thank everyone who has helped so far for their help and support to make this first term a success.

We have got loads planned for next term and if your daughter might be interested in joining Rainbows please contact me at any time via email kippen.rainbows@gmail.com

I have started this Rainbows group by myself and am very grateful that I now have two young helpers joining me in making Rainbows in Kippen a success. However, the group would really benefit from a regular adult volunteer who would like to become a unit helper. Please contact me if you would like to discuss what this would involve.

Jolanda McNeill

 

 

It has been a productive end to the year for the Kippen Community Woodland Group.

At our Annual General Meeting, Keith Maplethorpe was welcomed as our new Chair. We are grateful to Keith for being willing to take on this role and for Karen Dekker and Paula Watson continuing as Treasurer and Secretary respectively.

The last woodland morning of the year saw us installing marker posts for the Primary School Easy Orienteering Course. This should enable the School to build on the success of their October orienteering event. It is intended to install the remainder of the posts in Burnside Wood in the New Year.

For those who would like to join us, we will continue to work in Burnside Wood on the first Sunday morning of each month, meeting at the football pitch at 10.00. Gloves and tools are provided, just wear something that you do not mind getting muddy. A WhatsApp group has now been established to make it easier to arrange ad hoc work with those who find it difficult to make the Sunday mornings. Please let me know if you would like to be added to the WhatsApp or work morning email group.

Paula Watson

Secretary, Kippen Community Woodland Group