• Curio Bridal Boutique, Abbey Road, Smethwick and Seamstress Jacqui for Wedding Dress and alterations
• Cabbella’s Hair Salon, Hagley Road West, Oldbury for bride and bridesmaids hair
• Salon G on Three Shires Oak Road, Bearwood and in particular Gemma for bridal make up
• Friends of Lightwoods Park and House for making the wedding possible including massive thank you to Richard and Marie Marshall.
• Tony from Sandwell Council for his assistance with arrangements for the ceremony.
• Gary the Flower Man from Bearwood High Street for supplying all the flowers
• Carly Beaman and Steve from R Studio Photography for their very generous contribution of free photography for the big day.
• Laura Levis from Laura’s Homemade Bakes for her Cake Pop favours
• Sharon of Chocolate Dreams for the generous contribution of a free chocolate fountain post ceremony
• The Kitchen Garden Café in Kings Heath for hosting the reception
• National Express West Midlands for the vintage bus.
• All our family and friends from far and wide for all their help and support

Anyone else who I might have forgotten to mention…. In particular…

All the lovely people of Bearwood for their kind words and support….it looks like it may be a cold and showery day so any warmth in the presence of Beeers would be appreciated!!

Maria and Lee

Those of you who want to wish our first Lightwoods couple all the best for the future (2pm for 2.30pm) will be more than welcome!

IMPORTANT NOTE: For those of you who volunteered at the very successful Lightwoods May Day Festival a BIG THANK YOU to you all – Wow, we can not believe how many people attended the event, it was fantastic to see so many people enjoying it! Your hard word, efforts and commitment to Lightwoods Park is incredible and hopefully this continued support from the local community will contribute to a successful heritage lottery fund Round 2 bid outcome. Thank you on behalf of Sandwell Council for volunteering your time and for ensuring that the day was a huge success for everyone.

Thank you,

Cherie

The Sandwell's Strongest Man competition due to be held in Lightwoods Park on Bank Holiday Monday has an event which involves competitors lifting a car. One major thing they are short of at the moment is… a car!

If anyone has either a Ka or a Smart car that they would be willing to lend to Sandwell Leisure Trust for a couple of hours, we are assured that it is perfectly safe (well, for the car anyway, not sure about the lifter) and will not be damaged in any way.

If you have access to such a vehicle and are willing to allow it to be used, please leave a comment below and someone will get in touch.

To all who use the skate park at Lightwoods Park.

The ramps are being repainted over the next few days to cover the tagging/graffiti attacks that have occurred over the last few weeks. There will be a graffiti art workshop taking place on the Lightwoods May Day Festival on Monday 6th May where the user groups will be able to draw up designs for the skate park. Sandwell Council will then run a further graffiti art workshop in the summer when we will paint the ramps with the designs drawn up on May Day.

Cherie O'Sullivan

The annual May Day Festival at Lightwoods Park is taking place on Bank Holiday Monday 6th May and will run 11.00am – 7.00pm.

The festival will host a variety of activities including a stage with live music. The bandstand, will be bustling with a ukulele band, morris, maypole and bhangra dancing and a brass band. There will be a graffiti art workshop around the skate park area and Sandwell’s Strongest Man Competition will be taking place on the Bowling Green. The day will also feature a fun fair, Punch and Judy, craft workshops for children, refreshments, market stalls…and this year, a Real Ale Festival!

There will be live music on a specially-built stage and will feature Holocene, Dennis Seaton (from Musical Youth), El Funko, Cerys Daisy, Club Berlin, Esther Turner, the Notebenders, Colin Hall’s Gypsy Blood, 360 and Soldier.  These bands are a mix of Rock, Indie, Soul, Ska, Reggae, Folk and Jazz – something for everyones musical taste!

The Real Ale Festival will be managed by Enville Breweries.  There will be 16 guest ales and 4 ciders on sale at the event for you to sample and enjoy whilst listening to some great bands.  Please note: “Challenge 25” will be in operation and photo identifications will be required for people under 25.

The event, organised by Sandwell Council’s Parks and Green Spaces along with the Friends of Lightwoods Park and House, will be a family, fun-filled, action packed day out and there will be someone for everyone!

Parking for the May Day Festival will be on the park extension off Galton Road and will cost £2 per car.  There is also a good bus network into Bearwood and the bus station is on the doorstep!  The park address is: Lightwoods Park, Adkins Lane, Bearwood, Smethwick, West Midlands, B67 5DP.  If you have further enquiries about the event please contact Cherie O’Sullivan, Lightwoods Park Project Officer, on 0121 569 4740.

First, those beers being specially brewed for the event:

Lightwoods Ale: 4.2% – A light ale brewed by one of our main sponsors, Enville brewery near Sourbridge

Sandwell Strongman: 6.3% Specially brewed by our good friends Kinver Ales to commemorate the Sandwell's Strongest Man competition, this is certainly not to be treated lightly

And here's a taste of some of the others…

Holden's Golden Glow: 4.4% A golden ale with fragrant hop aromas, a moreish gentle sweetness and an almost citrus like pleasant bitter finish.

Purity Mad Goose: 4.2% is a zesty pale ale with a smooth and citrusy finish

Enville Kasitra: 3.5% Totally belies it’s alcoholic content, and the citrusy finish offers hints of Grapefruit, Lemon, Gooseberry, Papaya and Guava.

More to follow…

The Real Ale festival will be in a separate fenced-off area in the park, and will be subject to a 'Challenge 25' policy, which means that anyone entering that are who the security staff or police think is under the age of 25 will be required to produce photo ID which will confirm their date of birth.

It contains some of the testimonials from councillors and council officers, members of the friends group, the Bearwood Promoters and people in the local community who either submitted letters of support or were interviewed on the open day back in November 2010 when the park transferred to Sandwell. But also it has a brief potted history of the park together with some of the plans for the future… and some pretty good photos of the park too! As the report says in its conclusion,

A big thank you to everyone who has contributed to the bid, especially the Friends of Lightwoods Park and House, Ken Harrison, all of the parks volunteers and members of the local community, whose help and support is as always invaluable to the future success of the park and house.
The report can be downloaded here: Statement of Support

Thursday 7th March 2013

St Mary’s Church Hall, St Mary’s Road, Bearwood

7.00pm to 8.30pm

Agenda:

1. Welcome/ Introductions (Richard Marshall)

2. Details of the bid process (Cherie O’Sullivan)

3. Design details of the bid and plans – descriptions of what has been submitted (Cherie O’Sullivan / Urban Design)

4. Forthcoming events (Richard Marshall)

5. AOB (Richard Marshall)

6. Invite to stay and ask any questions in more detail (All)

Yours Sincerely,

Richard Marshall

Chair of the Friends of Lightwoods Park and House