for the Civil Parishes of Olveston and Aust

Welcome to the nine Severnside villages and hamlets of Olveston, Tockington, Awkley, Ingst, Old Down, Lower Hazel, Aust, Elberton and Littleton on Severn

• Check out what's on locally (not so much right now!)
• Find descriptions and contact details for local clubs and societies
• Read our monthly community magazine online
• Discover useful information about local services and organisations in our online Directory
• Find out about hiring local venues
• Browse our Photo Galleries 
• ... and lots more

FIND 'MEETING POINT' ONLINE

You can find the latest issue of our local community magazine 'Meeting Point' here, together with lots of back issues.  

ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN AT HOME: DISCOVER - CREATE - HAVE FUN

Here are some websites offering activity ideas:

IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES AT HOME - FROM AEROSPACE BRISTOL On the At home with Aerospace Bristol webpage, you can find ideas for things to make and do at home, from gliders to rotocopters to secret codes.  You can also watch videos of female and male engineering students at the University of West of England, talking about what they are learning.  And, as well as all that, you can find little videos about individual planes and other exhibits at the fantastic Aerospace Bristol museum. 

FUN SCIENCE IDEAS  For kids of primary school age, go to the Discover and Make Zone of the Crick Institute.  Here are lots of science activities you can do at home or when you're out for a walk - things like making a lava lamp, going on a science scavenger hunt, creating chemical reactions with simple things found at home, and taking a taste bud test.  You can even meet some of their young scientists!

WILDLIFE: THINGS YOU CAN MAKE IN YOUR GARDEN  Here, thanks to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, are some simple videos which show you how you can make lots of wildlife-related things - a mini-pond in your garden, or a bug hotel, or a bird hide, or even a water cycle in a jar, so that you can see how ocean currents go round the earth. 

ONLINE JIGSAWS   Some organisations have been putting their photos or paintings online, in the form of jigsaws.  You can move the pieces around and see it coming together before your eyes!  Volunteers at Woodchester Mansion, an unfinished Gothic-style mansion in a beautiful green valley about 45 minutes north of here, have created a set of online jigsaws of views of the house and grounds.  Maybe, once we can all go out and about again, you can go there and match your jigsaws up with the real thing!   Barnsley Museums, in South Yorkshire, are further away, but thanks to the internet, you can enjoy their online jigsaws too!

FUN THINGS TO MAKE AT HOME  The Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter has created a whole series of mini-challenges for children.  All the challenges can be made using everyday things which can be found in the home. Make a Roman soldier using a paintbrush! Make a jellyfish from a plastic bottle!  

BECOME A CURATOR - CREATE YOUR OWN ART GALLERY!  On the Discover page of the Art UK website (which contains images of all the art in public collections in the UK), you can explore the images by searching for a particular artist, or searching for a specific topic, or you can discover the collections that other users of this website have created, or - BEST OF ALL - you can create your own collection online, for the rest of the world to see!  Here's the Discover page of the Art UK website, where you can do all that!

STAYING SAFE  - NATIONAL LOCKDOWN - STAY AT HOME - ROADMAP OUT OF LOCKDOWN

Here is the latest Government information about the National Lockdown in England, starting on Tues 5 January, with detailed information about what is and is not allowed. 

New announcements are being made every day regarding the Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic, and the situation is fairly complex. 

Check out the latest government Coronavirus advice here, including details about vaccination, details of how to get a test, details of what kinds of support are available to people during lockdown and, crucially, details of the ROADMAP out of lockdown.

Here, on an interactive map, you can see the latest statistics, for our area and others. Hover over an area and just keep zooming in.

THE STORY BEHIND THIS PAINTING

Read the story behind this painting, courtesy of Alison Dix, in the August edition of Meeting Point.

A FANTASTIC LEGACY

Many local residents will have got to know, over the last few years, the wonderful local project called A Forgotten Landscape.  Largely funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, staffed by enthusiastic, imaginative and hard-working project workers but - above all - supported by a large band of locally recruited volunteers, this project has celebrated the heritage and the natural environment of the Lower Severn Vale levels.  Although the project was wound up in 2019, its legacy lives on!

Firstly, the project website will stay live for another five years.

Secondly, fifteen new walking routes have been created in the area. The walks have each been waymarked on the ground, and many include some of the project's benches and interpretation points along the way. Beautifully produced packs of these walks (see picture above) have been widely distributed, but you can access the walks online here.

In addition, there is also a pack called Tales of the Vale: Stories from A Forgotten Landscape. This is a mixture of historical research and fascinating oral history interviews on CD, both undertaken by groups of local volunteers over two years.   Again, you can access the Tales of the Vale online.

All this material has also been deposited at Gloucestershire Archives, to be held there permanently.

There are many other interesting aspects to the project website which remain relevant, including ideas for places to visit, details of local birdlife, beautiful soundscapes, and some learning resources for primary schoolchildren.  If you have some spare time, it's worth exploring - not least because it may give you ideas for things to do locally!

OLVESTON PARISH WALKS

Leaflets have been produced, detailing six circular walks in Olveston Parish.

You can download each walk leaflet from the list below.

The walks are:

1. Round Olveston

2. Olveston and Old Down

3. Old Down and Rudgeway

4. Old Down and Tockington

5. Between Olveston and Tockington

6. Down to the Motorway

If you want to stay active during the autumn and winter, get those warm and waterproof layers on, find a pair of boots and head on out!  Even a 15 minute walk will get the blood circulating and your cheeks rosy! 

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