We are thrilled to annouce that the theme for 2021’s Western Park Trail will be “The World Of Books” after the theme was the narrow winner in a recent public vote. You don’t need to be limited to just what goes on between the covers, let your imagination run wild!
You can register to enter your own scarecrow here:
wwce.org.uk/main/product/scarecrowregistration
Event entry terms and conditions can be found here:
https://wwce.org.uk/main/scarecrow-trail-terms-and-conditions/
Something to get all of your creative juices flowing again while we wait for freedom…After the success of the calendar last year, WWCE are launching this event early this year to give you all plenty of opportunities to capture a special image. Email it to projecthive@outlook.com with your name, age and roughly where it was taken.There is no limit to how many entries you can submit between now and the end of September. Try to make your pictures landscape (horizontal). Remember, your picture should not have been used in an other publication and if it contain a person or persons, they should be unidentifiable. More details will be published later.
Not long to go now our Light up Western Up Park Event is live. Before it starts, here are some things to know/remember. The event begins 1pm on Saturday 12th December and runs until 6pm. It then returns at 2pm on Sunday 13th again until 6pm.
Every day throughout December a new advent display will appear in the Western Park area for you to enjoy as part of your daily exercise.
A map showing the locations of each display is available for free, you can download the map here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EzfLyDNr8vcJzXcvZOAQhPwNebM5KmYB/view?usp=sharing
A full list of the street address for each display can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W2LaMCAACx0433DAIagdiz94M0Zj0Po4/view?usp=sharing
Don’t forget to order your very own copy of the 2021 Parklife Calendar.
It is made up of images submitted by local residents and features twelve photographs captured in the Western Park area.
We will be taking orders up until 20th November.
Each calendar costs £7.50 and can be orders by following this link:
https://forms.gle/XRDT63t7FYVZYsiM7
Don’t miss out!
From almost a hundred annonomised entries, the judges chose their final twelve photographs that will make up your Parklife 2021 calendar. You can order a copy now by following this link:
https://forms.gle/XRDT63t7FYVZYsiM7
Please remember to pay for your order promptly.
The winning entries were submitted by…
Alexis Hutson, Tony Shelly, Reuben Fenn, Sarah Jones, Julie Grest, Jo Hall, Hannah Farrow, Emma Lowe, Anna McAuley, Ruth Herbert, Darren Cotton and Nick Halpine.
Thank you to everyone that was involved in builing a scarecrow and/or took a walk around the trail this year. To all those who bought ice cream, cake and raffle tickets in huge amounts while on their journey to see our 61 enterants.
The buzz around the Western Park area over the weekend has been something truly special and I think we can all agree that it was much needed after the ‘challenging’ year we have faced. It was lovely for everyone involved to hear such positivity around our efforts to run this event again and it makes the whole thing worthwile for us.
Special thanks to the ward councillors who covered the cost of running the event with their ward funding.
We are delighted to announce that we have raised another £2121 towards Project Hive.
The entry with the most votes will be announced on Tuesday 8th September after voting closes tomorrow (Monday 7th).
Scarecrow Sam will see you all again next year 
The Western Park Scarecrow Trail return’s for it’s second year this coming weekend (5th & 6th September) and while we have had to make a couple of changes so we can run the event during the Covid restrictions, at it’s core it remains the fun community event it was last time out.
We are unable to use the playground at Dovelands school as our base, so this year guide maps will be available from two points along the trail.
17 Dorchester Road and 32 Westfield Road will be selling them alongside a limited amount of sugary treats to re-fuel those tired legs. There may also be a couple of surprise pop-up stalls along the route.
The guide maps will feature a link so you can vote for the best scarecrow online. As an added bonus for trail-going completists, some of our scarecrows will have cryptic number puzzles that when added up, will give a number that can be entered online for your your chance to win a prize.
Make sure you bring a pen or pencil!
See you all there!!
We are pleased to confirm the judging panel for our (Western) Parklife event. Reverend Liz Wilson, Vicar of our local church. She is joined by Councillor Gary O’Donnell, one of the team of councillors for the Western Ward. Completing out trio is Sarah Salotti of Sarah Salotti Photography.
All three are very eager to see the entries.
Annoucing our next fundraising event , A community created calendar.
Do you have a photograph that you feel captures life in the Western Park area; or could you take one? Do you have a favourite view or secret spot? A treasured tree or a snap of our wonderful wildlife? We want to put together a calendar that showcases our little corner of the city.
A panel of judges will decide the top twelve photographs which will then be turned into a professionally produced 2021 calendar. The calendar will then go on sale with all proceeds going towards our continuing efforts to bring a new community space to the Western Park area.
Entries are free and welcome from those of any age. 0-999 years. Entrants do not have to live within the Western Park area, but the image must have been taken here.It’s couldn’t be easier to enter, simply email your submission at full resolution to projecthive@outlook.com. Please include your full name and a brief description of where the picture was taken.
All entries must be recieved by the end of 25th September 2020.All photographs must be original and not previously used for any other publication. If your image contains indentifiable individuals, you should have their permission to include them in this competition.The judging panel will be independent of, and not affiliated with WWCE
Good luck!
The WWCE Team.
We are delighted to announce the return of the Western Park Scarecrow Trail for 2020. We feel that the event is perfectly suited to whatever level of social distancing may be in place on the 5th & 6th of September, although there will be some changes to last years set up.
The community response both in terms of scarecrow entries registered and turn out of “trailers” over the weekend blew us away. And the buzz created by it was the perfect start to our successful crowdfunding campaign.
This year we want it to be even bigger and better, to do this we need your help. If you are a resident of the Western Park area we need your imagination, creativity and for you to register as a scarecrow builder. This year’s theme is “Heroes” (which can come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes). Registration costs £5 per entry. You can register through our Facebook event page or by following this link:
Hello everyone, we thought we would take a moment to update you all on the progress of Project Hive during these challenging times…
It’s safe to say that the last couple of months haven’t really gone the way we had envisioned them to when we were planning 2020. Coming off the back of a very successful 2019, we were hoping to go full steam ahead and get things physically moving with the building this year. As the ongoing situation has developed, we quickly realised that many of the plans we had would need to go on the back burner.
As we write this, we still aren’t sure how things are going to play out, so making firm plans is next to impossible and announcing anything specific a fools errand. The important thing to remember is that this is temporary, it will pass. The great community events run by us and other groups that so many come out to enjoy will return. What has been hugely heartening is the way that our community, the very reason we exist, has rallied around and strengthened its bonds despite the limitations to us actually being together. It has galvanised our determination to see this project through to completion and to give this community the new space it deserves, to be together.
Stay safe everyone and we look forward to seeing you all soon…
The WWCE Team.
We did it! The target for crowd funding has been reached and passed! Since the start of September a massive £27,267 has been raised. Thank you.
That “we” includes anyone who has supported this endeavour, you are all a part of the journey we are now on together. Whether you have pledged directly via the Spacehive website, bought a cake, decorated and rolled a pumpkin, made a scarecrow or walked the trail, eaten a curry, swapped Pokemon cards, not worn school uniform or danced the night away at the Christmas Party. The whole WWCE team have been truly humbled by the enthusiasm that the community repeatedly shows for fund raising events, many of which we were running for the first time.
We have been told that Project Hive is a great example of positive community activism in action. The result will be a new space that allows even more activities that bring people together from across our whole community. We now have the funding to complete the designs and surveys to the point of formal planning going in by the middle of February.
It doesn’t end here, our sights are already set on the next milestone towards the building opening it’s doors.
On the 18th January we held the final event of our crowdfund campaign, Winstanley House was the beautiful setting for a Coffee & Cake morning.
We raised another £600 towards our target, there is now less than £1,000 to go. Crowdfunding ends on 24th January, you can pledge your support here: spacehive.com/project-hive
On Sunday 12th January we held a Pokemon & Friends Trading card swap event at The Hub in New Parks, a new venue for us. It was great to see some new faces amongst the attendees along with many of our regular supporters.
Alongside a busy afternoon of card swapping, there were lots more activites to keep people entertained. A tombola, guess how many Pokeballs in the jar, tin can knock down, pin the tail on the Pikachu and target practice game provided plenty of laughs. There was also a Pokemon cartoon marathon to chill out to and refreshments to keep energy levels topped up.
The event raised £200 towards our crowdfund, another step closer to our target. Thank you to everyone that came along.
There are only two weeks to go until the end of our crowdfund campaign. At the time of posting we are £2500 away from our target. Unless we meet it, the money won’t be released!
If you can help, visit: www.spacehive.com/project-hive
On Monday 16th January we met up with Amy Payne from BBC East Midlands Today to record an interview about Project Hive. This is a massive milestone for the project and will help us reach further than ever before with the crowdfund campaign.
Keep an eye out for the interview to air during their bulletins on Tuesday 17th December on BBC One.
We are delighted to announce that we have extended our Crowdfund campain until January 24th 2020. You now have a little longer to help us reach the target for this first phase of the project.
So far we have raised just over £20k of the £26k we need, we just need a final push to help us get there! You can pledge at: spacehive.com/project-hive
Saturday 30th November saw us celebrate the start of this year’s Christmas party season with the Project Hive Christmas Party. Over 100 people partied hard at St Anne’s Church Hall, which had recieved a festive makeover. Entertaiment for the evening was provided by local DJ Tony Booth and Singing duo The Quirks. We raised £2250 towards the crowdfunding campaign on the night!
We held a public meeting on the evening of 6th November to outline our vision for the future of the former Eco House site. The meeting was attended by members of the public, local councillors and our architect. We were also joined by Parmar Properties to briefy outline their plans for the rest of the brownfield land along the Hinckley Road edge of Western Park.
We unveiled our current concept art for the building, which is based on what you said you wanted to use the building for.
All of this work can ONLY be achieved with your help. Crowdfunding for the initial work on the project continues at www.spacehive.com/project-hive.
