Busy weekend in new Mills

Well now that Archie is busy lighting up the Co-op again (despite United Utilities still pumping sewage into our beautiful rivers) we can concentrate for a few days on enjoying ourselves and preparing for Christmas - last Monday was a great evening for teh Christmas Tree light switch on with hundreds of people getting into the festive spirit with some great live music, fair ground rides and lots of mulled wine around - the rain managed to hold off - next year we WILL have snow !

This weekend we have Manchester's finest Terry Christian appearing at Spring Bank Arts on Saturday 1st - its great to see New Mills now attracting major names in TV - tickets available at High Street Books or if there are some available pay on the door - £10 (£8 concessions)

Also on Saturday evening The Gallery in New Mills has an open evening until 9pm - its an ideal opportunity to meet some talented local artists and maybe buy those Christmas presents you will soon be panicking about - and maybe grab a glass of wine - there are some beautiful paintings, jewellery, furniture and many ideas for those unique gifts you  can never find.

Christmas in New Mills

Its great seeing the Christmas trees and decorations that are now decorating the town centre, a treemendous (see what I did there) amount of effort goes in each year to make our town look great.

The official lights switch on next Monday (6:15pm) 26th is a great focal point with late night shopping, live music from New Mills Band and High Peak Samba, Christmas Carols from St Georges school, Father Christmas, mince pies and mulled wine and fairground rides it should be a great evening for everyone - make sure you wear a Christmas hat!

A spot of housekeeping

This week we had a digger and dumper truck on site at the Hydro to do a spot of housekeeping before what we hope will be a long wet Autumn-Winter-Spring.

The intake had over 100 tonnes of debris removed includes the usual traffic cones, scooter and other assorted river trash.

All we need now is some rain and Archie is good to go again.

Rood End Primary School

The Derbyshire Autumn weather was kind to  the 42 Y6 students from Rood End School in Oldbury, West Midlands. 

As well as finding out everything you need to know about Hydro Electricity and renewable energy the students also visited New Mills Heritage Centre, walked along the river Goyt and took in stunning views of Kinder Scout from Spring Bank before lunch back at teh heritage Centre before heading home back down the M6.

We look forward to welcoming more students form the school later in November.

Community funding

Torrs Hydro would like to award some more funds to our community over the next few weeks.

If you are part of a New Mills based group or club and would like to apply for a small grant please email Torrs Hydro at sean@torrshydro.org

It will be good to hear what you would use the money for and how this will benefit our local community.



Earlier this year funding was given to the following groups :

New Mills Community Orchard
New Mills Secondary School Art department
New Mills Heritage Centre
Spring Bank Arts
New Mills Volunteer Centre

Competition winners

There were several winners to Archie's competition to guess how many cups of tea he had produced power for - the answer was at the end of the video to 'Archie' written and performed by New Mills own Write Van men

Prizes (signed copies of Goodbye Watford Bridge Road) - will be in the post to the winners next week.

Competition time for 'Archie'

To celebrate a fantastic New Mills festival and seeing Archie bathed in green and red light on Saturday evening we are going to have a little competition.

The two lucky winners will get signed copies (colectors items already) of Goodbye Watford Bridge Road the CD by Write Van Men that contains the worlds first song about a community owned and run Hydro scheme.

All you have to do is visit www.goodbyewatfordbridgeroad.blogspot.com listen to the the song about Archie and somewhere in the video it tells you how many cups of tea Archie could have made since starting production.

Answers via email only to sean@torrshydro.org - winners will be drawn out of a purple coloured top hat in 10 days time

Good luck