THERE are still tickets available for the morning cruise boarding (10.30am) to fetch Santa from Bowness on the Christmas Lights switch-on day, which is November 16.

Tickets are available from Stiles Coffee Bar, Compston Road and can also be booked through the website amblesidechristmaslights.co.uk.

The afternoon Santa cruise has already sold out.
 
AMBLESIDE Rotary has made a one-time donation of £1,000 in support of Ambleside Parish Centre’s hospital transport grants scheme, which is on a five- month trial, or shorter time if the funds are exhausted.

The scheme is limited to one grant a month per individual for residents in Lakes parish towards travel costs to hospital appointments at Kendal, Lancaster, Barrow, Preston and Manchester, email admin@amblesidepc.org.uk, 015394-34172.

Ambleside Rotary also donated £300 to the Ladies’ Kirkstone Pass Car Pull for the Grizedale unit at Westmorland General Hospital to support the campaign for a chemotherapy unit there, and the club is also sending £500 to the Mercy Ships charity, operating hospital ships along the west coast of Africa. 

AMBLESIDE-Kirkstone Rotary visited Ambleside’s flagship lakeside YHA recently with its popular lake frontage restaurant and accommodation of 249 beds in 69 bedrooms.

Rotary also presented YHA manager Damian Parker with a cheque towards Breaks for Kids, the YHA’s support for adventure breaks for children in Cumbria, contributing 50 per cent of the cost of accommodation for young people from lower-income families helping them to discover new environments away from home. 

SKELWITH and District Community Centre at Skelwith Bridge is holding a pie and peas supper and an evening of entertainment with The Cornerstones on November 2 (7.30pm).

Tickets on 015394-32594/34371. Take your own drinks. 

CUMBRIA’S Boxes of Hope Christmas shoebox appeal for disadvantaged Romanian children aged 3-14 years, is underway.

Boxes of Hope volunteers deliver gift-filled shoeboxes to deprived communities at Christmas, ensuring they reach those children in most need.

Boxes should contain a selection of toys for either a boy or girl such as a ball, toy car, doll, skipping rope, yo-yo, dominoes and sturdy toys, also a notebook, colouring book, pen, crayon, pencils, rubber, ruler, pencil sharpener and clothing, such as mittens or gloves, hat, scarf and socks.

Soap, facecloth, toothbrush and toothpaste, hairbrush and hair accessories could also be included.

No food except sweets and no medicines, aerosols, liquids, sharp items: scissors, knives etc, and no war-related toys or books and no playdough or plasticine.

Using a small or medium shoebox, wrap the lid and box separately, include an envelope with £2 donation inside the box for transport and packaging. Boxes of Hope leaflets are in libraries, include a ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ label to stick on the side of the wrapped lid, secured with a strong rubber band. Information at boxesofhopecumbria.co.uk or email: info@boxesofhopecumbria.co.uk. Boxes can be left at Hayes Garden World up until November 12. 

ZEFFIRELLI’S Cinema is staging a new film festival in a fortnight entitled The Inward Eye, from November 7-9.

The festival is inspired by a quote from William Wordsworth’s poem, Daffodils, celebrating a memory of daffodils through the imagination of his ‘inward eye.’

The festival is showing 26 feature films including new releases, classic movies and short films and is a collaboration between the north’s leading independent cinemas, organised by Dorothy Smith, managing director of Zeffirelli’s and Charlotte Wontner of Hopscotch films who is also member of the Wordsworth family, owners of Rydal Mount.

The idea came originally from film actor Brian Cox while on a visit to Rydal Mount, when his film The Carer, produced by Charlotte Wontner, had a special screening at Zeffirellis.

The films cover the themes of love and war, youth and fear and time and landscape.

Some have a nature theme or local location and hope to attract a wide audience with classics such as Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet to the Syrian war drama For Sama and includes the cult favourite Withnail and I which was premiered at Zeffirellis in 1987. Booking at inwardeye.uk.

LAKES Parish Council has cancelled its full council meeting, which would have been held on November 6, this is due to a night-time closure of the A591.

The council meeting will take place instead on November 20 in place of the scheduled planned meeting. 

AMBLESIDE and District Art Society’s annual exhibition at the parish centre closes on Sunday, October 27 (3pm).

The exhibition by professional and amateur artists, features landscapes, still life and small sculptures in both traditional style and more contemporary genres using materials including watercolours, pastels, pen and ink, mixed media and acrylics.

Entry is free, refreshments available and visitors can also buy greetings cards produced by art society members from their paintings.