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All pictures © Ron Hill
unless otherwise stated.
Meet: Barcombe Post Office (5½ mile circular walk)
11.00am £6
WHICH WAY AM I LOOKING?
NATURAL NAVIGATION WALK
Fortunately very few of us are likely to ever find ourselves in a survival situation, but we all spend some time outdoors. So on Sunday 11th July, Tristan Gooley will lead a walk from Barcombe Post Office which starts with the simple question, ‘Which way am I looking?’ to demonstrate that we can take our eyes off the GPS, map and compass.
Tristan is the only living person to have both flown solo and sailed singlehanded across the Atlantic. He is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and the Royal Geographical Society. These achievements alone might encourage festival organisers to invite him along to talk about Natural Navigation, the rare art of finding your way on land, sea or in the air using nature, including the sun, moon, stars, weather, land, sea, plants and animals.
But when the Uckfield festival committee learnt that Tristan does not view what he offers as a survival skill, but as a means to enrich journeys and connect with the world around us, they knew that they could not have made a better choice of speaker for this year’s festival.
Tristan has appeared on TV and radio programmes including Countryfile, Excess Baggage
and Open Country -
Bring a packed lunch!
Sunday 11th july
United Reformed Church, Uckfield, TN22 5AE
7.30pm Drinks interval £7, Concessions £5
The Elwin -
David Elwin and Dorothy Maxwell present piano duets and solos by Schumann and Chopin to celebrate 200 years since the birth of Schumann on 8th June 1810 and of Chopin on 1st March 1810. They will also play duet works by Schubert. There will also be some organ solos. A special treat will be the duet arrangement of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, one of the most recognizable and beloved pieces of American music. Written in 1924, it was first performed by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, with Gershwin himself on piano. This arrangement is by Henry Levine who studied the work with George Gershwin himself and based the transcription entirely on the original score.
TR FASTENINGS CAR PARK, TN22 1QW
12-
ELECTRIC CAR GRAND PRIX
The Mini Grand Prix started in 2003 with three Primary schools taking part and complementing the Rotary Pedal Car Grand Prix which had been going for some years. A collaborative project organised and supported by Uckfield Community Technology College and Uckfield Rotary Club, it has grown each year and this year will feature 20 cars from 19 schools.
The project starts for most students in May or early June with designing and building the cars, and culminates in July with The Uckfield Mini Grand Prix. All the towns Primary Schools are represented and the Uckfield schools are joined by many schools from the surrounding areas from as far afield as Hartfield, Withyham, Newick, High Hurstwood and East Hoathly. Also taking part is a team from Cuckmere House School in Seaford. A total of between 200 and 250 students! This is such a great project that no school has ever dropped out!
Students from years 5 and 6 build a Goblin 24 volt electric race car which is supplied in kit form, an excellent team building project which gives the students a very solid introduction to many engineering principles. Students also design and build the cars bodywork and the team ‘brand’. There are loads of opportunities for really fabulous design activities and the quality of much of the design work produced by the students is outstanding.
Many schools find this an excellent opportunity to make links with local business and are supported by engineers or other professionals who come into school to work with students on the project. The culmination will be at the Uckfield Festival on 11th July when the car park at TR Fastenings will be transformed to a fully functioning race track by a group of volunteers. The 20 teams of students with cars, cheerleaders, teachers, parents and sponsors start arriving at 11am ready for a parade lap at 12 noon. Racing will start soon after with a series of heats and the grand final is expected to take place at around 3.30pm.
As well as the race track and the thrills of the actual racing, there will be the colourful paddock area where schools will display their design work and fine tune their cars for racing. Numbers attending are always huge and there will be food, ice cream, cold drinks and toilets. There will also be informative displays about the amazing work that the Rotary Club does both locally and internationally.
This day is a truly memorable experience for many of the students involved, but couldn’t take place without the amazing support of Rory O'Connor, UCTC, the Rotary club of Uckfield, the Directors and staff of TR Fastenings, and a small but incredibly hard working and loyal group of organisers. (You know who you are lads!)
