Festival of Remembrance 4th Nov Sat 7:00pm Barbican

• Fireworks display 4th Nov Sun 4:00pm Rawcliffe Country Park. Admission £7-50p (including bus ticket) Cars £40. Web site: http://www.kaboomyork.com

• Christy Moore 5th Nov Mon 7:30pm Barbican

• “Gunpowder Plod” and Fireworks 5th Nov Knavesmire Admission (adults) £12 Car parking in advance £5. Web site: http://www.gunpowderplod.com/

• Fireworks display 5th Nov York Maze Admission £12-95 Web site: http://www.yorkmaze.com/pages/bonfire_night.html

• Football City v Northampton 6th Nov Bootham Cres

• Joseph/Dreamcoat 6th / 10th Nov Grand Opera House

• Iolanthe 7th Nov Theatre Royal

• Alexander McCall Smith 7th Nov Tempest Anderson Hall

• Ben/Holly’s little kingdom 7th/8th Nov Barbican

• Aesthetica Short Film Festival 8-11th Nov Various see web site for details http://www.asff.co.uk/

• Which camera? 10th Nov 9:30pm Acomb Explore Library Basic digital camera course – buying advice and guidance Find out what to look for when buying a camera and understand the different jargon. You will learn to understand the different types, from simple point and shoot, standard compact and enthusiastic compact cameras. We will also discuss megapixels, zoom, lens, resolution, LCD screens, image stabilisation and ISO range.

• Football City v Wimbledon 10th Nov Bootham Cres

• York Music Society Concert 10th Nov Minster

• Burlesque 10th Nov 8:00pm Barbican

• Mamma Mia 10th Nov Racecourse

• Al Murray 12th Nov Grand Opera House

• Spirit of the dance 13th Nov Grand Opera House

• Get confident with computers 13th Nov 7:00pm Fulford School. 10 weeks course. A very ‘hands on’ course for those wishing to move on from using basic skills on a computer. You will learn how to use the features and functions of an ‘average’ computer by using some selected Microsoft Programs. Navigate the World Wide Web using web addresses, links and understand how to safely shop online; Create a variety of word processed documents by entering text and using different tools for editing that text. Create and understand template documents (i.e. letter headed paper). Use different formatting tools to aid meaning in your documents and layout your text by understanding how to create paragraphs change margins and spell check your work. Cost: £60

• Fascinating Aida 14th Nov Grand Opera House

• Jools Holland + Roland Gift 14th/15th Nov Barbican

• Poison Pen book launch 15th Nov 7:00pm Dringhouses Library Mother and daughter team Pauline Kirk and Jo Summers – writing as ‘P.J. Quinn’, discuss their new novel set in 1959. http://yortime.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/poison-pen.html

• The Manfreds 15th Nov Grand Opera House

• Bellowhead 16th Nov 7:00pm Barbican

• Farmers Market 16th/17th Nov Parliament Street

• Make your own Christmas stocking 17th Nov Sat 10:00am Quilt Museum Create a keepsake for tomorrow using simple folk art inspired images applied, by sewing machine, to a Christmas stocking base. Each stocking incorporates a deep cuff, which can be left plain, decorated with machine stitching or an appliquéd name/motif. http://yortime.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/make-your-own-christmas-stocking.html

• Chapter House Choir 17th Nov Minster

• Jon Richardson 17th Nov 8:00pm Barbican

• Glassy Jewellery 18th Nov Sun York Explore Library Learn how to make stunning jewellery from scratch.

• Slade & Sweet 18th Nov 7:30pm Barbican

• The Queen 18th Nov 2:00pm Barley Hall & Mansion House unique opportunity to view costumes worn in this acclaimed film by Dame Helen Mirren, before settling down to a special screening, complete with tea & cake, in the opulent setting of the state room in York Mansion House.

• InterFAITH week 18th – 27th Nov Various Celebrating Interfaith Week, this is an opportunity for York’s diverse and vibrant faith communities to showcase their beliefs, traditions and values

• Calendar Girls 19th/24th Nov Grand Opera House

• Wellie workout 19th Nov Mon 1:00pm Acomb Wood we will be coppicing hazel. This is an old management technique used to provide young growth on the tree, even as the tree ages. So come along and have fun – all tools will be provided. Please contact Jenny Cairns on 07833 436832 or jennifer.cairns@york.gov.uk for more details.

• Frankie Boyle 20th Nov 8:00pm Barbican

• Phoenix Dance Theatre 20th/21st Nov Theatre Royal

• History Lectures 20th/21st Nov 5:30pm Kings Manor York Minster in 1212 and Life in the City 1412. See http://yortime.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/york-800-public-lecture-series.html

• Rufus Wainwright 21st Nov 7:00pm Barbican

• King Lear at York High 20/21st Nov York High School

• King Lear 23rd/24th Nov Theatre Royal

• Take That 2 23rd /24th Nov Racecouse

• Showaddywaddy 23rd Nov 7:30pm Barbican

• Football City v Torquay 24th Nov Bootham Cres

• Mohiniyattam 24th Nov Minster In celebration of Interfaith week Manasamitra in partnership with York Minster present Mohiniyattam, the graceful dance style of Kerala which is located on the South West coast of India. Using a traditional lullaby from the 19th century as the backdrop, the reading of the poem is accompanied by a languid interpretation through dance and music. A beautiful visual art piece made with spices and representing Kerala will form the centrepiece. There will be a Q &A session following the performance and Coconut delicacies will be on offer to taste.

• Windows of Mens Souls 24th Nov 7:30pm St Helens Church York based chamber choir, Spectrum, directed by Ben Horden, perform music from both the Anglican and Catholic disciplines of Tudor England with music by Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and Robert Parsons

• The holly & the Ivy 24th Nov 9:30am Mansion House This half day workshop will introduce you to the popular art of Sugarcraft and later you can reward your hard work with tea and mince pies.

• Jeremy Hardy 24th Nov Theatre Royal

• A Time for Silence 24th Nov Minster (Micklegate singers)

• The Overtones 24th Nov 7:00pm Barbican

• “Classical on Demand” 24th Nov St Michael Le Belfrey

• Bike ride 26th Nov 11 am Millennium Bridge Enjoy a largely traffic free bike ride along Route 65 to Bishopthorpe. Refreshments available at Rowntree Park Reading Cafe including a special offer for all riders!

• The Upbeat Beatles 26th Nov Grand Opera House

• The Saw Doctors 27th Nov Grand Opera House

• Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman 27th Nov 7:30pm Early Music Centre

• A Government Inspector 27th – 1st Dec Theatre Royal

• Les Miserables 28th/29th Nov Theatre Royal

• The Nutcracker 28th Nov Grand Opera House

• Marty Wilde 29th Nov Grand Opera House

• St Nicholas Fayre 29th Nov – 2nd Dec Various The Fayre offers a range of markets specialising in gifts, crafts, and the very best in local farm produce. Outside markets move into Parliament Street, St Sampson’s Square and Coppergate while York’s grand medieval Guild Hall provides a home for ‘Made In Yorkshire’ artists and crafters from across the region. The magnificent medieval townhouse, Barley Hall, presents a special medieval market with live crafting, mulled wine and costumed traders and St William’s College houses an arts and crafts market for fine hand-made items not to be found in the shops. Carol singers and buskers flock to the city to perform over the weekend to thousands of festive shoppers.

• The Office Party 29th/2nd Dec Friargate Theatre

• Santas Steam Adventure 29th /2nd Dec NRM Everything is ready for Christmas but Santa has lost his presents! Come and help us track them down at the North Yorkshire Pole. The journey begins in our Station Hall which has been transformed into Santa’s depot. From here Santa’s helpers will climb onboard a beautiful festive carriage pulled by a steam engine to take part in a special interactive story telling adventure. Before the magical steam journey is over, children will meet Santa Claus himself and receive a special present to take home.

• Stick granny on the roof rack 30th Nov Theatre Royal

• Giant Advert Wreath 30th Nov 11:00am York Minster

• Kevin Bridges 30th/1st Dec Grand Opera House

• UK Snooker Championships 1st/9th Dec Barbican

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Book launch evening – Thur 15 Nov, 7pm to 8.30pm at Dringhouses Library

P J Quinn are a mother and daughter team who have written a series of crime novels. Their new book, Poison Pen, the second in a series featuring D I Ambrose, will be launched at Dringhouse library.

The crime is set in Old Chalk Heath village, and the writers set riddles and lay out the crime scene for you to solve.

The mother, Pauline Kirk, is a poet and her daughter, Jo Summers, is a lawyer who writes text books for the legal press.

Come along and hear Pauline and Jo explain their books and unveil dastardly crimes in Saltaire.

Tickets £2, includes free glass of wine. To book and for further information please contact Dringhouses Library, tel.01904 552674, email: dringhouses.library@york.gov.uk

See also click http://www.pjquinn.co.uk/index.html

The Councils East area planning committee will meet on Thursday with one of its longest agendas in recent times. Whether this signals an upturn in the local economy we will have to wait to see but an increase in investment levels is welcome.

The projects to be considered include:

• The erection of three-storey block of 16, 2 bedroom apartments and 7, two storey 3 bed houses with associated access at the former YWCA on Water Lane.

• Change of use from offices to 8 residential apartments at Hollycroft in Wenlock Terrace

• The installation of roof mounted flues and associated external plant and machinery with a ground mounted fresh air handling unit to ventilate the Nanocentre, a facility within the building associated with research into the production of solar cells and precision silicon fibre optics. The building is located at Helix House on Innovation Way in Heslington and is being challenged by local Cllr N Barnes. (No doubt many will think that this is just the kind of hi tech industry that the Council should be encouraging?)

• The erection of a single 50kW wind turbine with a hub height of 25 metres at Crockey Hill Road near Wheldrake

• Erection of six houses and the conversion of a barn into three dwellings on land to the rear of the Fox Inn Public House located on The Village in Stockton-on-the-Forest.

• The temporary use of part of a car park at the Designer Outlet on St Nicholas Avenue for a funfair

• A change of use and conversion of existing property to an 8 bed house in multiple occupation in Wilberforce Avenue

• A mooring for one vessel on the towpath adjacent to the Millennium Bridge on the eastern side of the River Ouse to be used as a café.

• The erection of a dormer bungalow to rear with access from Thirkleby Way at 305 Hull Road

• Substantial open-sided steel framed barn at the eastern edge of the Market Garden, Eastfield Lane Dunnington

Full details of the proposals can be found by clicking here: http://tinyurl.com/East-Plan-8th-Oct

The Labour Councillor who chaired the North Yorkshire Credit Union has admitted to the media that management mistakes led to the organisations crash.

Janet Looker, chairwoman of the board of Directors of the Union, told the BBC: “There have obviously been some significant mistakes made along the road.”

Formed in York in 2006 the Credit Union expanded into North Yorkshire in 2009. It stopped issuing loans and accepting new members in October.

“Some of it was us not being sufficiently savvy as to whom we were going to lend money too, but for most people it was because their financial circumstances changed”

“Some of it was down to our over-enthusiasm for making loans to people without being sufficiently nasty about vetting them properly or getting behind them more aggressively when they started falling behind with their repayments”

Cllr Looker – who is a member of the York Councils ruling Cabinet which will discuss the collapse at its meeting next Tuesday – concluded by telling the Yorkshire Post that “it became clear in the summer that we were heading for the end”

The comments raised a whole raft of issues about the transparency and the management competancy of an organisation which was structured to meet the needs of its members.

The major investment made by Council taxpayers should have meant that their business plans and accounts were subject to close scrutiny by the Authorities Cabinet member and professional officers.

North Yorkshire taxpayers are set to lose around £200,000 while York is estimated to be owed around £100,000.

The situation has now led a North Yorkshire County Councillor to call for a Public Inquiry into the fall.

Carl Les, the Council’s deputy leader, said: “We’re annoyed with the Credit Union that it has got into this position and we’re annoyed with ourselves that we didn’t have a better handle on it”.
“It’s not our role to actually manage the organisation but we needed to keep a better eye on it.”

In a new development, the South Yorkshire Credit Union said it was now planning to set up branches in York and Scarborough. Its Chief Executive Ian Guest told the BBC that it was working with City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council to get funding.

No one from the York Council has made any comment in the crisis so far. No information on the crash has been posted on the Credit Unions web site http://www.nycu.org.uk/index.asp

It is expected that the Councils Cabinet will be asked to consider the South Yorkshire grant application at its meeting on Tuesday although the papers for the meeting are still not being made available to residents.

We think that a joint Inquiry involving both the County Council and the City of York Council is the best way to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong with the local Credit Union.

NB. Credit Unions are not-for-profit co-operatives in which members’ savings are used to provide cheap loans. The Directors are elected by members at the Unions AGM.

For the second time in less than 12 months an event organised by the York Council and labelled as a “Wonderland” has proved to be a big let down for residents.

Visitors to the Illuminating York event in the Museums Garden have described the event as “lack lustre”, drab and “disappointing”. It contrasts with the enthusiastic reception given to the festival in previous years.

The budget for the whole festival – much of which it was hoped would be recovered from admission ticket sales – was around £300,000. Unlike previous feature events at the festival, which had free admission, the main event has a £5 ticket charge, with restricted admission times.

There are lessons to be learned in “over hyping” unproven events and we expect the Council to undertake an independent scrutiny review of what has gone wrong.

There are now concerns that other events being staged under the Illuminating York banner may suffer as a result of the bad publicity.

Fortunately the Illuminating York Minster programme has been a big success with the new “Orb” hailed as a unique visitor experience. Click here http://illuminatingyork.org.uk/supporting-programme-2012/ for details of other events

NB Another “Wonderland” experience – a Christmas Grotto – was organised by the Council last winter and was also heavily criticised by customers. A few weeks ago the bill for the “Grotto” had still not been paid.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that York Taxpayers will have to find over £66,000 to fund the Olympic and Paralympic events staged in York this summer.

There had been some speculation that sponsorship would cover the costs of the popular event.

York police are urging the public to come forward following a series of an robberies which are believed to be linked.

The offences occurred between 6.50pm and 8.00pm on Wednesday 31 October 2012, in the Walmgate, The Groves and New Earswick areas of the city.

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The agenda for the York Council’s Cabinet meeting on Tuesday includes an item about the York and North Yorkshire Credit Union.

It is marked as “secret” with absolutely no explanatory papers made available for the public.

It is time for the Council – which originally sponsored the York Credit Union – to come clean about its future and explain why it has gone bust.

Depositors and creditors deserve to be kept in the picture. If there were any problems then the Council should have intervened long before now. (The Council had representation on the Board of the Credit Union together with some investments.)

The FCCS have issued the following statement http://www.fscs.org.uk/news/2012/november/youre-protected-fscs-t-jv27rs211/

“You’re protected, FSCS tells thousands of North Yorkshire Credit Union members

Thousands of North Yorkshire Credit Union members, which went bust today, will get their money back within the next week, says the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). It’s stepping in to protect members of the credit union which has locations throughout Yorkshire.

FSCS protects consumers when authorised financial services firms fail. It has protected more than 4.5m people and paid out more than £26bn in compensation since 2001. It is pledging to pay back the credit union’s members within seven days. And it won’t take long. On average FSCS pays out in a few days.

The FSCS process is automatic. Members of the credit union will not need to lift a finger to get their money back. FSCS will use the credit union’s records to automatically send payments to members. FSCS protects savings up to £85,000.
People with less than a thousand pounds will receive a letter to get cash over the counter at the Post Office. Anyone with more than this will receive a cheque. This gives people their cash back quickly and gives them the most options for depositing it elsewhere, FSCS says.

About 5,000 savers have some £1.9m in North Yorkshire Credit Union.

Kate Bartlett, Director of Operations, says: “FSCS is protecting members of the North Yorkshire Credit Union. There is no cause for concern. We will get your savings back to you within one week. And you won’t need to lift a finger because the process is automatic.”

Answers to questions can be found by clicking here: http://tinyurl.com/Credit-union-Q-A

Foxwood Residents Association and Foxwood in Bloom held a successful bird box making event yesterday with the Lord Mayor of York and the Civic Party getting into the spirit of the event.

It wasn’t exactly “the sound of music” coming from Foxwood Community Centre – more like “if I had a hammer” as everyone bashed in nails to make the perfect nesting box for robins and blue tits

Predictably the Council has decided to spend another £1.6 million on “refurbishing” the market in Newgate. A report outlining their plan was published last week – several hours before a “consultation” exercise on the future of the market was due to finish.

Clearly the Council had already decided what it would do and the consultation was just a smokescreen.

The Council sees the specialist markets in Parliament Street continuing and hopes to re-coop some of its investment through increased stall rental income.

We think that the Council is right to make improvements to the City market.

The scale of the investment, though, seems extravagent and ignores at least one major consequence.

Sub-urban shopping areas – already under pressure from superstores and neighbourhood mini supermakets – may see more customers drifting away.

The Acomb Front Street area in particular needs investment and one option might have been to provide an occasional market there within the pedestrian zone.

Having closed its Acomb office, the Council is partly responsible for the decline in footfall – and hence potential customers – in the Acomb area.

Replacement investment is long overdue.