11 - Leaping Hare News

Taking small steps (and great walks) back to normal life

© Euston Hall

Have you been walking the same routes during lockdown? What we weary walkers need now is a series of events that add pizazz to our promenades – colour to our constitutionals.

Leaping Hare’s brand new walks, Strolling through Time, showcase Thetford’s rich heritage, each stroll ending with socially distanced tea and scones! Choose from two new walks, which are taking place in May and June. One tells the story of Henry Cable and Suzannah Holmes, among the very first people to settle in modern Australia. The other will take participants around the fascinating ruins of the Priory. For dates and details, log on to the Leaping Hare website. Meanwhile, we’re gearing up for the return of regular events, kicking off with the reopening of the gardens at Euston Park from 10-16 May. Limited tours of Euston Hall will be available from 25-31 May in addition to the gardens and then slightly larger hall tours for 17-23 September. Plus, the always-popular Thetford Open Gardens returns on 27 June, raising money for St Nicholas Hospice Care with a special bonus date of 6 June to celebrate beautiful roses.

Now’s the time to get your business noticed

No one can say for sure whether there’ll be more lockdowns in future – but we can be certain that supporting local businesses and enterprises is more important than ever.

If you’re a skilled craftsperson, talented restaurant-owner, creative designer, photographer or event organiser whose business is active in the Thetford area, it’s time to make sure your local market knows who you are and what you do. From only £3.75 a month, your business could be listed in our Local Directory. Better still, we offer a further 50% discount to charities, small community and voluntary groups. Listing in our Local Directory raises your company profile and supports the local economy, because we plough the funds raised into benefiting Thetford and the surrounding area. Use our Local Directory to create an easily manageable mini-website for a very reasonable cost. Interested? We’re always here for a chat. Give us a

call on 07802 701911

Volunteer focus

Leaping Hare volunteer Lynn Ready happily admits she “fell back in love with her sewing machine” during the first lockdown. She’d always been a crafter, but spring 2021 saw her really up her game. “I like experimenting with different things,” says Lynn, who now calls herself Silana Crafts, “and making using locally sourced sustainable cottons and linens where possible, with decorations inspired by local animals and nature.”

Lynn makes cosmetic bags, gift and hand-bags, but she also got stuck into making Covid-19 face masks – some of them with individual hand-block stamp designs, which we have been selling from our shop.

THETFORD

Leaping Hare

Belmont House King Street IP24 2AP info@leapinghare.org 07802 701911

We recently decided it would be a good idea to produce our own cards especially after the Christmas cards you received were so very much appreciated. To continue with this theme Tony Dobbin has now designed cards for a variety of reasons for us to send or give to our members. A very big thank you Tony, he does so much for the U3A. He produces our newsletters and all of our magazines. He is there to take photographs, in fact there is so much he does for us that never gets recognised where would we be without him? In September when we hold our U3A we will be looking for a few new committee members as Gil Roberts, Paul Vice and myself are due to retire. We have enjoyed our time and cannot believe how quickly the time has gone. It is for a period of three years with only one committee meeting per month. We need people who can give us fresh ideas and a view of various things that they would like to see and hear. If you are interested please contact me so we can put your name forward. Anne Fabian is looking forward to starting up her groups again, she has already booked the Church on the Way, for her Chataway sessions which will be for meeting up, refreshments and a general get together, more on this in the next edition. If anyone has any news or interesting tales to tell please email or ring me and it can be included in next months edition.

For further information, please visit our website: www.u3asites.org.uk/thetford/home Or, call Lesley Braund on 01842 842074

Independant and family owned, the longest established funeral service in Thetford.

l Pre paid funeral plans l Memorials supplied and renovated l Fully qualified counselling service l Grave maintenance service