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Latest news from the Hurst Park Estate Residents' Association
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Dear neighbour,

We're very pleased to bring you the latest news from the Hurst Park Estate. Find out about the Living Advent calendar project, an appeal being run by some of our neighbours, the new trees that have popped up in our neighbourhood and an invitation to sing carols with your neighbours - but at a distance. 

With best wishes from your HPERA Team:
 
Andrew Milbourn        chair@hpera.co.uk
Nicky Webb                secretary@hpera.co.uk
The committee           committee@hpera.co.uk
Living Advent Calendar

We are absolutely delighted with the response to our invitation to turn the estate into a gigantic Advent calendar: more than 70 households offered to take part! We are looking forward to seeing the whole neighbourhood transformed, starting from tomorrow, when three windows will be unveiled and culminating on Christmas Eve when all 70+ should be lit. 

You can find a list of all the houses taking part here and a map, showing the approximate location but not the actual address, here (thanks to Jo Tunmer for the map!). If you have children (or even if you don't!) you may wish to do a window-hunt, and we'd like to invite you to join us for a festive walk around the estate between 5pm and 7pm on Christmas Eve when you can admire all the windows and greet your neighbours too. 

We've asked all the participants to make sure that windows are lit between around 4pm and 9pm each evening. All the windows will be lit until 31 December. 

We hope this will be a great way to brighten the estate and get to know our neighbours!
Carols with a difference 
Saturday 19th December, 5.00pm

For obvious reasons the now-traditional Hurst Park carols won't be able to take place in the same way this year. However we propose a different way to enjoy communal singing, and hope as many people as possible will take part in a Christmas sing-a-long on our doorsteps. 

We are inviting you to come out of your house and sing 6 or 7 carols and Christmas songs with, but at a safe distance from, your neighbours. You might want to bring some mulled wine or seasonal snacks with you! 

As a way of leading the singing, we plan to broadcast an accompaniment that you can sing along to, live on the Hurst Park Estate Facebook group. If you're not already a member, do sign up now. Of course if you're not on Facebook, you can still join in, but do listen out for your neighbours so that you are singing the same carols at the same pitch and the same time as everyone else! And you can find our Christmas songsheet here

Happy Christmas!
 
CRC Looked After students appeal

Our neighbours Jo Tunmer and Helen Druiff are doing a collection for the Student Services (SS) team at Cambridge Regional College in aid of the many students who are 'looked after' - ie in the care of the local authority. Many are living in hostels and will have no family with whom to spend Christmas. 

Some children are in particular need right now. For example, there are 3 unaccompanied asylum seekers, and another child who has just moved from foster care into a hostel and is living by himself for the first time.

Jo says: "we've had a great response just from our friends and people in the area that we know personally but we'd be so grateful for any help from the wider local community. We really need stationery, and especially pens, which are a luxury item, post it notes, nice little notebooks, chocolate coins, bags of sweets and toiletries such as deodorants, shampoo and even nail varnish. But also if anyone can stretch to a Tesco voucher, that would be just great."

In addition Jo and Helen are collecting novels and DVD's in good condition for a stall that runs every Tuesday at CRC - the proceeds go towards food vouchers for the students that need them. 

If you are able to make a donation, please leave in the boxes outside either Jo's house (59 Highworth Ave) or Helen's (43 Highfield Ave) no later than this Sunday, 6th December. Books should go in separate boxes to other donations. 

Thank you. 
New trees on the estate

We are delighted to let you know that the City Council's tree team has planted no fewer than 19 trees on the estate in the past few days, with more planned for Highworth Avenue at a later date. You can see the position of all the new trees here. If you live near one of these new trees, please help look after it so that it thrives, particularly next spring and summer before it is well established. You can find some guidance on how to look after young trees here.

Cambridge has about 250,000 trees, three quarters of which are on private land. The Council would like to increase the number of trees in the city and calculates that if every home owner were to plant just one tree, the city's tree stock would increase by more than 10%, providing enormous environmental benefits for us all. You are invited to take part in the council's tree survey, and also to plot trees in your own garden on the Curio website

It seems particularly apt that this planting has taken place in National Tree Week, and also that it comes just as the arts and wellbeing charity Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination, run by our neighbour Ruth Sapsed of HPA, has launched its wonderful Forests of the Imagination project for Tree Charter Day. Feel free to explore the project here
 
New broadband provider

Following the chaos caused by CityFibre's installation work earlier in the year, at least we have some competition to Virgin Media for fast fibreoptic broadband. HPERA Chair Andrew Milbourn has made a short video about his experience of signing up to Vodafone's service here. We hope it's helpful!

 
Support your local traders
A quick plea to support our independent shops and restaurants after a horribly difficult year for them. Many are offering online orders or free local deliveries. Here's a handy guide to local independents and of course we're lucky to be well-served by excellent local shops including Cam Home & Garden and retailers in Arbury Court. 
Foodbank appeal

Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the kerbside collection we held last month. It was a great success - we collected more than 50 bags of food which were donated to the City Foodbank.  We are planning another collection the new year - watch this space for details!
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