November's Gossip article

Each month, the AudlemOnline team sends a 500-word article about the village to the publishers of the Whitchurch Gossip and Market Drayton Gossip magazines.

These excellent publications are widely (and freely) distributed in North Shropshire and many in Audlem see a copy, particularly of the Whitchurch magazine. Many of our readers, however, are outside their distribution area.

We thought you might like to read what we said about the village earlier this month in the November issues:

Busy Audlem November

November sees one of the biggest events in Audlem – the village's enviable 'Bonfire & Fireworks Display' organised by ASET, the Audlem Special Events Team. But what makes this show so special that it draws audiences in their thousands from near and far?

Music choice and choreography for the Saturday 3rd November extravaganza began back in March and the picking, fusing and preparation of the show takes Blitz Fireworks about six weeks.

The show is set to music featuring a variety of songs of different genres and is perfectly synced to the drama of the fireworks, their burst and impact. 

This year saw a new sound provider and for the first time the industry renowned Funktion One sound system was used at Audlem. This calibre of sound provision is usually found at major concerts or festivals such as Glastonbury.

The show is fired electronically via a laptop with a world renowned 'fire-by-wire' firing system and is the only digital firing system made and manufactured here in the UK.It was employed at the Beijing Olympics, and has been used to fire all the shows by ASET. If it's good enough for Beijing, it's good enough for Audlem! 

An amazing 683 individual fireworks are launched from six locations across the field electronically with a precision of 35 milliseconds between some of the ignitions. The fireworks reach an altitude of almost 200 metres.

At the end of October, another Audlem attraction ended its work for the season. Audlem Lass, the boat that plies the canal between Audlem Locks and the Overwater Marina to the north, carried 4,127 passengers in 2012, up slightly from last year's 4,115. That raised £3,723 for the RNLI, the lifeboat charity.

The Audlem Lass Boat Service and Crew would like to take this opportunity to thank all of their customers for their continued support towards the service they offer from Easter through to the end of October.

This year also had the Safety Afloat Family Fun Day at Overwater Marina (monies raised went to the RNLI) mid-way through the season. It turned into the busiest day for customers that the boat has had – 268 in total on one day. 

Audlem Lass will now be prepared for another "major event of the year" – delivering Father Christmas and his helpers safely to the village on the evening of Thursday 29th November for the 'Big Switch On' coordinated by ADAS, the Audlem District Amenities Society.

This sees the village's big tree and around fifty smaller trees illuminated, the shops open late and the village centre packed as the Festive season gets underway.

Despite a rotten summer weather-wise, Audlem has enjoyed a season of successful festivals – the Music & Arts Festival in May (and another mini-Festival on November 9th and 10th with theatre, comedy, music and dance including the renowned Bagpipe and Hurdy Gurdy Day); Jubilee Music on the Park; the Transport Festival and the Beer Festival.

Always check out AudlemOnline for more event details. 

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.