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Nearly £40,000 was awarded to local causes through our grant funding this month. Here’s our round-up of the people we are supporting…

Amateur photographers from across the region will compete to have their ‘snaps’ of Letchworth Garden City featured in a 2012 town calendar.

‘Picture This’, Letchworth Garden City Tourist Information Centre’s photographic competition is back by popular demand and looking for participants to send in up to three of their favourite landscapes, buildings or historic landmarks in the Garden City. The lucky winners will also receive their picture-perfect photograph printed on canvas.

His Royal Majesty King George VI, who visited Letchworth Garden City during the Second World War, arrives back in the town, this time gracing Broadway Cinema, in the Oscar-winning film, The King’s Speech.

Sunday’s Academy Awards in Los Angeles’ saw the British film pick up four prizes including ‘Best Picture’, with star Colin Firth named as ‘Best Actor’. The role which sees his majesty nervously battle a stutter up until 1939 is a stark contrast from his visit to Letchworth in 1941 where The Citizen Newspaper reports he looked “every inch a king”.

A proverbial ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ awaits children of all ages as a new toy store opens in the Garden City.

Cuthberts Toys in Eastcheap – in the former Ethel Austin premises – was officially opened last Thursday by Colin Chatfield, Chairman of Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation.

Before ‘cutting the ribbon', Mr Chatfield welcomed the “excellent” new store to the town and hoped that “its tenure would be long and happy.”

Letchworth Garden City & Baldock Lions Club present their 26th Year Spectacular Charity

Firework Display
Sunday 7 November 2010

Herts FA County Ground, Baldock Road,
Letchworth Garden City
Doors open from 5.30pm for 7pm start

Tickets

Pre-Sale
Adult: £3.50 Children (U16): £1.50

On the night
Adult: £4.50 Children (U16): £2.00

3,000 crowd limit, pre-booking is advised!

Thursday 14 October, 7pm
At The Spirella Ballroom, 4th Floor, The Spirella Building

Explore a heroic chapter in World War II and its connection to Letchworth Garden City with Arthur Creighton, retired RAF officer, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and former airline Captain.

Come along for fascinating insights into ‘Operation Chastise’ (commonly known as ‘The Dambusters’ and subject of the classic 1955 British War Film) including actual film footage of the time and a host of wartime pictures.

Electoral Registers being made available to Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, for the purpose of this September's Elected Governor Elections, contain only 14,000 of the 25,000 voters living in Letchworth Garden City.

If you are one of the 11,000 voters who 'opted out' from these registers but would like to vote in September's postal ballot to elect six Foundation Governors, register direct with us today

Members of the 500-strong John Buchan Society toured the world’s first Garden City last weekend after enjoying a series of presentations on renowned novelist of ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps’, the inspiration for three Hollywood blockbusters, and one time Governor General of Canada, John Buchan.

Long standing resident and historian, Peter Harkness, presented his case on Buchan’s alleged time spent ‘undercover’ in Letchworth between 1915-16, acknowledging that the fictional Garden City of Biggleswick from Buchan’s 1918 novel ‘Mr Standfast’, was based on Letchworth Garden City.

Find out about a whole host of regular activities and events taking place in Letchworth Garden City.

The latest edition of 'Spotlight' is available now from the Tourist Information Centre and is being delivered to 14,250 homes in Letchworth Garden City.

Published quarterly by the Foundation, Spotlight features details of regular weekly, fortnightly and monthly clubs, societies and support groups plus a wide variety of community events.

Event Highlights - February to April

The Garden City Heritage Awards 2009 ceremony, a celebration of architectural excellence in the Garden City, was organised recently by the Heritage Foundation at the Goldsmith Centre for Business, and presided over by Paul Palmer, Chairman of the Judges and Chairman of the Architectural Heritage Advisory Group.

Stop Press!

At 12.15pm today (Thursday), October 9, the Executive Director of the BBC One Show, rang the Heritage Foundation, to say that because of unexpected problems suddenly coming up with Angellica Bell, the presenter, she now cannot make it into the studio tomorrow night for her ‘live to camera’ piece, so the Letchworth Garden City feature has now been postponed until Wednesday, October 15.

Standalone Farm is now open daily until Sunday 2 November, from 11am until 5pm (last admission 4pm).

Stuart Kenny, Director General of Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, said: “We are pleased to have received a resolution to grant planning permission from North Herts District Council on Monday night for the re-development of The Wynd area. This follows the recent ‘green light’ from the District Council for Phase One of our Town Centre development plans – namely the Street Scene.

As part of the forthcoming national 'Big Draw' initiative, where people all over the country will be encouraged to draw, First Garden City Heritage Museum, Norton Way South, Letchworth Garden City, is running its own 'Big Draw' exhibition from October 1 until October 27, adding their contribution to the host of planned nationwide events.

When it comes to customer service, Letchworth Garden City’s Tourist Information Centre is top of the pile – and that’s official!