Shropshire village celebrates jubilee with charity hill walk weekend

A Shropshire village is celebrating this year’s royal jubilee with a packed programme of events wrapped around its traditional hill walk weekend and raising money for three charities at the same time.

The organisers of the Trefonen Hill Walk have lined up a whole range of community activities for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee holiday in June.

The activities will be raising funds for Medecins Sans Frontieres – Doctors without Borders - which offers medical assistance across the world, plus local charities Oswestry Foodbank and the Ethos Group in Oswestry which supports people with life-changing injury or illness to lead independent lives.

One of the organisers, Helen Francis, who helped to launch the Trefonen Hill Walk event in 1991, said it would be a very busy few days with something on offer for everyone.

Activities will include walks for all ages and abilities, hill running, motorcycle trials, mountain biking, music nights, a duck race and a finale church service and village tea party.

The fun starts on Saturday, May 28th with a fashion show followed by a music night on Wednesday at the village hall.

The Across the Cynllaith hill walks takes place on Thursday June 2 with 10 and 16 mile routes on offer through the surrounding hills and woodlands starting from Trefonen Village Hall at 8am. The day ends with the lighting of a beacon at the Mynydd Myfyr which should be visible to other jubilee beacons across the area.

Family walks will be on offer on Friday, June 3 with refreshments available in a pop-up cafe at the New Barns Farm and the day ends with a Famous Quiz.

The action moves to two wheels and runners on Saturday June 4 with a hill run, motorbike trial and a mountain bike challenge. There will also be a duck race followed by the Trefonen football club’s barbecue and tug-of-war at The Barley Mow.

The schedule rounds off on Sunday, June 5 with a church service and village tea party at the village hall with a jubilee lunch and games on the playing field. There will also be a charity scarecrow trail in the village throughout the Jubilee holiday.

Ethos chief executive Fae Dromgool said that the charity, which has three properties in Oswestry for wheelchair users, was delighted to have been chosen as one of the organisations to benefit from the fund raising jubilee weekend.

“Our aim is to give people with life changing conditions the support they need to lead an independent life and reconnecting with their communities is an important part of that.  So it’s a great honour to be involved in such a community-centred event as Trefonen Hill Walk,” she said.

Further information about the Trefonen Hill Walk events is available on the website at http://www.trefonen-hillwalk.com or on the Trefonen Hill Walk Facebook page or by emailing at trefonenhww@gmail.com