Last Saturday night at the village hall saw a heaving good-humoured crowd all waiting, and wanting, to enjoy themselves at the Friends of Welland ferret-racing night. Families gathered, together with friends, to enjoy the night's festivities. It began at 7.30pm with the ferrets gathered and being booked-in by the race-night's authorities.

They, the ferrets, had their own table where they waited and contemplated their strategies for the night, in the full knowledge that they were to be appreciated whatever happened - no nastiness or bickering would be tolerated.

The seven races were sponsored by local businesses and individuals. The races consisted of four heats, two semi-finals and, of course, one final. Excitement increased as the levels progressed culminating in the Alphaplas Grand Final Stakes.

The very entertaining compere for the evening was John Willis (who gave a very useful list of form for each ferret but was unable to list the full parentage of each animal due to lack of complete information). John was assisted by the racing director, Richard Smith, the evening's scribe Paddy Hannigan and Mary Roberts, without whom, the evening would not of been possible.

At the beginning of each heat, the individual ferret was 'auctioned' for ownership for the night, which added some extra entertainment and people could place their 'bets' for each race at the Tote. There was supper included with the tickets at half-time, a raffle and visitors were urged to bring their own drink, however, for a donation, a limited selection of wines, beer and soft-drinks were available.

The evening finished about 11pm and everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves. The amount raised at the event was in excess of £1,000 towards our efforts for road-calming measures within the village.

A very big thank you to everyone who came and enjoyed themselves; to the ferrets (and their 'proper' owners), without whom the event would have been impossible; Les Willis (who lent the PA system for the night) and all who helped with the work on the night.

On another topic that will affect the whole village very shortly, the week commencing March 22 sees the start of kerbside recycling service rolling out through the whole of the district. The idea is that you sort - we collect and together we recycle. In brief: clear recycling sacks are for plastics and cans; purple recycling sacks are for paper and textiles and black sacks for residual waste. The clear and the purple sacks would be collected on alternate weeks, so for example week one might see one black sack and one purple sack being collected, then week two would see one black sack and one clear sack being collected and so on and so forth.

The supply of sacks would be delivered to you in good time (black sacks periodically in bulk and coloured sacks on a like-for-like basis, eg, if one week you put out two purple sacks, then two will be delivered to you that week).

Composters, at discounted prices, are available from Malvern Hills District Council's information hub at the main library in Malvern or, of course, at any garden centre. The only thing that you will have to take to a bottle-bank is glass. An information pack will be delivered to your door very shortly outlining the arrangements. If, having read the pack, there is anything you feel is unclear either ring the council on the number given or contact me and I will endeavour to help.