Welcome to the Village Link website. We’re a small not for profit organisation staffed by volunteers and cannot justify the expense of an SSL certificate. This certificate is what changes a web address from http to https. Google will soon change how they label sites; instead of labelling sites with a certificate as secure they will label sites without one as insecure. We keep this site as secure as we can and is as secure as it ever has been. Please do not be put off!

Take a little time to browse our pages and discover what goes on where and when in our area. Within our pages you can also find out who does what locally. If you would like to contribute anything to any of our pages, including your favourite picture from where you live in our area, please follow the links on the Contact Us page. We would love to carry all the info for your local club or association and best of all, it’s all for free!

The map on the left is fully navigable plus you can zoom in and out by using the controls in the top left corner and if you view the larger map you can enter street view by dragging the little yellow person onto the map to where you want to view and go for a virtual walk around our streets and lanes.

Get Out and About This Summer!!!

Guilsborough & Hollowell Branch

Thursday 06 June

80th Anniversary D-Day

National Beacon Lighting

Meet on the Village Green for 8.45pm

Saturday 22 June

Village Showcase Event

Come along and meet some of our local members and learn more about the RBL

(See Guilsborough News for more information)

Volunteer Centre

Whittons Lane

Towcester

NN12 6YZ

The launch of SNVB’s new welfare and wellbeing project

Community Connect is a project specifically focused on rural communities and will offer a range of services for the benefit of the most isolated and vulnerable people in our rural areas.

In 2023/2024, our experienced Welfare Team has had a remarkable impact in the communities in which they were active:

351 Household Support Fund supermarket vouchers issued

197 Refugee families supported (including SIM cards)

68 Debt advice

327 Support with successful benefits claims

9 Homelessness signposting and support

32 Domestic violence signposting and support

In order to reach as many West Northants residents as possible, we will be running the project both as a mobile service (via our Rural Information Centre vehicle) and as a pop up service through our presence at Welcoming Spaces, community cafes and other open groups.

Focused on improving the quality of life of West Northants residents, we will be specifically targeting rural communities and those who often find welfare and wellbeing support hard to access, whether due to lack of public transport, health and/or mobility issues, or a lack of awareness of local services.

We will be supporting people by acting as a ‘Solutions Hub’ for the following:

• Energy advice or energy saving tips
• Access to affordable food or food support, whether that is either referrals to Food banks or signposting to Community Food Larders
• Help in making a return to work, whether through upskilling, free online training, or finding relevant volunteering opportunities to build confidence and CV content
• Opportunities to discuss caring roles and dispensations available to carers such as Powers of Attorney, Deputyship, Carer’s Allowance, and the Blue Badge scheme
• Wellbeing and self-care advice
• Full benefits checks and support for Universal Credit, Council Tax advice, and other Government provisions.

We want to provide you and the residents of rural West Northants with an amazing service and would love to hear your ideas about how we can best achieve and exceed our objectives in your community. We are launching our mobile service on Wednesday 1st May so we would be delighted to hear from you as soon as possible. Our contact details can be found below. We look forward to hearing from you and working closely together on this vital initiative.

Yours Sincerely

The Community Connect Team

www.snvb.org.uk

01327 358264

communityconnect@snvb.org.uk

Tay Boddington’s Road to Recovery

Many of you will have heard of the terrible accident that Tay was involved in at a family barbeque recently where she suffered extensive burns. There has been a lot of response from the local community, so much so that a Go-Fund-Me page has been set up on their behalf with some of the proceeds being donated to Birmingham Children’s Hospital where Tay is being cared for. If you would like to donate you can find the Go-Fund-Me page here, along with more information.