Some Shorts

Crown Pools will be undergoing a £3.5m refurbishment programme this year, improving the heating, roof, reception area and changing rooms. A good investment.

The town's graffiti squad does a great job - graffiti seen one day is frequently gone the next. These people didn't deserve a journalist's nasty ridicule for removing the giant footprints used by Ipswich Central to advertise shopping and a pantomime. Communications break down sometimes, even in newspaper offices! The footprints set a dubious precedent anyway.

Ipswich in Bloom won a Silver Gilt award in the Anglia in Bloom competition 2009 after 5 years of not taking part. The long-lasting colourful displays were an adornment to the town.

Ipswich Transport Museum has been accredited by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), a great achievement for the initiative and hard work of a volunteer workforce. It's a pity their bid for £590,000 of Heritage Lottery funding was rejected.

V A Marriott Ltd of Hand ford Road, builders since 1895, are winding down operations. Sad to see the end of a local company which has had a happy relationship with the Society.

The university accommodation comprising 600 bedrooms in Duke Street (photo in July Newsletter) is now named Athena Hall, after the goddess of wisdom, reason and peace.

At long last a bust of Sir Alf Ramsey has been unveiled at Wembley - a worthy memorial, but photos seem to indicate it's much less life-like than Ipswich's statue in Portman Road!

lP-Art and Ipswich Music Day, held last June/July, have been given the regional Enjoy English Awards for Excellence. Plans are afoot for this year's lP-Art.

The new Sixth Form Centre, called Suffolk One, has rapidly taken shape on London Road opposite Holiday Inn. It opens in September and will eventually have 2,000 students.

The centenary of the death of Felix Thornley Cobbold has been celebrated by special events at Christchurch Mansion which he bought in 1895 and presented to the town on condition that the Council bought the park. The Cobbold Trail in the Mansion features many purchases made possible by his bequest.