Photos of the successful and well attended WARD 57 – DAWN WOMEN’S DAY EVENT held on the 25 of July at the Double Tree Hilton in Woodstock.
For the original details, invite and photos … Continue reading
Friday 13th of February saw over 100 seniors from a number of retirement homes and social groups from around the ward – including Arcadia, Nazareth House, the Marian Institute and the Woodstock and Salt River Health Committees catching buses to the 2015 senior citizens picnic hosted by Councillors Brett Herron and Paddy Chapple at the Green Point Urban Park which lies adjacent to the Cape Town Stadium.
The weather did not quite play along yet failed to dampen both the spirits of the seniors or the natural beauty of the setting. Lunch was eaten, an informative lecture was given and Valentine’s Day gifts were distributed by Brett. A truly enjoyable morning was had by all, as can be seen from the photos (Click to open full size images).
Weeeaaarrre Baaaaaack: Ward 57 and Alan Committie will be back on Friday 5th December at the Theatre on the Bay for this year’s Ward fundraiser. Starring the irrepressible One Man Committee of Comedy, Alan Committie is bound to have us in stitches as, well … Julie Andrews (???) in The Sound of Laughter and a whole host of mad persona including:
Two centuries of Ward 57 overlaid
Last night David Hart of the City Council’s Environmental Resource Management Branch gave a fascinating talk on the history of Woodstock. As his presentation progressed, he peeled away the layers of our past. Old paintings, photographs, drawings and maps graphically illustrated over two hundred years of Woodstock history as the suburb grew and developed in its dramatic setting from a windswept collection of estates and farm houses to the (still windswept) suburb it is today.
By cleverly overlaying early drawings and maps from the eighteen hundreds with current map surveys, we saw first a spider web of roads, and railway lines appear, then houses, buildings, and factories grow dense between the interstices in spurts and lulls of activity, leaving the old homesteads of the three bloeme – Zonnebloem (now Zonnebloem College); Leliebloem and Roodebloem a bit overwhelmed.
Woodstock has a unique, multifaceted and dramatic history. Before the land was reclaimed from the sea in the 1950s, ships were always at the mercy of the gales which lashed Table Bay. One of his pictures, taken of the Great Storm of 1822 shows a clipper sailing ship and numerous others in the background stranded high on Woodstock beach, surrounded by flotsam and jetsam, as a few people stroll around it.
Other maps and diagrams illustrate initial attempts at racially classifying areas of the suburb, while aerial and official photographs of District 6 starkly evidence the eventual devastation at all levels which followed. His last photograph is of children running into the surf on Woodstock beach.
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