January Newsletter 2026 Part One

1. Welcome to January’s newsletter. I hope you all had a good Christmas and are looking forward to the new year and what it has in store for us. With a new year comes new challenges. After last year’s progress we will be continuing with the upgrading of the container workshop and will be working towards financial funding of the external walls to insulate the little heat we have in the workshops. Have you made your new year’s resolutions? The earliest New Year’s resolutions are thought to have been made by ancient Babylonians, around 4,000 years ago. They were also the first to hold recorded celebrations for the New Year – though theirs began in mid-March during the crop planting season. During this time, they made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any items they’d borrowed. So, if you still have that power drill or lawn mower you borrowed from your neighbour perhaps now is the time to return it! It’s widely believed that these promises were a precursor to the New Year’s resolutions we know today. In Ancient Rome in 45 BC, Julius Caesar changed the calendar so that New Year’s Day fell on January 1st. January was named after ‘Janus’ – the two-faced god of new beginnings whose spirit lived in doorways, gateways, and arches. One face looked back towards the past, and the other looked forward to the future. The Romans offered sacrifices to Janus and made promises of good conduct for the coming year. Ever since, the first day of the year has become the traditional occasion for looking back at past mistakes and resolving to do better the next year. Though instead of making promises to the gods, today many people make promises to themselves. Though it’s a disappointing truth backed by research, that a significant number of us abandon our New Year's resolutions just 17 to 18 days into January. So just a suggestion why not make a resolution to join in with the projects ongoing at WMS. I assure you that this will ensure you can keep your resolution beyond 18th January!

2. December saw us joining for our annual Christmas lunch which, from the photos, was enjoyed by all. A big thank you to Paul Turner again for his traditional organising of this popular event. We also were pleased to have Jaquie from ASDA join in with the festivities again and conducting the raffle for us. This along with our talks with fish and chip suppers and the Summer family BBQ have been the mainstay of our yearly social programme and certainly be continued in to 2026.

3. What events took place 100 years ago in 1926? It was the year of the General Strike with millions of workers struck in solidarity with coalminers facing wage cuts and longer hours. Do you a sense of deja vu? Albert Einstein is famous for his ‘Revolutionary theory of relativity’ and maybe in some cases his promotion of smart meters, but he was also inventor of the absorption refrigerator at year. Queen Elizabeth II was born along with Michael Bond the creator of Paddington Bear who is very popular the moment.