BADJER – ‘Building and Developing Jacksdale (and Westwood’s) Environmental Resources’ was formed in late 1999. As an ex-mining community just starting to recover from the closure of the local colliery in 1985, we realised that we had not had our fair share of coalfield regeneration funding and decided to do something about it. The village’s public areas were not as tidy as they could have been, there were no community flower beds and no memorials to recognise the village’s past achievements.
2002 Westwood School children help out on the many BADJER Litter Picks
Under the leadership of our then local councilor, Edward Holmes, we decided that the village needed a ‘voice’ and that we should set about ‘BADJERING’ a few people to get things done. In December 1999 the first issue of our village magazine ‘BADJER NEWS’ hit the streets, letting villagers know about what we intended to do.
Community Centre Flower Bed
BADJER’s very first project was to overhaul the community centre flower bed, fit new edging stones and stock it with flowers. (Planting was funded by Jacksdale Garden Centre for several years following.) In the Autumn 2000 we organised village bulb planting days when local schools, cadets, brownies, pilots and our local youth club members helped us plant hundreds of daffodil bulbs along the village grass verges and in the school grounds. In Spring 2001 we hosted a village ‘Planning For Real’ Day, Jacksdale School made a massive 3D map of the village and hundreds of villagers came along with ideas and suggestions on how we could improve the area. We lost no time in putting those ideas into action, footpaths were trimmed and cleared, dog fouling was campaigned against, railings were painted by volunteers and one village litter pick uncovered a cache of stolen goods which were successfully returned to the rightful owner.
2004 Foundations are laid for the Memorial Garden
Flowers bloomed in baskets and lamp posts all around us and villagers and businesses competed to win a coveted ‘Jacksdale in Bloom’ award. In fact, we achieved so much so quickly, that we entered the Best Kept Village Competition coming in as Runner’s Up. And by 2002, things were going so well, we had the courage to enter the ‘Calor Gas Village of the Year Competition’ a national award recognizing community warmth and achievement. The village rallied together and we put on a two hour televised presentation to explain why our village was so special. To our amazement we were national runners up and outright winners of the Regional Award.
The New Skate Park on Wharf Green
In it’s time BADJER has brought many improvements to the village, a skate board park on Jacksdale Recreation Ground, re-landscaping of Wharf Green and the new Nature Trail, The Jubilee Garden on Wagstaff Lane/Palmerston Street, the Community Centre Memorial Garden and Mosaics, Pye Hill Colliery Pit Wheel and Pit Tub Planter. We even organised a Christmas Lights Fund so the village looked brighter at Christmas. BADJER, with the help of local iron worker Dave Martin, installed the new black stanchions and rail bars at the village war memorial and added the stone planters.
June 2009 The New Soldier Arrives
The war memorial has always been a centre focal point to our village and one of BADJER’s proudest moments was to work with Jacksdale Heritage to help return our missing soldier statue to the village in 2009. BADJER financed the cost of the planning and structural survey needed to assess whether the old memorial could take the weight of a new statue. It was costly, but turned out to be a risk worth taking when we learnt that the Nottingham Community Foundation could finance the making of the soldier and that Grassroots would fund a day to celebrate its unveiling.
We now celebrate ‘Soldier Day’ every year in June to mark the return of our soldier, a great community gala day for all the family where local sports groups and clubs show off their skills, dog owners compete to win a ‘Scrufts Dog Show’ rosette and our school pupils delight us with their Maypole dancing.
The Return of the Maypole June 2010
BADJER also now organises an annual Victorian Christmas Fair as well as other community coffee mornings throughout the year. We also have a sub-group ‘Crafty BADJER’s who meet weekly to knit, sew and embroider.
BADJER News, thanks to our hard working editor, distribution manager and a team of local distributors, goes from strength to strength and is now in its 12th year.
Since BADJER’s formation in 1999, the villagers and our local businesses have been behind us all the way. They have been our inspiration and encouragement and make all our hard work worthwhile.
BADJER holds meetings at Jacksdale Community Centre on the last Friday of every month at 7pm – all are welcome. If you wish to get in touch with BADJER please see the ‘Contact Us’ link, our chair, Dorienne Scotter will be very pleased to hear from you.