THE CAMBRIAN

NEWSLETTER OF THE WELSH SOCIETY OF FREDERICKSBURG VIRGINIA

FOR JUNE 2010

JUNE PROGRAM

Our June meeting will be on the fourth Sunday in June due to Father's Day. Hal and Barb Gale will give a program on their recent (and first) trip to Wales. The meeting will be on Sunday 27 June at 7:30 in Faulkner Hall, St George's Church on Princess Anne St in Fredericksburg.

WELSH AUTHOR'S PLAY TO BE PERFORMED

Welsh author Jonathan Lichtenstein's play "The Pull of Negative Gravity" will be performed by the Georgetown Welder's Theatre Company from Friday June 25 until Sunday 10 July. Acclaimed by The New York Times as a "bruising and intimate play" that "beautifully portrays how the [Iraq] war destroyed one rural Welsh family without mentioning George W. Bush or Saddam Hussein". The Pull of Negative Gravity received the Fringe First Award for new writing at the 2004 Edinburgh Festival. The play will be reviewed for Ninnau, the Welsh American newspaper. Tickets are $20 general admission, $15 for those under 30 and $10 for students, seniors and military. For more information go to www.welderstheatre.org Location: Devine Studio Theatre, The Davis Performing Arts Center, Georgetown University, 37th and O St NW, Washington D.C. 20057

NORTH AMERICAN FESTIVAL OF WALES

In Portland, OR this year. See wngga.org for more details. 2-5 Sept 2010.

WELSH HERITAGE WEEK

In the Finger Lakes of NY. www.welshheritageweek.org for more details. 18 - 25 July 2010. Highly recommended by John Gwyn and Cheryl Mitchell.

NEBRASKA St. DAVID’s SOCIETY

The St. David’s Society of Nebraska will celebrate its 100^th Birthday this month. Our own Welsh band,  Moch Pryderi, will fly out and help them celebrate the event !

NEWS FROM WALES

SEARCH FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF WELSH CHOIRS

A search is on to form 20 choirs involving 200 boys across the South Wales Valleys to follow in the footsteps of the TV-contest winners Only Men Aloud. Only Boys Aloud - the brainchild of Only Men Aloud founder and musical director Tim Rhys Evans - will run across the South Wales Valleys with the aim of creating the 20 choirs, each of which will be mentored by a member of Only Men Aloud. Only Boys Aloud will see a search for young men aged 14 to 19 who want to sing, but are not currently members of an existing group or choir. The new choirs will be unveiled at the National Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale at the end of July. Only Men Aloud arrived in schools across Rhondda Cynon Taf this week to create a song and dance about their search for the next generation of male singers. They visited Porth County Comprehensive, Tonypandy Community College, Y Pant and Hawthorn High to launch the Only Boys Aloud initiative. Eudine Hanagan, Cabinet Member for Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, said: “It is so exciting for our schools to be involved in this search for the next generation of male singers.
“Only Men Aloud have helped to keep the choral tradition that we are so renowned for, here in the valleys, alive. “They have given the music a fresh, modern new appeal and their success on the television has also raised the profile of male choirs. I wish them every success in the Classical Brit Awards in which they are nominated in the Album of the Year category.
“I know Rhondda Cynon Taf is brimming with talent and I hope to see our County Borough represented in this groundbreaking campaign.” (News Wales)

SHAKESPEARE AND WALES

William Shakespeare is known world wide as the greatest English dramatist, but scholars from around the world gathered at Cardiff University to discuss the strong influence of Wales on his work. Theatre director Michael Bogdanov gave the keynote lecture at a symposium on Friday to mark the publication of Shakespeare and Wales: From the Marches to the Assembly, an anthology of scholarly essays. Its editors intend the book as 'a Welsh correction to a long-standing deficiency' in the popular view of Shakespeare as a primarily English playwright. Bogdanov says stressed how the Bard of Avon was inspired by the humanist character of the Welsh and may in turn have influenced the Welsh national identity. "Cwm Pucca - Puck Valley - near Neath is supposed to be the setting for A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare's Cave is there," he says. The play Cymbeline - inspired by an account by Geoffrey of Monmouth - features a reference to "blessed Milford", believed to be the haven of that name in Pembrokeshire where the princes Guiderius and Arviragus are in hiding. Professor Richard Wilson of Cardiff University's School of English, Communication and Philosophy said: "This is the first international conference specifically on Shakespeare and Wales. It comes at an exciting moment when we are at last realising the power of Wales in Shakespeare's imagination". (News Wales)

PLEA MADE FOR CHANGES TO WELSH LANGUAGE LAW PROPOSALS

by Martin Shipton, Western Mail

FOURTEEN major bodies have made a written plea for changes to the Assembly Government’s Welsh language law plans.

The appeal comes amid fears of fresh threats to the language, and follows the case of a patient who was told a Welsh language medical consent form had no legal validity.

In an open letter to the Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones, the organisations – including teaching union UCAC, Friends of the Earth Cymru and language specialist Professor Colin Williams – argue: “The language is facing threats from many directions: cuts in S4C’s budget, the Assembly scrapping its bilingual record of proceedings, and the future of Welsh-medium education in the capital city. The lack of linguistic rights to, and official status for, Welsh, are central to these challenges.

“We welcome the Government’s efforts to develop legislation to affirm the Welsh language’s situation.

However, since the publication of the draft Welsh Language Measure, organisations, lawyers and specialists have been unanimous in their view that the Measure in its present form does not fulfil the Government’s promises.”The letter calls for an “unambiguous statement” that Welsh is an official language in Wales.It added: “The evidence shows that linguistic rights, official status and an independent Commissioner would improve services through the medium of Welsh for our members across Wales. These are the amendments that we would like you, as Minister, to table to the Welsh Language Measure.”

A spokesman for Cymdeithas Yr Iaith Gymraeg, the Welsh Language Society, said: “Establishing in a Measure that the Welsh language is an official language and equal to the English language in Wales would be an appropriate and effective manner of halting the corrosive effect of laws that have established, over centuries, the norm of removing the Welsh language from public life in Wales, and from many other domains. Take the example of Bethan Wyn Jones at Ysbyty Gwynedd, who sent evidence to us.

“She signed a consent form in Welsh last year for an endoscopy. The doctor explained that she had to sign the English form as there was no legal or official validity to the Welsh form. That raises the question of whether she would have received her treatment had she signed only the Welsh form.

“If doctors had an awareness of the official status of the Welsh language, they would realise that signing the Welsh form was completely legally acceptable.”

Another of the organisations which signed the letter was women’s voluntary group Merched y Wawr. Its national director Tegwen Morris said: “Now is a very important time for the language, and this letter is a sign of the fact that the Welsh Government could do more to strengthen their draft law.”

Author and language campaigner Catrin Dafydd said: “I welcome this letter because it adds to the calls from solicitors and barristers of high regard in Wales who are in favour of strengthening the measure substantially. This is now a consensus amongst organisations, language and legal experts that the Measure, in its present form, doesn’t deliver the Government’s promises.

“It’s extremely significant that so many organisations, as well as specialists in the legal field, are raising the question of the lack of an unambiguous statement.”

An Assembly Government spokesman said: “The proposed Measure is currently subject to scrutiny and consultation, including formal constitutional examination by Assembly committees, and we will listen carefully to the views that are presented during, and following, that process.”

The Cambrian

A publication of:

The Welsh Society of Fredericksburg Inc.

PO Box 723, Fredericksburg VA 22404

(540)- 659-1879

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