2019 September Tresaith Bwtcamp ***Fully Booked***

Thanks @Deborah-SSi fingers crossed. I can’t believe it takes over an hour on the bus from cardigan when it is only a 7 miles!

Thanks, Dee and Margaret, that helps.

Hello everyone, I’m Kristin and I’m a German living in Edinburgh with my family (2 kids, primary school age). I like Edinburgh very much.
My husband is a Welsh speaker and he talks Welsh to the kids but German to me.
I’m convinced people can only fully express their personality in their mother tongue, so it would be only fair if we were able to use both languages equally. I’ve got plenty of German friends here but know only one person who speaks Welsh (apart from my husband). Are there more?

I like cycling. And I like our garden and just like Julia watching bees fly, things grow, and flowers bloom. I also like doing Ashtanga Yoga which helps my back a lot.

I’m a violinist but my singing voice isn’t very impressive. Nevertheless I can read music and seeing that almost every participant expresses a passion for singing, maybe someone can bring some sheet music of Welsh songs in 4 parts? Maybe I can ask my husband for some music. What type of voice are you, Iestyn? I suspect we will be lacking at least one male voice though…seems to be a female-only cast.

On Sept 21 I will be taking the 14:10 Bus T5 from Aberystwyth that gets into Tan-y-Groes at 15:33. It would be great if someone could pick me up from there!
On Sept 28 there’s no rush for me to get back and I might plan to stay overnight in some nice place before going back to Edinburgh. Does anyone have any suggestions?

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Helo, my name is Austin. Im from the US originally, Ive been living in Cardiff for roughly 2 years with my partner.
Since arriving i made some friends who are welsh speakers and i just loved the sound and wanted to learn. Also pobl y cwm.
As there seems to be a musical theme, I play ‘old time’ banjo and (try to) sing.
I enjoying playing music, martial arts, hiking and learning.

Cant wait to meet you all!

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Hello everyone

My name is Liam and I come from Cardiff. I have always wanted to speak Welsh and I have taken Welsh lessons in the distant past. However, Now that my grandchildren are both in the local Welsh School I want to be able to speak to them in Welsh more fluently.

Like Iestyn I also enjoy singing even though I don’t have a great voice but in saying that I was in the Cardiff Blues choir for 9 years [singing quietly in the back]

Now that I have taken early retirement I have more time to spend fishing and cycling and watching Cardiff Blues.

I look forward to meeting you all and improving my Welsh.

Liam

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I am driving up in my car to Tresaith from Cardiff so if anyone wants a lift please let me know

Liam

I would be interested, Liam!

Hi Liam that would be fantastic as can easiky catch train from Bath to Cardiff and obviously share petrol costs
Best wishes
Karyn

Shw mae, Karyn?

If the Cardiff Lift doesn’t work (Thank you for the offer, Liam!) another route that might work out is train to Carmarthen, bus to Cardigan or Aberaeron, and then either the Cardi Bach (the little bus that goes to every single out-of-the way sandy cove and B&B, hence taking an hour to reach Tresaith) or the big bus (T5 I think) which will drop you off in Aberporth or TanyGroes, both about a mile from Tresaith. Someone can easily can pick you up from there. From Aberaeron, this might be the same bus as Violet Snow.

And just to add - great set of people here already - you can tell a lot about the kind of Bwtcamp coming by by the enthusiasm in the first set of introductions. So it’s looking like a good one!

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Ah fantastic Iestyn as I rang Travel Line Cymru trying to see if there was an easier route but they hadn’t even heard of Tresaith so wasn’t particularly helpful. However I was b chuffed with myself as managed to have a bit of a Welsh conversation and person I was speaking to was v complimentary but I also acknowledge that may be the script she has to go with lol

Best email me directly to arrange travel arrangements

liamjohnsullivan@hotmail.co.uk

Karyn

Best email me directly to make travel arrangements

liamjohnsullivan@hotmail.co.uk

Hello Kristin- re the sheet music, I have a book of hymns in Welsh for 4 parts, [ though I wouldn’t want to cause any offence to anyone who prefers not to sing religious music- please tell me if you or anyone else objects to this and I will, of course, understand). I am thinking that if several of us have ipads, we can copy the sheet from the book onto the ipads and read from there without having recourse to a photocopier. This can be done without wifi, of course. And if there IS wifi, I am sure we can find a recording on Youtube so that the non- music sight readers can hear it before we try it, and can get an idea of the tune. Grace

There’s normally a lot of singing on bwtcamp in my experience. Iestyn normally has a few lyric sheets lying around and a big book of Caneuon Gwerin too (folk songs). If you can, try and avoid the YouTube search, only because it’s hard to avoid adverts/reading English when you do. I found that can “break the spell” as it were.

You’re all going to have a great time!! I’m very jealous!

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Hello Anthony. thanks for this advice. And yes, I can see how youtube could « break the spell »! Grace

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Hello All,

Apologies that I am so late in introducing myself. I’m Victoria, I live in Ferryside, Carmarthenshire and would be very happy to offer lifts from either Ferryside or Carmarthen railway stations (Karyn and anyone else who needs one). Ferryside is a request stop (being a village) but not all trains stop here so there tend to be more choices for Carmarthen (which is the following stop) and is on my way to Tresaith. (Ferryside - Carmarthen 20 mins, plus Carmarthen - Tresaith, 45 mins by car.)

I grew up in Carmarthenshire and have lived in Ferryside since 2005, in between having lived and worked in many places including Scotland and Germany.

My ‘fluently bad’ German is far better than my Welsh, I am currently working with communities across West Wales where, due to my Carmarthenshire accent, people assume that I am a fluent Welsh speaker and I would like to visit Patagonia one day (having visited the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli a few years ago I was embarrassed to find that I couldn’t communicate with a Patagonian woman there as she spoke Welsh and Spanish and I only spoke English and German). These are the reasons that I signed up with SSiW.

I must confess that I have no hidden musical talents but I am a trier and will always join-in a sing-song. I have been to Tresaith before (being somewhat local) and as I am involved in watersports, would be really keen to hire one of the sit-on-top sea kayaks at the beach during any spare time (I thought I’d mention it should anyone else want to come prepared!).

I am really looking forward to this opportunity to get together with everyone to collectively have some fun and improve our Welsh.

…only 30 sleeps! :smile:

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Thanks @victoriab-severnwye for the v kind offer and your interesting account. Liam has kindly offered me a lift from cardiff which is fantastic and generous. It sounds like most people going are v fit and into their exercise and i’m probably going to end up being the resident sloth as not v active at all which I’m really embarassed about - look forward to meeting you x

Hi Karyn

No worries, I had read that you had arranged with Liam - just in case things change at all - looking forward to meeting you - all!

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Hi I’m Ceri, currently on holiday so haven’t caught up with emails. I don’t think I’m the mystery person as I got an email. Will reply to this thread properly next week.