When I first moved to Wantage I found it quite difficult to find out what was happening in the area and what organisations exist here and I’m sure that new people moving into the area now have a similar problem.

The way to know what was happening used to be via parish notice boards, parish newsletters and the local papers.

That was, of course before everyone got online.

I understand that Facebook is often a good way to find out what is going on and can be searched for local clubs; those with Facebook savvy secretaries will have a presence.

Wantage.com has been a good source but once again relies on the secretary of the organisation keeping the information up to date.

About 5 years ago, I approached the District Council for funding to set up a website with enough staff time to find all local organisations and keep the contact details up-to-date.

The Town Councillors objected to the application on the grounds that they would be doing this so it wouldn’t be necessary for any other group to do it.

This has never happened.

The District Council hired a group of consultants to start work on a Leisure Strategy in 2019 and tried to survey local sports clubs, but didn’t manage to find many of them because there is no single source where all clubs and societies in the area can be found.

So eventually, the Wantage and Grove Campaign Group Executive decided that we had no alternative but to pull together a list ourselves.

After checking every source we could find we came up with a list of about 220 clubs, societies and local organisations and tried to contact them all to confirm that they still exist and that they are prepared to share their contact details on a website.

We’ve had replies from about 140 (so far) and about 110 have agreed that we can publish their details on our website.

The list is available at https://wantageandgrove.org/organisations.php

It is very diverse and includes local churches, sports clubs, choral groups, museums, dance groups, WI’s, gardening groups and organisations like the Vale Community Impact, and Sustainable Wantage, who support the local community.

It's a start, but isn’t complete and will need to be maintained, but if you know of a group who we have not contacted or who aren’t represented yet then please ask them to get in touch.