Jun05Newsletter

The Annual Parish meeting was held on Wednesday 11^th May at 7.30 p.m. in Little Milton School Library. The meeting was attended by all Parish Councillors, the Clerk, the District Councillor and the County Councillor. There were three members of the public present. The report given by the Chairman of the Parish Council is included in full along with abbreviated reports from the Clerk and the County Councillor.

I have now completed my second year as Chairman of Little Milton Parish Council, and it remains an honour and privilege to do so. Little Milton is a wonderful place to live, and it is largely due to the efforts of so many people who give their free time to the village who make it so. It also makes the job of the Parish Council easier, because we would be incapable of achieving very much at all without their help. A lot has happened in the last 12 months.

Since last year we have built the Multi Use Games Area, and I am delighted to say that the facility is attracting people from other villages as well as our own to enjoy sport all year round, and we are generating a healthy income as a result. The recreation ground as a whole is now being managed by a team led by Mark Willis, and thanks to them we have a thriving facility open to all.

We also have new traffic calming measures at each end of the village, thanks to the efforts of the A329 committee, and it will be interesting to see how long it takes to educate drivers that priority is always given to traffic exiting the village. Thanks go to Alison Shelton, Dave Taylor, Mark Platts and the rest of the committee for their determination to make the village a safer place. Plans are now being developed for the centre of the village.

The Primary School, led by Eve Hunter and Isabel Fox as Chair of Governors has recently received a superb Ofsted report, confirming what we already knew that we have an excellent school in our midst, with rising pupil numbers, and congratulations and thanks go to all of the staff and governors for their achievement.

The Orchard Pre School has also been subject to Ofsted, and again thanks to the efforts of Yvonne Brammer, Linda Lovegrove, Val Coates, and the rest of the staff and governors the school achieved superb results again and again the Pre School is full to bursting.

There is also a growing feeling of excitement about the new village Hall, being built as we speak, and thanks are due to Richard Alliston as Chairman of the Village Hall Committee and the rest of the committee members for their hard work and single-minded determination to give the village a facility second to none. I would also like to thank the former trustees without whose hard work we would not have the funds available to build this facility, and to everyone in the village who generously made a donation, or organized a fund raising event. You will no doubt have noticed your Precept increase from this Parish Council due to the loan to complete the Hall, but I do believe that we are easily capable of paying this off sooner rather than later from the events and users which will come back to the new Hall.

St James Church continues to thrive, despite the efforts of the Church Commissioners to extract ever higher payments from us to keep it going. We achieve this through the efforts of the PCC, led by Victor Storey and Raymond Fergusson, who continue to raise ever larger amounts through the fete, Rofford Teas, and other events. Raymond Fergusson has organized the fete and has sold all the raffle tickets almost single handedly for more years than I can count, and Teresa Quested organizes a cake mountain and an army of volunteers for two Rofford teas events every year. We also enjoyed a wonderful donation from Joyce Inge from her plant sale, which raised £1,000 for the Church, and from Paul Jeffery, who managed to extract more money from Gordon Brown than anyone thought possible!

Thanks are also due to Simon and Sarah Oddie, who have kindly donated their wonderful garden and grounds for the Fete each year, and to Jeremy and Hilary Mogford, who allow us to invade their premises with teas, scones, sandwiches and cakes in June and September, and dent their stock of champagne!

In other villages, just one of these achievements would be just cause for celebration. But Little Milton as ever punches well above its weight-we have amazing people who set ever higher standards for themselves and the village, and they succeed in making the lives of people who live here better.

The Newsletter is yet another success story, with rising advertising revenues and more pages of news and events. This is entirely due to the efforts of Raymond Fergusson, who acts not only as editor, but credit controller as well, so that the Parish Council funds are ever better as a result.

Annie Rogers, Alison Shelton and Shirley Thomas continue to man (or woman!) the Post Office and act as the focal point of all the gossip in the village-an essential element of village life! It is as always a labour of love for all the staff and especially Annie, who deserts her home village of Chalgrove to give us our Post Office. We hope she never decides to retire, and will stay on for the new facility up on the Recreation Ground.

Extra thanks go the Ann Hawkins and her efforts for the WI (and keeping the Lamb busy!) and to Janet Betts, whose work for Age Concern may often go unnoticed, but never unappreciated. Thanks are also due to David Haenlein, who has single handedly created the Little Milton website, and keeps it updated and fresh. I recommend a visit to www.littlemilton.org.uk

But life isn’t always a bed of roses. We remain concerned about the Lamb Pub, the Post Office, and the future of the land adjacent to the Recreation Ground. A village like ours cannot take anything for granted, and we as a Parish Council must always be alive to future threats to our welfare.

Finally it has been my pleasure to serve the village amongst my fellow councillors, Mabel Wood, Barry Coward, Isabel Fox, Alison Shelton and my superb Vice Chair Simon Oddie, and again Raymond Fergusson as Parish Clerk. They each make me look far more competent and organized than I deserve (particularly Raymond), and I bask in their reflected glory and wisdom. We are always greatly helped by John Nowell Smith our District Councillor, and David Turner, our County Councillor, who have been tremendous allies for our cause at District and County level. We could not have better friends than these! Thanks to both of them for their hard work on our behalf on a wide range of issues.

The Clerk reported that the Parish Council conducts its finances within the framework of an overall budget and that the Parish Council monitors its income and expenditure during the year and takes any corrective action to ensure that it achieves its financial targets. The year ended 31st March was dominated by the investment in the MUGA and although self financing the investment was £68,265. Another major cost is the newsletter, £3,798 but this cost is offset by the level of advertising income. The cost of maintaining the recreation ground was £1,594 although the Parish Council does receive an annual contribution of £500 from the LEA as the school uses the facility. The Parish Council spends just under a £1,100 supporting community facilities, such as the Post Office, Car Hospital Scheme, Bus Tokens and the Village Web Site. The cost of the Council administration is £1,770 and includes the cost of the Clerk, Insurance and Audit Fee.

The Parish Council reserves at 31st March stood at £7,971 an increase during the year of £719. The Clerk stated that it was important to maintain a prudent level of reserves to meet any unforeseen circumstances and there have been a few in previous years such as Stone Bassett and Gipsy site enquiries.

David Turner reported that he had served Little Milton as County Councillor for sixteen years and had enjoyed working with the Parish Council during that time and looked forward to working with the Council during the next four years. He then detailed a number of activities that he had been involved in and highlighted in particular the various traffic calming measures as well as his efforts to impose a weight restriction on the A329. He also drew attention to the TB 103 bus service that is run by Thames Travel and he would be interested to hear from residents about how useful and well used this is and what changes would result in amore useful service. ( A full report is on the website)

The Annual Parish Meeting elected Mr Stuart McGill as Chairman and Mr Simon Oddie as Deputy Chairman for the next Parish Council year.

The Council meeting held on Wednesday 13th April was attended by six Councillors, the District Councillor, the County Councillor, the Clerk and four members of the public.

The Clerk reported that he had written to Punch Taverns expressing the Parish Council’s support of the pub to the life of the community. Although there had been no response to the letter the Parish Council had been notified of the transfer of the Licence to an interim manager.

The Clerk informed the meeting that his investigations had determined that OCC Highways did not own the land in question, nor was it registered with the Land Registry. He reported that he had the necessary forms to apply to have the land registered as a Village Green under the Common Registration Act 1965 and would submit the necessary application.

The Chairman reported that 103 questionnaires had been returned and the analysis of the results would be published in the Newsletter. He also explained that it was the intention to use the results when developing the business plan for the Post Office. The Clerk highlighted the need to identify clear ownership of any future business plan.

The Clerk presented the Annual Return for the year ended 31^st March 2005 and highlighted to members of the Council the key sections. The Parish Council approved the accounts and the Statement of Assurance (section 2) of the Annual Return.

The Chairman read out a letter from a resident expressing some concerns about the extension. After full consideration of the application the Parish Council voted by a majority of 5 to 1 to recommend refusal of the application for the following reasons:

· Concerns that there would be an adverse effect on the amenities of nearby properties

· The design of the proposal was not in keeping with the character of the surrounding properties

· The introduction of a velux window into the existing roof structure as well as velux windows in the proposed new roof structure

The Chairman informed the meeting that the appeal made by the applicants for a new agricultural vehicular access had been dismissed by the Planning Inspectorate. The main reason for refusal was the proposal would not preserve the character and appearance of the Little Milton Conservation Area.

The Chairman reported that the application had been referred to the SODC Planning Committee and would be considered at its meeting on May 18th. The Parish Council asked the Clerk to request a site

visit by members of the Planning Committee, as they believed it was important for the Planning Committee to fully appreciate the uniqueness of the site before they made any decision. Mr John Nowell –Smith offered to host a meeting on Monday 16rh May to agree the representations that would be made by himself, the Parish Council and immediate neighbours as each group have a five minute slot at the Planning Committee meeting.

Mr Richard Alliston updated the Council on the current status of the new Village Hall. The information was a resume of that circulated to each household within the Village. An updated Capital Budget was circulated to the Council. Mr Alliston reported that he had spoken with the insurers in respect of the security of the new hall and there was no requirement to install a burglar alarm. However the Trustees are keeping the matter under review.

Mrs Alison Shelton reported that she had received a comment about the size of the existing gate into the Play Area, as it could not accommodate a double buggy. The matter has been referred to the Recreation Ground Committee

The next meeting will be held on Wednesday 8th June 2005 at 8.00 p.m. in Little Milton School Library unless there is a need to convene any planning or other meetings. All notices of Council

meetings are displayed on the Parish Council Notice board at the corner of Haseley Road and the High Street.

Please note that the complete minutes of the Council are now included on the Council website www.littlemilton.org.uk

Residents can see the records of the policies and practices of the Parish Council including minutes, financial information and responses to planning consultations, on request from the Parish Clerk (Raymond Fergusson –279150). Current Council member are:

For a charge of £35 residents can arrange for their unwanted vehicle to be collected from within the District and a charge of £7 per bulky item e.g. fridge furniture etc. To arrange this service residents can call the Public Amenities Team on 01491 823416 or print a copy of the form from the Council’s website www.southoxon.gov.uk .

From today (12 May 2005) residents will be able to buy recycling sacks from South Oxfordshire District Council to use with its green boxes or as an alternative to them. The move follows feedback from residents that they would like to recycle more, but do not have the room for additional green boxes.

The Council currently provides free green boxes for recycling paper, cardboard, tins, cans and plastic from the kerbside and the new sacks will offer the same service. The sacks cost £2.50 for bundles of 25, which is just 10p a sack and are available from venues across South Oxfordshire.

David Dodds, South Oxfordshire District Council's Cabinet Member for Waste Management, says:

"The Council already has a very good recycling rate of 25% thanks to the thousands of people taking part in our green box scheme every year. However, we have a tough target to reach this year of 29% and to achieve this we need more people to recycle and those who do to recycle more.

Residents told us that space was an issue affecting their participation in our scheme and by offering recycling sacks we could overcome this. We listened to what they said and are giving residents the choice of using green boxes, recycling sacks or both to recycle, which we hope will encourage more people to take part and those who do to recycle more. This additional service together with the pilot we will be running over the summer to collect garden waste for composting will ultimately help us achieve our targets".

The sacks for recycling and those for collecting garden waste for composting will be on sale from our one stop shops in Didcot, Thame and Henley, Wallingford Town Council, our offices in Crowmarsh Gifford as well as a number of local outlets throughout the district.

Our nearest Rural Community Waste Sites are at Chalgrove Village Car Park and Wheatley Primary School, Littleworth Road.

The Oxfordshire County Council Waste Recycling Centres at Redbridge and Oakley Wood are open Monday to Saturday 8.30 a.m. – 4.00 p.m. and Sunday 9.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m.

If anyone would like to help with the flowers please contact Teresa Quested on 01844 278922

Just to let Villagers know that the Bell Ringers will be ringing in St. James’ Church, Little Milton on

Listening to the radio late at night, you can hear some fascinating programmes. One such programme I heard recently was a debate about human cloning. As the arguments went to and fro, something one speaker said, made me think. She said that human cloning ought to be banned because it was seen as a threat to human identity. It conjured up in my mind a vision of the 'brave new world', where we are all exactly the same, reduced to being plastic people, living and moving and thinking in exactly the same plastic way. I could visualize a priest standing at the font and saying, 'I baptize you James at Globalnet.co.uk. No.l, No. 2, No.3'.

Some years ago there was screened on our televisions a play called 'The Lakes'. In it three young girls drown when their boat capsizes. At the church door after the Requiem Mass for the girls, one mother turns to the priest and screams, 'You never once told me I was going to see her again.' Surely, she claimed, she had the right to hear that from her priest. But he was striving to be honest because he no longer believed in that comforting idea. Death is about identity too.

Cloning would threaten our unique identity at birth, just as it is threatened by non-existence at death. Yet like that priest, there are many who believe that life after death is an illusion. They would say that we have to recognize that there is no 'meeting up with loved ones in Heaven', and in the modern age we should grow out of an idea that belonged to the infancy of the human race.

But I think 'identity' is all to do with what we make of the word 'soul'. It's a word we lose at our peril. We know it isn't a part of the body like the heart or the brain, however significant they are to life experience and character. It is to do with an identity precious to God-not to be lost or wasted. The soul is founded on a relationship with God through his love-in the first place as his creature and then through our life-rather as human love embraces us and changes our whole self.

We know that our basic identity is conceived through a sperm and an ovum coming together, leading to the intense miracle of birth and life. We know that we can identify a person by a fragment of the DNA. If God is able by these personal mysteries to bring us into being, it seems to me that he is able to bring us to new birth in Heaven. Jesus taught us, 'In my father's house are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you.'

I don't believe that Heaven is like a celestial internet, but the amazing capacity of the internet does lead me to believe that in other dimensions there is 'space' for us with God in Heaven. The Bible speaks of our being entered in the Book of Life where our soul is destined to be caught up in the wonder of the love of God-not as clone or e-mail address, but in our full identity.

We record with deepest regret and sorrow the death of Ross at home on the 26tl] April. He was 64. We all knew and loved him as a very congenial gentle man. The eloquent tribute paid to him by a colleague from his days in marketing and teaching spoke volumes of a man of great integrity. The very full church in itself reminded us all of the high esteem he was held in our community. He loved living in Little Milton. We shall all remember him and his amazing garden which will be a lasting reminder of him. All of our hearts and prayers go out to Mary, Katherine and Bryn and all the family in their sorrow and loss.

Within a few weeks Emma Duncan and her family will be returning to Australia. Whilst she has been with us in the village she has, when she could, played the organ or her violin for Services and we truly owe her a debt of gratitude. We cannot thank her enough. We now look to the future. Jane Willis plays for us when she is available, and that is so good and marvellous of her, but the P.C.C. wondered whether there are other musicians and instrumentalists who would be willing to help us out occasionally with the hymns for our Sunday Sevices. Indeed there might be people who would love to play a piece of music or so in church for us when they can. If you feel you can help us in any way at all, then please do speak with me or Raymond. We would love to hear from you.

Thank you to everyone who collected and everyone who gave during Christian Aid week this year in Little Milton. The final total will be printed in next months newsletter.

ST JAMES’ CHURCH SUNDAY SCHOOL

In May we were visited by Steve from Drayton St. Leonard who came along to see what we do as they hope to set up a Sunday School in Drayton. We’re hoping to keep the link going for the future and share/exchange ideas and meetings.

Our visit to the Godly Play Room in Abingdon was a great success and the children have written about their time in the room in several enthusiastic accounts. These together with photographs are up at the back of the Church on our boards.

Our dates for June are June 5^th at 11.00 am in Church and June 19^th at 10.30 am, a Brunch meeting at Christine’s at 1 Chiltern View.

NB. The 10^th Anniversary Party will be on Saturday October 1st between 4 and 7.00 pm in the New Village Hall. All past, present and future children, teachers and their families and friends will be welcome.

We are all set for our annual fete; all we need is the weather to brighten up. If you have any items for the stalls bring them on the morning or contact the stallholder. We always need help on the morning to set up so any help would be greatly appreciated. The church bells will be rung around midday to alert everyone to come along at 2.00 p.m.

We want to let you know our fabulous news in adopting a baby girl. Katie was placed with us on 3rd May 2005 on her first birthday.

The prize wining numbers, for May 2005, were drawn by the Little Milton School Children at their Good Work Assembly and were as follows:

Sarah Sadler 278563

The children from the Orchard Pre-School and people from the village joined us for our Ascension Day Service in St James Church at the beginning of May. The whole school took part in a play, which began with the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, which gave us a background to the Passover feast, and ended with the Ascension of Jesus. Throughout the performance, the children sang various songs beautifully. The service was followed by the traditional consumption of a vast number of iced buns, and the sponsored Ascension Day Walk to Great Haseley! Sponsorship money is now coming in, and will be put towards the purchase of Smart Boards for our classrooms.

Our Maypole Evening will be held on Friday 1st July, and we would like to extend a warm welcome to anyone from the village that would like to attend this very enjoyable evening. It is always a joyous event, with Little Milton residents accompanying the children with on piano accordions, recorders, guitars and other instruments, and the children taking part in maypole and country dancing. There will be a licensed bar, raffle, pig roast or vegetarian meal and lots of salads. If you would like to come

FRIENDS OF WELLS FARM

The next work party will be on Sunday 5^th June in Wells Farmyard at 10.30 a.m. if you have not been before come along and enjoy the experience. It is an opportunity to enjoy the country air and do some work at the same time!

LITTLE MILTON VILLAGE HALL – ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Notice of Annual General Meeting to be held on Wednesday 15^th June 2005 at 7.30pm in St James Church, Little Milton.

The meeting will receive the annual report of the Trustees, the annual financial report for the Year ending 31^st March 2005, elect Trustees for the forthcoming year and take questions on the progress of the charity during the last year, toward its objectives.

VILLAGE HALL

Building

The building work commenced on schedule on May 9^th and rapid initial progress has been made. The walls and roof line are already in place and give some idea of what an attractive building this will be. Although the shell of the building goes up rapidly, the real work is on the inside in terms of fixtures fittings etc and this will take the total build time to about 15 weeks. At this stage, we are on schedule for completion in late August.

The only significant amendments thus far have been to the kitchen which we believe must be well designed and properly functional, our thanks to Rob Gelling for his hard work in this respect. The addition of further functional units has led to some increase in cost but again we are seeking to offset these increases, with savings elsewhere. We are negotiating the cost of these amendments with Pinelog but we believe these will net out at an increase in cost expressed in hundreds of pounds, not thousands of pounds.

Finance

As at the end of April restricted funds stood at £42,684 to which we have now added £17,851 of Grant funding from SODC bringing the total to £60,535, while unrestricted funds stood at £2,626. An amended capital budget was presented to the Parish Council, which provided for an increase in cost over the original plan by £647. Against that, both grant and cash funding have increased, reducing the shortfall compared to the original plan by £818. Again, you must also consider that much better value has been achieved within these figures.

Children’s litter clean up on May 14^th. Saturday 14^th stayed dry and we had a very successful morning thanks to Megan Arnold, Thomas Marriot, Charlotte Watts, Tristan Spence George Dennis, Anna Longshaw, Kate Longshaw, Sacha Rond-Alliston and their respective parents. What appeared at first to be a fairly litter free lane in fact yielded almost 14 waste sacks of rubbish and the team almost managed to build a car from the parts found in the ditches. Stuart McGill is in touch with Jeremy and Hilary Mogford to discuss the final outcome.

Quiz night – on 21^st May - Another successful evening and despite slightly lower numbers, we certainly enjoyed ourselves more than Javine during the evening. Hopefully, our next Quiz night will be in our new Village Hall.

July – Village Open Gardens - Would you consider opening your garden on July 10th? If so, please contact Richard Alliston on 01844 278045.

September – Opening Party celebration – has a provisional date of September 4^th. We have in mind, family events in the afternoon and for the evening, a Picnic Jazz Concert. This will be confirmed once we are slightly closer and are more sure of our dates.

Licensing

As mentioned in last months newsletter, we have need for a mature adult volunteer to become the Designated Premises Manager and License holder. Could you be that person? By doing so, you would be making a valuable contribution to your community. If you would like to know more, please contact Richard Alliston on 01844 278045.

The floodlighting for the MUGA will be permanently switched off for the months of June and July, due to the longer summer evenings, and the planning stipulation that the lighting must be switched off after 9.30 pm.

The 5-a-side football on Wednesday evenings will end officially on 31^st May, and will recommence in September. These Wednesday evenings have been well supported since January by an average of 10 people each week, and may continue on an informal basis into June.

The tennis net will soon be erected on the Astroturf court. If you take it down to play other sports, please re-erect it. The committee are still searching for some sort of box/trunk to store the net in. If anyone has such an item, please let us know.

Common Ragwort (Senecio Jacobaea) is an obvious weed in July to August when it grows up to 3 feet tall and produces a large bright yellow composite flower head but it is poisonous to all animals and as such is a listed weed.

Due to the high risks involved with this plant being eaten by animals, made into hay etc a new Bill has become law to reinforce the need for its control. The Ragwort Control Act came into force on 20^th February 2004 as an addition to the 1959 Weed Act. A code of practice regarding ragwort control has been produced and this will be admissible in evidence in enforcement proceedings under the Weeds Act 1959.

It is this time of the year when we should be working to clear our land of ragwort in its early rosette stage. This can be done easily by spraying it with a herbicide or alternatively with a natural non-toxic environmentally friendly spray called Barrier H. During July and August the BHS ragwort clearance

volunteers will also be working throughout Oxfordshire hand pulling the plant where it has managed to keep growing. They believe in keeping our county a safer place for animals and humans and would welcome any help that can be offered. If you think you can help or require more information please contact me on the number listed below.

Important Points to remember about common ragwort

Should you see ragwort growing in areas controlled by the following authorities please contact them giving the exact locations of where you have seen it.

Keep up to date with all the news, Trust walks, latest press releases, Trust Wildlife Fact sheets by visiting our website at www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/berksbucksoxon

The WI is a busy campaigning body that lobbies Parliament; a range of other public bodies, as well as relevant businesses and individuals on issues that women in rural areas care about. At our May meeting we decided to support these two resolutions to be taken forward to the Annual General Meeting of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes.

1. Farmgate Milk Prices – WI members are urged to do all in their power to raise public awareness of the unfair difference between the retail prices of milk and the price paid to the farmer. Dairying is still important in the UK (the 7^th largest milk producer in the world), but is threatened by average farmgate prices not being high enough to cover farmers’ costs. A major difficulty is that when consumers pay more very little of that goes back to the farmer, instead going to the processors - even when the retailers have asked for the increase to be paid in full to the farmers.

One effect of this has been to put more pressure on smaller farmers, putting some out of business and increasing pressure on the remainder to adopt more intensive farming methods. As small farms are known to usually provide better and more diverse habitats for wildlife, this will have a significant impact on our rural landscape.

We will lobby our politicians, retailers and processors to give farmers a fair share of the profit from liquid milk and dairy products. Buying directly from farms –

door-step deliveries, through shops or farmers markets - is one way we can all help!

2. Care of our environment – WI members are called to take further action to reduce waste and conserve resources in their own homes and communities; to lobby manufacturers, retailers and decision-makers to reduce waste in the production, packaging and transportation of public and consumer goods.

This resolution continues the long-standing campaigning stance of the WI to care for and protect our environment. In detail, the WI wants to see these issues tackled: - reduce plastics use; increase recycling; avoid the creation of waste in the first place; and increase recycling of metals which is easy, profitable and saves substantial amounts of resources and energy. Strategies to achieve these aims include shopping locally, cut packaging, re-use and recycle wherever possible and make special occasions like Christmas less “wasteful”. We discussed ways to make our personal weekly shopping less wasteful, especially buying local and British foods and those foods with the least packaging.

Group Meeting: This was hosted by Watlington WI. Mr. Simon-Jones, Antiques Expert from Simmons & Sons of Watlington (Fine Art Surveyors), conducted a very enjoyable and entertaining Antiques Road show. He spoke knowledgeably and humorously about a varied collection of objects and antiques that members of the various institutes in our group had brought along. Each antique was treated to close observation and shrewd analysis before being described in detail and then valued. We

learnt that there can be many values, depending on the reason for valuation, from the retail price (for insurance) down to probate (the lowest defendable value). For security reasons, it is very important to photograph collectibles and antiques, especially ‘high risk’ ones such as smaller objects (e.g. watches) and paintings.

Next Speaker: The mysteries of Chinese Needlework will be unfolded by our June speaker, Mrs Wendy Black. Visitors interested in this subject are welcome to join us at The Pavilion, Great Milton at 7:45 pm on the 9^th June.

President: Anne Hawkins, Little Milton 279526 Secretary: Shirley Thomas, Little Milton 278976

We all had a very enjoyable time in May. We will be meeting on the 21st June at the home of Gill Taylor from 10.30 am onwards at 40 Chiltern View. Do telephone Gill on 278617 if you’re planning on some lunch as well as sewing and chatting.

If you’ve never been along and you’re thinking about coming to sew, knit, stitch, chat, mend and share lunch then who not make this date – the longest day in the year – the date you join us? You won’t be disappointed.

The meeting on the 12th May was held at Fullers Field where we did quizzes and held a raffle. The outing on the 18th May was very well supported and our fifty-five seater coach was full and there was a waiting list. We went to Bridgenorth in Shropshire where we could choose to be dropped off in the Low Town and travel up the cliff railway to High Town or stay on the coach to High Town. Bridgenorth is a very attractive town built on the cliff and it seemed as though absolutely nothing was

level with very steep little streets and flights of steps taking you from one place to another. The main attraction for many was the remains of the old castle and the castle grounds. From Bridgenorth we travelled back to Kidderminster on the steam train which brought back fond memories of "proper" trains. Our coach was waiting at the station to bring us back home after a very enjoyable day. Our next meeting is on the 26th May when Edna Rice will entertain us on the piano.

Thur 9th - Hearing Dogs for Deaf People by Jo Blenkinsop and raffle. This meeting will be held in the home of Mr and Mrs Hood - 2.15 p.m.

Wed 15th - Outing to The Herb Farm, Sonning Common, and Greys Court National Trust followed by W.I. tea at Ipsden.

Following our very successful combined Gardens Open and Craft Fair at Holton in June 2003, the Village Hall Management Committee would like to repeat the event on the afternoon of Sunday June 12^th 2005.

We ask artists, sculptors and craft people of all kinds to come and join us for this very pleasant afternoon.

We do not intend to charge for a pitch. Artwork will be exhibited in the Hall or gardens as appropriate.

Advertising will promote both gardens and art equally, and tickets will include admittance to both gardens and exhibits.

If you think you might be interested in joining us and would like more details, please contact Kate Cooke (tel:01865 875020, email : oxfordfoot@aol.com).

"Age Concern Oxfordshire is looking for new volunteers for its Persona/Home Visiting service for frail, isolated, housebound and lonely older people. All it takes is an hour or two a week to pop in and have a chat, play board games or just have a cup of tea. Just a little of your time can make a real difference to older people's lives.

We are also looking for volunteers to help with our Hospital Aftercare Support scheme operating in the Vale of the White Horse and South Oxfordshire. The service involves both practical and emotional support for an older person who has just been discharged from hospital. Our volunteers provide help with shopping, collecting prescriptions and banking, among other things, for a period of five days.

We urgently need volunteers for this crucial service. Would you like to help give older people the confidence to make it on their own?

Age Concern Oxfordshire needs your help. A little bit of effort can go a very long way. To find out what you can do to help with one or both of the services please contact Alex Ivey on (01235) 849400 or alexivey@ageconcernoxon.org.uk"

JAZZ IN A SUMMER MEADOW

Harcourt Arboretum, Nuneham Courtenay

Saturday 30^th July 2005

With the

Victoria Newton Quartet

Bring a picnic, your friends and family and enjoy the sounds of swinging jazz and Brazilian beats in the lovely meadow

Gates open 6pm, performance 7pm

Tickets £10 individual, £25 family ticket

Phone 01865 286690 or send a cheque to

FOBG, Oxford Botanic Garden, Oxford OX1 4AZ

In aid of the Harcourt Arboretum Primary School Education Programme

Fun for all the family …..Stalls, rides, games, pig roast, beer tent, tug of war and much more....

If you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me on 01865 424714.

Date	Location	Time	Garden Waste	Non Recyclable Waste
Friday 3rd June	Chalgrove Village Car Park	8.00 – 11.00 a.m.	Yes	Yes
Saturday 4th June	Wheatley Primary School	8.00 – 12.00 p.m.		Yes
Friday 10th June	Chalgrove Village Car Park	8.00 – 11.00 a.m.	Yes	Yes
Saturday 11th June	Wheatley Primary School	8.00 – 12.00 p.m.	Yes
Friday 17th June	Chalgrove Village Car Park	8.00 – 11.00 a.m.	Yes	Yes
Saturday 18th June	Wheatley Primary School	8.00 – 12.00 p.m.		Yes
Friday 24^th June	Chalgrove Village Car Park	8.00 – 11.00 a.m.	Yes	Yes
Saturday 25th June	Wheatley Primary School Chalgrove Village Car park	8.00 – 12.00 p.m.		Yes

5th	9.30 a.m.	Family Service with Mr Colin Watts
12th	10.30 a.m.	Circuit Service at Christchurch, Thame with Revd Charlotte Collins and Mrs Florrie Mann
19th	11.00 a.m.	Morning Service with Mr Keith Whyte
26th	11.00 a.m.	Morning service by Local Arrangement