Solar Panels & Batteries

Solar Panels & Battery System for the Orpen Memorial Hall complex

Orpen Hall

Background

The Orpen Memorial Hall was on an electricity tariff that was due to end in September 2022.  The replacement electricity contract would result in a 4-fold increase in the unit cost. Our task was to see how we could reduce the financial impact and improve the sustainability of the Hall.

Proposal

To install a solar panel and battery system paid for by a grant.

The Process

We were aware that our 2-year fixed rate deal would soon be ending. We, therefore, started getting system quotes and looking around for potential grant sources earlier in the year. 

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New Accessible Toilet at Orpen Hall/Daniel Lorkin Field

The opening of the new outside Accessible Toilet at Orpen Hall

West Bergholt’s Orpen Hall/Daniel Lorkin Field boasts excellent facilities, now including a brand-new external Accessible Toilet catering for all. The toilet is designed with ramps and accessible features, and it even provides baby changing facilities for added convenience. Visitors can access the toilet during daylight hours.

Hub of Activity

The field is a hub of activity, frequently used by West Bergholt Football Teams with their enthusiastic spectators. Fitness Instructors also conduct workouts and bootcamps here, promoting a healthy lifestyle. Additionally, other onsite amenities, such as Tennis Courts, Children’s Play area, and Zip Line, offer other active opportunities.

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Cleaner/Caretaker Vacancy & Other News

Other News

The first item is about the Cleaner/Caretaker role but, if other news interests you, skip to it with these links:

Orpen Hall Needs a Cleaner/Caretaker

A Cleaner/Caretaker is required for the Orpen Hall Complex, Lexden Rd, West Bergholt.

This is a permanent position, based at the Orpen Memorial Hall for up to 16 hours a week on average. Exact cleaning times will be agreed with the Hall Administrator but will typically be:

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Warm Welcoming Space Opens 7th November

Social Club Room venue for the Warm Space

West Bergholt Care Network Announce Warm Welcoming Space Opening

The Care Network will open the doors to their Warm Welcoming Space project at 9:30am on Monday 7th November. On Monday and Friday each week the social club meeting room at the Orpen Hall will open to everyone in the village between 9.30am and 12.30pm. Free coffee, tea, biscuits and Wi-Fi are available. All age groups are very welcome – although under sixteens must be in the company of an adult.

There is no membership, entrance fee, or booking required. You can simply turn up with friends, meet others or just enjoy a little time alone. The ‘warm welcoming space’ can be whatever you want it to be.

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Food Stories Coming Here – June 19th

Food Stries Logo

The Food Museum, formerly the Museum of East Anglian Life, is going on the road! They are touring their exhibition ‘Food Stories’ to communities across East Anglia arriving in the Orpen Hall on 19th June from 10 am until 4 pm. You can also get involved in the event yourself.

What are Food Stories?

‘Food Stories’ celebrates East Anglian recipes, cooking, farming techniques and dialect words that have been passed down through generations. The centrepiece of the exhibition will be a farm kitchen table featuring:

Farmers and workers at hayricks
Farmers Picnic?
  • local recipes,
  • photos,
  • sound recordings and
  • objects from their collection.

Visitors will be able to sit at, and engage with, the displays; you can also contribute your own recipes and memories to the exhibition. You will hear historic sound recordings from the region of people talking about their food and farming memories. Visitors can also participate in the University of Leeds’ cutting-edge dialect research by contributing their own dialect words.

Make your own contribution

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Botanical Shenanigans

Replacing Cherry Trees – Simple?

Bluebell planting pear tree

Writing this article I couldn’t, first of all, decide if it should be about Cherry Trees, Oak Trees, Pear Trees or Bluebells; it transpired they all had their part to play along with many others.  The Cherry trees graced Orpen Hall for decades; however, as they had become elderly and diseased, they had to be removed last year. 

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Environment & Highways 9th September 2021

Highlights of Environment & Highways Meeting on 9th September 2021

Environment - butterfly on flower

The Environment & Highways Committee of West Bergholt Parish Council met on 9th September 2021 with topics including:

  • Handymen undertook activities from tree -trimming to churchyard-tending. Additional help required October – November. Their new vehicle is now in operation,
  • The Cherry trees at Orpen Hall are dying, what to do?
  • Environmental plan, volunteers needed to maintain ponds. Hall Road pond overgrown,
  • Problems & surveys on Colchester Road.
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Charlie Haylock Coaches Ralph Fiennes

Charlie Haylock & Ralph Fiennes

Charlie Haylock talk about his role in the Netflix film “The Dig”

Local Suffolk celebrity, Charlie Haylock returns to the Local History Group for their first talk in person since March last year. This time it is to talk about his work as the dialect coach in the production of the recently released film “The Dig”.

The film tells the story of how local amateur archaeologist Basil Brown, played by Ralph Fiennes, discovered the Anglo Saxon Royal ship burial at Sutton Hoo. Suffolk Landowner, Edith Pretty, employed Basil, an amateur archaeologist, in 1939 to satisfy her suspicions that the numerous mounds on her property had secrets to tell.

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