Community, Parish Council & Village
General news items
On Saturday 7 March in the Orpen Memorial Hall Lexden Road the Spring Fayre runs from 10am to 12.30pm. A variety of stalls with raffle and refreshments will be available. All proceeds to Bergholt Heath Youth Football Club.
A temporary closure of Chitts Hill has been announced from 05:00 hours on Saturday 14 March to 06:00 hours on Monday 16 March 2009. The closure will be for a distance of 20 metres either side of the level crossing and is scheduled to take place to facilitate track works.
An alternative route is available via Halstead Road, Spring Lane and Argents Lane and vice versa.
Access for pedestrians, including prams and wheelchairs, will be maintained during the closure.
Under 10
Bergholt Heath 7 – 1 Boxford
A Sabini 2, A Marley 2, L Bloomfield, M James, OG
Under 13
Bergholt Heath 0 – 19 Colchester Athletic
Under 14
Stanway Villa 7 – 0 Bergholt Heath
Under 15
Bergholt Heath 1 – 5 Woodbridge Town
D Bennell
A Bring and Buy is being held on Friday 13 February in St Mary’s Church Hall from 3pm to 5pm in support of Blue Peter’s Mission Nutrition which aims to be the world’s biggest bring and buy sale by coordinating sales country-wide with one at Lakeside.
The Gardeners’ Association resume their meetings on Monday 16 February in the Orpen Memorial Hall Lexden Road at 7.30pm. Speaker Andrew Tokeley’s talk is entitled What to Grow – new for 2009.
Recent months have seen change in the way the police interact with the community. The changes are described in full on our website here but, in summary, we now have 3 groups interacting to ensure policing is delivered in response to local needs:
The Bergholt Youth Group (BYG) is now formally established and looking forward to running Club evenings every two weeks on a Friday from 6.30 to 8.30 at the John Lampon Hall starting on Friday 13th February. The Club is open to all village residents between 11 and 16 (Years 6 to 11) and a variety of events and activities will be available with the aim of trying to provide something new for each session (at least initially).
Supply & Demand
Demand for allotments continues to grow and there is now a waiting list of about sixteen. We are hopeful of meeting this demand before the new growing season starts as several lettings are not being renewed, fully or in part, when rents are paid in February. One such plot holder is Stan Rideout, well known to many of us in the village, who has had a fall and is in hospital. We wish him a speedy recovery.
As plots do become available they will only be let in 5 rod lots which should help increase supply. Also those from outside the village will be given low priority until the list is cleared.
Bonfires
We hope residents, especially those near the site, will appreciate that we will do our best to minimise any nuisance caused by smoke and as such continue to reinforce the guidelines we give to plot holders. The dates for the coming year have been agreed and are as follows:
All are on a Monday evening and from 17:00 to 20:00 unless stated otherwise. These time intervals are for plot holders to add material to a fire but it must be appreciated that the bonfires will in fact take longer than this to burn out.
Allotment Committee
The West Bergholt Care Network is thriving and now that more volunteers have been recruited it is confident it can respond to most requests for help with transport. The group is there to help any residents of the village, whatever their age, to get to appointments if transport is needed and other means are not possible or available. Most journeys are to the Doctors’ Surgeries or the Hospitals but other local appointments can be considered.
The Care Newtwork is holding its Annual General Meeting in the Methodist Hall in Chapel Lane on Tuesday 21st April at 7.30pm. Any residents are welcome to attend, especially if they are prepared to become volunteers.
The Big Lottery is currently holding a consultation exercise called ‘Big Thinking’ to decide the focus and aims of the Big Lottery funding in the period 2009-2015. Your views and the views of rural communities could make a difference to the way in which Big Lottery grants are distributed and awarded and we are being urged to consider submitting a response.
Any groups and organisations in our community are encouraged to make a response to the Big Lottery Consultation; the deadline is the end of February 2009.
You can find out more at the BLF website here.