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2016PARISH COUNCIL MINUTES. PARISH COUNCIL MEETING, 8th December 2016. 100+ CLUB ANNUAL SUPPER, 10th December 2016 WASTE AND RECYCLING: CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR COLLECTIONS. AREA BOARD MEETING AT ALDERBURY, 1st December 2016. RISING STARS: A SUCCESSFUL FUNDRAISER. PARISH COUNCIL MEETING, 3rd November 2016. ANOTHER EXCELLENT FIREWORKS DISPLAY DON'T FALL FOR CHRISTMAS EMAIL SCAMS. RISING STARS FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR: Don't forget your tickets! PARISH COUNCIL MEETING, 22nd September 2016. WILTS COUNCIL TAX REDUCTION SCHEME CONSULTATION. PARISH COUNCIL AUDIT DOCUMENTS for 2015/16 PARISH COUNCIL MEETING, 18th August 2016. MORE ON THE GARDEN & HOBBIES SHOW WHITEPARISH GARDEN & HOBBIES SHOW, 2016 The club would really like to see a greater number of entries in all categories but particularly from children, who can win cash prizes! Please take the time to look at the Schedule and see what you could enter this year. The Schedule can be found in the August Issue of Steeple & Street magazine. However, if you don't have acccess to a copy, you can download a reproduction of the schedule by clicking here. WEBSITE TEAM HANGS HEAD IN SHAME NEW PHOTO GALLERY: Garden Club Barbecue MEMORIAL TRUST NEWS AREA BOARD MEETING IN WHITEPARISH, 28th JULY PARISH COUNCIL NEWS ALL SAINTS CHOIR TO SING AT SALISBURY CATHEDRAL The music to be sung during the service will be as follows:
2016 FETE PHOTOGRAPHS QUARRY EXTENSION EXHIBITION RESPONDERS MEET AT WEST LAVINGTON BREAKAWAY CLUB'S ROYAL BIRTHDAY TEA PARTY SCARECROW COMPETITION GARDEN CLUB'S OUTING TO ARUNDEL, 26th May. QUEEN'S 90th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION PICNIC, 12th June. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. MAY 26 AREA BOARD MEETING AT DOWNTON PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. MORE ON THE THREAT(?) TO LOCAL BUS SERVICES. LOCAL CRIME. BANYANERS' SWANSONG? Roof and Alley contains a typical Banyaner mix of musings, poems, jokes, reminiscences, and impenetrable references to people you've probably never heard of! It costs just £2.00, and all profits go to Naomi House. MEMORIAL TRUST NEWS. PLEASE HELP KEEP WHITEPARISH TIDY. COUNCIL WARNING ABOUT FAKE TREE SURGEONS. 2016 FETE NEWS. CHURCH SERVICES CALENDAR. YET ANOTHER EMAIL SCAM ALERT. UPDATE: If you get an email like this, or a variation, don't be fooled, and whatever you do don't click on the link in the middle of the email! Doing so will link to a "ransomware" program called Maktub, which can encrypt your files and demand a ransom for decrypting them. According to the story featured on the BBC website today (8th April 2016), "It's incredibly fast and by the time the warning message had appeared on the screen it had already encrypted everything of value on the hard drive - it happens in seconds," Mr Brandt told the BBC. This is a nasty one. The usual rules apply: if an email arrives from a source you don't recognise, and especially if it includes a link, be deeply suspicious and don't click the link—the email's probably a scam. HISTORY GROUP AGM (plus "historical recipes"!) Proceedings will include proposals for committee members for 2016—17. All current committee members are prepared to continue but new volunteers would be most welcome to ensure that we continue to provide an interesting programme. The speaker at the AGM will be Sue Jones, exploring some "Historical Recipes" including Wiltshire Buttermilk Cake and Devizes Cheesecakes. There will be demonstrations and, we are assured, tastings. Members free and guests £3.00. Membership for 2016-17 will be £12.50 per person. For any further information, please contact David Pantling on 884537. BREAKAWAYS HEAR ALL ABOUT THE BADGES ANNUAL PARISH AND PARISH COUNCIL MEETINGS The 14th of March 2016 saw the 2016 Annual Parish Meeting and a regular Parich Council meeting held back-to-back in the Cowesfield Room of the Memorial Centre. During the well-attended Annual Parish Meeting, with 21 members of the public present, plus County Councillor Richard Britton, the main topics of discussion were parking and traffic hazards in The Street, and possible celebrations of the Queens 90th birthday in June. For a fairly full account of the points raised, click here. During the regular Parish Council meeting that followed, the main topics discussed were thanks to Councillor Colin Bray who was retiring after 17 years service on the Council, the Queen's birthday again, and a proposal to ask for John Glen MP's support for a 20mph speed limit along The Street. For the meeting notes, click here. LOCAL CRIME FOR FEBRUARY 2016 CHURCH SERVICES CALENDAR HOPE FOR THE KING'S HEAD? MEMORIAL TRUST MARCH MTG: CHANGE OF DATE. PARISH COUNCIL MEETING, 11th FEBRUARY RURAL WILTS BUSES CAMPAIGN. There is a link to the County Council's Consultation survey in our earlier story, down the page. LOCAL CRIME IN JANUARY. MEMORIAL TRUST AGM. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. WILTSHIRE BUS SERVICES CONSULTATION.
The Passenger Transport Unit of Wiltshire Council are currently conducting a survey of attitudes to subsidised bus services, and the "consultation period" ends on the 4th April (2016) at 4.00 pm. Although they claim that no decisions have been made, there is a clear intention for at least some services that are currently the subject of a local-government subsidy to suffer a reduction or removal of the subsidy, with the inevitable consequence of a reduction or removal of some services, and possibly of some routes. LOCAL CRIME IN DECEMBER. ageUK NEED VOLUNTEERS. 2015100+ CLUB CHRISTMAS PARTY, 2015 For a mini-gallery of some random snaps taken at the party, click here. MORE ON SGT. WHITTLE. M. Pierre Michiels, a member of a historical research team operating in the area where Sgt Whittle's plane crashed, has sent a photo of the plaque (see left) which his team plan to install near the crash site in the village of Bercheux, as a tribute. He writes: "The plaque has just been delivered and our intention is to proceed to its unveilling on next May 2016. It will be placed in the little garden at the entrance of the Primary School of Bercheux because it is a very symbolic place and because the aircraft bellylanded 300 yards behind the school. As you know, out of the 3 crew members, Lofty was the only one to die that day near the village of Bercheux. So we wish to contact any of his relatives to invite them to attend the creremonies." So, to repeat our earlier request, if anyone knows of any relatives of either Sgt Whittle or of his late widow, the former Phyllis Burden of Yew Tree Farm, please get in touch and we can give you M. Michiels' contact details. PARISH COUNCIL MEETING, 3rd December 2015. NEW FACEBOOK PAGE FOR WHITEPARISH MUSIC AND MUSICIANS. And you can message Eddy from that same Facebook page. It'll be interesting to see how this initiative develops. LEARN ABOUT BECOMING A "DEMENTIA FRIEND". And the release goes on to ask: why not make it your New Year's Resolution to book a place on one of the Alderbury sessions? To learn more about the event, click here. A VILLAGE SHOP CLOSES . . . (NO, NOT THAT ONE!). CRIME REPORTS FOR NOVEMBER. NEW MINI-WEBSITE ABOUT MEMORIAL CENTRE. SGT EDWARD "LOFTY" WHITTLE (RAF). CHRISTMAS/NEW YEAR WASTE & RECYCLING COLLECTIONS. SEASON'S GREETINGS!—AND YET ANOTHER SCAM WARNING . . . DON'T ! It's probably a scam. Opening the attachment will run a macro (little program) that will install malware on your computer. Only open an attachment if you are expecting one, and if you absolutely trust the sender. Yesterday we received an email exactly like the one described above. How did we know it was a scam (after all, there IS a company called UK Mail)? Three main reasons: (a) we weren't expecting a package—though we could have been; (b) there are several email addresses associated with the Whiteparish website, and identically the same email was sent to each of them; and (c) we've learned to be suspicious of everything that arrives in our inboxes. These days you just have to be, and even more so at this season, alas. There will be many more scams out there, on the same lines as the one just described. POLICE NEWS PC Clissold also wrote "As some of you may be aware Guy has moved stations, he is still working for Wiltshire Police but at a station nearer to his home, this means that a replacement is now with us. PCSO Tina Roylance has finished her training and is now based at Alderbury police station with the team. I am sure you will make her feel welcome as she gets to know the area." WHITEPARISH PUBS: AN ENDANGERED SPECIES? Anyway, that was sorted out after a few years when the White Hart was sold for housing. Three seemed a good number, perhaps the "Goldilocks number", and things stayed that way until very recently, when the dear old Kings Head closed its doors as a pub for perhaps the last time, in the spring of 2014. Down to two—not really enough, one thought, though plenty of larger villages seem to manage with just one pub nowadays, or even (perish the thought) none. Where's all this going? Well, we're not sure. But very recently the sale seems finally to have gone through of one of the two remaining working pubs (the one with an "F" in its name). We live in uncertain times, folks. And that's not always a good thing . . . VILLAGE SHOP & POST OFFICE: SURVEY. They are very interested in learning what people want from the store, and what would make them want to use the shop more regularly. To this end there is a questionnaire online which you can access by clicking here. Please help the team by completing it, either online or in paper form (which will be circulated shortly). As the report says: "Remember: USE IT OR LOSE IT!". PARISH COUNCIL NEWS: OCTOBER MEETING. MEM CENTRE CAR PARK LIGHTING: FOLLOW UP. DR GOTHAM TALK A SELL-OUT. SPECTACULAR RAINBOW ON 24th OCTOBER. TALK BY DR GOTHAM—ALL PATIENTS INVITED. The PPG hopes that a large number of patients will attend this inaugural event, and that this will be the first of a series of meetings aimed at keeping patients well informed on health and Practice issues. They look forward to seeing you there! SCAM ALERT. The best advice, as always, is NEVER to download attachments that you weren't expecting, even if the accompanying email seems to have come from a familiar source. The internet's full of bad people. From a quick Google search, it seems the fake delivery notification we received today, or rather the MS Word attachment that came with it, contained a macro that would have installed a keylogger program called Dridex on our PC. (For more information about Dridex, click here.) FROM THE JOURNAL. WHITEPARISH YOUTH GROUP PAGE. FOLLOWING ON FROM THE ABOVE. The most recent visitor stats show that in one week the web server served 3236 sessions in responding to website visitors. Even after we discount the 953 of those that were initiated by robots (!), that still leaves well over two thousand visits in a single week. And a proportion of those visitors would quite possibly have been people thinking of moving here, and probably wanting to know—amongst other things—about the clubs and other organisations here, and whether Whiteparish seemed like an active and lively place. Just a thought . . . . NEW MOBILE LIBRARY SCHEDULE ANNOUNCED. For your convenience, we've included a table showing the schedule up to 7th April 2016 on the website; to view, click here. CAR PARK LIGHTING FOR MEMORIAL CENTRE. 2015 ANNUAL FIREWORKS. SWAB MEETING IN DOWNTON, 1st October 2015 PARISH COUNCIL MEETING, 3rd September 2015 2015 FLOWER & HOBBIES SHOW PHOTOS LOCAL CRIME REPORTS, August 2015. MORE HEALTHY OUTDOOR STUFF—NEW FOREST WALKS. ORGANIZED CYCLING IN SOUTH WILTS AND BEYOND. LOCAL CRIME REPORTS, June and July 2015. To see the June report, click here; for the July report, click here. RECORD-BREAKING PROCEEDS FROM 2015 FETE. Talking of which, the first meeting of the 2016 Fete committee will be held as soon as Tuesday 6th October, at 7.30 pm in the Parish Lantern. If you're interested in helping to make 2016's fete even more successful than this year's (though that may be a bit of a challenge), do please come to the meeting. BEST KEPT VILLAGE 2015. Other topics covered during the same PC meeting include Mr Neil Sutherland being co-opted onto the council; a vacancy for another councillor; new opening times for the county's recycling centres; and different ways of reporting "highway issues". To read more about these, and other items discussed, click here. "COMPLINE" SERVICE AT ALL SAINTS CHURCH, SUN 26 JULY 2015. The music is largely plainsong, and this reflects the service's origins, as the last office (or service) of the day in many monasteries, many centuries ago. However, the plainsong will be contrasted on Sunday with full polyphonic singing, in three or four parts, by the choir at three points in the service. The purpose of the service is to allow members of the congregation to reflect on their day and prepare for a peaceful night, secure in God's love." HISTORY GROUP'S 2015/2016 PROGRAMME. 2015 FETE, SATURDAY 13th JUNE. One part of the programme that was a little disappointing was the very low turnout for the pre-opening procession, which this year was reduced to just a handful of participants. Their costumes were excellent—and good fun—but one wonders if this year we might perhaps have seen the last of the fete processions. Let's hope not. Any drama had occurred on the preceding evening when, apart from the unexpected arrival of the helicopters (see next story), it looked at one point as if the expected delivery of booked Portaloos wasn't going to happen! However, happily they did turn up, and the Friday night Hog Roast and and Bands Night went off smoothly, though the weather was a tad damp. We've added a selection of fete photos to the galleries section of the website. which you can see by clicking here. "IS THAT PART OF THE SHOW . . .?"
After hearing an explanation of what was happening, the early arrivals for the Bands Night were very cooperative and stayed back as the patient was loaded onto one helicopter and the anaesthetist back on to the other, so that the two aircraft could take off again safely. Later it was suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea to take up a collection on fete day for the three charities that had been involved in the exercise (Great Western Air Ambulance, Wiltshire Air Ambulance, and SWIFT Medics). Well the most important thing about the whole exercise was of course the patient, and we're glad to be able to report that they are well, and back at home. But another good result is that thanks to the generosity of fete-goers the next day, the whip-round raised a very worthwhile £145.52 to share between the three charities. LOCAL CRIME IN MAY 2015. 2015 BANDS NIGHT RUNNING ORDER Bands performing at the Hog Roast and Bands Night, Friday 12th June, will be as follows:
6.30 pm: Missing Monkeys NOTE: Acts and timings are subject to change. SCARECROWS GALLERY. Because this gallery is the first we've built using some new software, it's not fully integrated into the website yet, so once you've finished looking at the gallery you'll have to click on the "previous" tab or use your browser's history to get back to this page. We'll sort these things out, and hope to add any scarecrows currently missing, as soon as possible. WHITEPARISH INVADED BY SCARECROWS!
Yes, other villages around these parts may have done something similar, but Whiteparish's version is off to a flying start, and at the time of writing 58 households had committed to joining in by making and displaying their entries in the Scarecrow Competition and Trail, which enters them in the competition for Best Scarecrow (with "mystery prize"). Unfortunately the closing date for new scarecrows has now past, but there's a second part to this event. From the 3rd of June you can buy a map of the Scarecrow Trail from the Village Shop or School, check out the scarecrows, and vote for your favourite. Voting slips will be entered into a prize draw. For a bit more information, you can view or download the Scarecrow Competition and Trail poster by clicking here. MEMORIAL TRUST TRUSTEE REQUIRED. If you are interested in becoming a Trustee, please contact the Parish Clerk at maria.pennington456 @ btinternet.com (note: the foregoing address is not a link, copy and paste it into your email program and delete the spaces). PARISH COUNCIL VACANCIES. PARISH COUNCIL AGM. LOOKING BACK ON THE 2015 WHITEPARISH MUSIC FESTIVAL. NEW ADDITIONS TO THE WEBSITE. CHURCH PAGE PROBLEM BROADBAND DOWN THE A27. Are there any other pockets of the Whiteparish exchange area that are still waiting to be able to order fibre? We'd be very interested to know. GET WILTSHIRE WALKING! Unfortunately nearly all the starting points for the walks are located north of Salisbury (from Amesbury upwards), but there is one in our neck of the woods (starting at the Borough Cafe in Downton), and and of course there are many independent walking groups, such as Salisnury and District Walking for Health. For a leaflet in pdf format about the Get Wiltshire Walking! scheme, including contact details for some independent walking groups, click here. For information about free training as a walk leader, click here. PARISH COUNCIL: ANNUAL PARISH MEETING. At the Annual Parish meeting, points raised by the 15 members of the public present included rubbish on the A36, a 20 mph speed limit on part of Common Road, possibly unnecessary road markings on Parkwater Rd, access to Mean Wood, and artwork design for the skate ramp. For details, click here. Topics covered at the normal Parish Council meeting included a vacancy on the Parish Council (contact the parish clerk or a councillor if interested), the Miles Lane/A27 junction, the Parish Council boundary fence, the skate ramp, the Best Kept Village competition, rights of way, and dog mess (again). For details, click here. CRIME IN MARCH 2015; NEW PCSO. WHITEPARISH MUSIC FESTIVAL: 11 to 18 April COMMUNITY NEWS IN SOUTH WILTSHIRE Do you need funding for your group? VOLUNTEERING FOR AGE-UK. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. LOCAL CRIME IN FEBRUARY 2015. MUSIC FESTIVAL, 11th to 18th APRIL. For full details, including times and where you can get tickets, click here. AREA BOARD SURVEY BROWNIE NEWS BROADBAND DOWN THE A27. So it looks as if there's light at the end of the tunnel for premises connected to Cabinet 1, though just how super the "superfast" will be if you're an appreciable distance from the cabinet remains to be seen. We'll try to remember to check on progress in a few weeks. Meanwhile, are there any other areas served by the Whiteparish Exchange where superfast is still not orderable? We'd be interested to hear from you. (To find out which cabinet you are connected to, click here.) WILTSHIRE & SWINDON COMMUNITY MESSAGING LAUNCH. PCC Angus Macpherson, who is commissioning this new initiative, said: “The whole of Wiltshire is now covered by Swindon and Wiltshire Community Messaging, bringing the public into contact with the police and Neighbourhood Watch.
“I now look forward to working with other partners in Wiltshire and Swindon to extend the excellent services provided by Wiltshire Police and to build on the title ‘Community’ Messaging.” People signed up will be able to receive messages about policing and crime matters in their area, such as community policing news and events, appeals for information and crime prevention advice. They will also be able to reply to messages, feeding back information to their local neighbourhood officers to help them in policing their local area. To find out more and to sign up visit www.wiltsmessaging.co.uk or speak to your local police officer. Wiltshire and Swindon Community Messaging will NOT be monitored 24 hours a day. People should always call 999 in an emergency or 101 in a non-emergency." PC Henry Clissold, our local Community Beat Officer, adds: "As a team we would love you to sign up to this new initiative which provides us a great opportunity to get messages and information out to our areas in a timely fashion."
EASTER CHILDREN'S COURSES. For the current issue of Our Community Matters, click here. LOCAL CRIME IN JANUARY 2015. PROPOSED SOLAR PARK. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS: ANNUAL PARISH MEETING Everyone is welcome. Although the meeting is chaired by the Parish Council Chairman, it is just what the name suggests: a meeting of the parish. If you have any concerns or wish to raise a particular matter of local concern, then why not come to this meeting and have your say, and find out what else is hsppening in the parish? Other topics covered included a possible change of status for the Post Office, from a branch to one of the new "local branches" Dog mess (again), and opportunities for volunteering to improve public paths in South Wilts. For moare about what was covered at the meeting, click here. CORE STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT PLAN ADOPTED The Plan was the subject of an independent examination conducted by an Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State. The Inspector’s Report was published in December 2014 and the adopted Plan incorporates the main modifications recommended by the Inspector in his Report. Any person aggrieved by the Plan may make an application under Section 113 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to the High Court on the grounds that the document is not within the appropriate powers or that a procedural requirement has not been complied with. Any such application must be made by no later than six weeks from the date of adoption, 20 January 2015. Details of where you can view the Plan and associated documents (including the Inspector’s Report, Adoption Statement, Sustainability Appraisal (SA) Report and SA Adoption Statement, and Habitats Regulations Assessment) are set out in the Adoption Statement attached." (Viewable by clicking here.) CRIME OVER CHRISTMAS. 2014PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. RESCHEDULED RUBBISH & RECYCLING COLLECTIONS. HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD SPAMMERS! It seems quite likely that there will be more of these during the Christmas season, not necessarily with the same details but following a similar pattern. The best advice, as always, is never to open an attachment from somebody you don't know, and that you're not expecting. Many people think that a Word document can't do any harm, but it certainly can; the spammers can use Word's macro language to do evil things! Always, if in doubt, delete! GOOD RESULTS FROM DECEMBER FUNDRAISERS. CID ADVICE TO PROTECT ELDERLY NEIGHBOURS. “I would urge residents with elderly neighbours to be extra vigilant during the Christmas period and to report suspicious behaviour to the police. It may be that this offender is targeting elderly people and may have visited previously as a bogus caller. News of these crimes can be very frightening to our elderly community but with the right preventative action and support from neighbours and family, we can prevent this happening. We all can be the best of neighbours and help any elderly or vulnerable people in our community to secure their premises at night and not to open their doors unless they are expecting a visitor. Remind your relatives and friends not to let strangers into their properties. By adhering to the following advice, you can reduce your chances of becoming a victim of burglary or bogus callers:
NOVEMBER 2014 CRIME REPORTS. SOLAR PARK IN DOWNTON PARISH: 28th November Meeting. SWAB TO MEET IN MEMORIAL CENTRE. FUNDING FOR GETTING PEOPLE ONLINE. You will simply have to demonstrate that your project will help more people to get access to the internet and computing, gain skills or help them get more from IT technology to help them in their everyday life. To learn more about the grants scheme, click here. To start an application, click here. WILTS COUNCIL CAR PARKING REVIEW. The consultation runs until the 16th January 2015. To comment on parking in Salisbury, click here. If you want to comment on parking in any other areas of Wilts, click here to select them. CARERS' RIGHTS QUESTION TIME. ROMAN EXCAVATIONS IN SOUTH WILTS. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. LOCAL CRIME FIGURES FOR SEPTEMBER 2014. HALLOWEEN & FIREWORKS PRECAUTIONS. As in previous years, local Police will be distributing Halloween posters which can be displayed by those not wishing to be visited. These posters will be available in local shops/Post offices in the run up to Halloween. You can request a poster from your local NPT (click here for contact details) if you are unable to collect one locally." A DATE FOR YOUR DIARIES: POP QUIZ CLOCKS GO BACK 25th/26th OCTOBER WHITEPARISH FIRST RESPONDERS.
Throughout that week, the Whiteparish First Responders (all of whom work), somehow rearranged their busy lives to provide cover for a large part of every day including late into the evenings, and 3 nights, making a total of 104 hours of cover. However, fortunately there were no emergencies for us to attend! SWAB MEETING AND HEALTH EVENT, 13 Oct 2014. However, for an hour before the meeting (5.00pm to 6.00pm) and an hour afterwards (7.00pm to 8.00pm) you can visit stands and displays about 19 different organisations or topics. These are: Adult Social Care, Age UK Wiltshire, Alzheimers Society, Carers Support Wiltshire, CCG Stand, Community First/Good Neighbours, Downton Friendship Club, Downton Leisure Centre, Downton Pharmacy, Healthwatch Wiltshire, Leisure-Active, Public Health - Health Checks, Public Health - Health Promotion, Public Health - Health Trainers, Ramblers, South Wilts Paths Group, Wilton Stroke Forum, Wiltshire Centre for Independent Living, Wiltshire Online. URGENT: FOR VODAFONE USERS WANTING BETTER LOCAL COVERAGE. Here's a brief description from Vodafone: To see more information about the programme, you can download two Vodafone documents (a briefing and a sample application pack) by clicking here and clicking here, respectively. Chris Dudley, who moved into the village quite recently, has kindly volunteered to be a contact point for people who are interested in this programme. So if you are a local Vodafone user and think you would like to contribute to getting the programme for Whiteparish, please click here to email Chris and indicate your interest. But reply quickly, because the village's application has to be with Vodafone by 14 October this year. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS Other topics covered included a vacancy on the Parish Council, requests for volunteers for path clearing and work on The Copse, and news that there there had unfortunately been no volunteers for Neighbourhood Watch or to help with the Parish Weather Response Plan. For fuller details of these and other matters discussed, click here. "SUPERFAST" BROADBAND NEWS. This is good news but leaves some folk (especially those living still further out, like us) in the dark about when they too will be able to order superfast—and how "superfastness" might still be left at the end of a long stretch of copper wire! AN AMBULANCE GOES TO SCHOOL AUGUST 2014 CRIME REPORTS; and some good advice
"Outbuilding security: Structure. Are there loose slats or patches of rot on your shed or outer building? Consider getting these repaired as quickly as possible and think about reinforcing them from the inside. To read the detailed report, click here. PAVILION THEATRE TICKETS SCAM ALERT! BROADBAND: CONSPIRACY THEORIES ?! Someone (no doubt tongue-in-cheek) mooted the possibility that this was a cunning ploy by BT to make superfast broadband seem even more superfast when residents finally start getting it installed! That's an interesting if cynical theory (!), but it seems more likely that getting the necessary superfast infrastructure installed at the exchange and cabinets is causing some temporary disruption to the current ADSL gear. HOME MADE/HOME GROWN SALE WHITEPARISH LEISURE ACTIVITIES. The Memorial Hall is not, as yet, being utilised to its full capacity. Now is the time for some community minded villagers to get together to run activities in the hall which, together with it's modern kitchen, can be rented for just £10 an hour. Perhaps an art class or table tennis, arts and crafts, a men's club, a whist or bridge club. Some of these activities would be especially suited to meeting in the mornings or afternoons, as some folk are not keen on turning out at night.
All it needs is a few people willing to donate an hour or two of their time to make it happen. So don't just sit there wondering what to do. Give me a ring on 884882 and we can get things moving. LOCAL CRIME FIGURES IN JULY BEST-KEPT VILLAGE COMPETITION. NEWS FROM THE PARISH COUNCIL. In addition, three other documents provide extra information, some of which relates to items discussed at the meeting, which you can view or download by clicking on the following links: LOCAL CRIME FIGURES SUPERFAST BROADBAND STATUS (contd . . ,) 2014 FLOWER & HOBBIES SHOW. 2014 FETE, 21st June
Unfortunately other commitments prevented us photographing as wide a spread of subjects at the fete as we would have liked. If anyone else took quite a few shots of different situations there, and can help fill in the gaps, please do get in touch. Ditto if you managed to photograph all the perfomers at the Bands Night the previous evening—especially if you can name all the acts. Finally, if anyone knows the make and model of the motorbike on the left of the BMW, one of us would like to know! MEMORIAL CENTRE OFFICIAL OPENING: PHOTOS 2014 FETE: BOOKS, BOTTLES, CAKES, and TICKET SELLERS WANTED! POLICE NEWS For the monthly list of selected local crime reports issued by the Southern Wiltshire Policing Team, covering May 2014, click here. MEMORIAL CENTRE: NOW "OFFICIALLY" OPEN The guests arrived by car from Wilton, and after being greeted by the trustees they toured the centre, met representatives of many village organisations, and enjoyed some refreshments. Last item on the agenda was for HRH to unveil the plaque and officially declare the hall to be open, after a short and entertaining speech. Then Prince Richard's party were whisked away by helicopter, to much excitement from the children on the Memorial Ground. There will be more pictures, and probably some more words, on the website very soon. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS Other topics covered included what happens (or rather doesn"t) when groups apply for financial aid but don't send a representative who is able to discuss the application to the relevant Parish Council meeting, the need to cut back overhanging vegetation, dog mess, and and how to report potholes etc now that the old "Clarence" contact number is being phased out. For fuller details of these and other matters discussed, click here. 2014 FETE: FINAL DETAILS (PROBABLY) As most of us will know already, the theme of the 2014 fete is "100 years ago". The fete committee are very pleased that a "true" Whiteparish person of a remarkable age will be opening the fete on the 21st June. This special guest is Marjorie Andrews, formerly of Cottage Farm, who at 98 years is almost as old as the fete theme and apparently is really excited about her role on the day! To read a little more about Marjorie, click here. OFFICIAL OPENING OF MEMORIAL CENTRE: 3rd JUNE Everyone is invited to the Memorial Ground to watch Prince Richard unveil a plaque to commemorate the opening. Nominated represntatives of user groups will be able to meet the Prince as he tours the building. Please come along and help the trustees to mark the event! WELL-ATTENDED DEFIB DEMO For a full report, with photos, click here. LOCAL CRIME REPORTS FOR APRIL, 2014 PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. EASTER HOLIDAY RECYCLING 2014 FETE NEWS
The entries will need to be displayed by 4pm on Friday 20 June please, ready to be judged that evening. Please check in Steeple & Street for details of the bottle stall collection. The date of the next meeting is 15 May – 7.15pm in the Parish Lantern. LOCAL CRIME IN MARCH. For details, click here. WILTSHIRE HOUSING SITE ALLOCATIONS DEVELOPMENT PLAN "SUPERFAST" BROADBAND STATUS FIRST RESPONDERS: DEFIBRILLATOR DEMOS. KINGS HEAD IN DANGER AGAIN? As many will probably already know, the Kings Head seems to be under threat of closure again. If you would be sad to see this happen, please sign the petition opposing closure in the village shop or the pub. [A Personal View: Since the Kings Head re-opened last autumn, we have called in several times for a meal or a drink, and been impressed by the way that after a relatively short time in charge (but loads of work), Mark and Michelle turned the old place around—with decent food, a much nicer atmosphere, customer numbers increasing, and plans for improvements in the garden. We understand that recently they've been turning a profit. But unfortunately Mark & Michelle will be leaving soon, and rumour has it that the KH may be closed altogether in the near future. If it was the perfectly good business that it seemed to have become—well run, and back on the up-and-up—closure would be both regrettable and hard to understand. D & J H] PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. At the regular PC meeting that followed, topics discussed included the newly completed surfacing work on Common Road, the Best Kept Village competition, missing road signs on Newton Lane, and the Community Speedwatch initiative. For more details, click here. SWAB MEETING, 27 MARCH, to cover "BIG ISSUES". 2014 FETE NEWS There has been a great response to the request for sponsorship and prizes—again, if you think you can help, please let us know. The less money we have to spend in hiring marquees etc, the more we can give to the church and school. A reminder: the theme for this fete is "100 years ago". Put your thinking caps on for ideas for the children’s fancy dress competition. Details of that and other competitions to be staged in the church will be announced later. Sophie Sharpe is the chair of the committee and can be contacted through the school. LOCAL CRIME. For details, click here. (We guess that the "bales of hale" nicked in the first Laverstock crime were probably of hay, though the original has a nicer ring to it.) HISTORY GROUP: VENUES FOR MARCH & APRIL 2014 MEETINGS SWAB/"OUR COMMUNITY MATTERS" For more details, click here to go to the "Our Community Matters" website. COMMON ROAD SURGERY: LUNCHTIME CLOSING. LOCAL CRIME. 2014 FETE: HELPERS STILL NEEDED.
The school and the church benefit hugely from funds that are raised and hopefully village residents think it an event worth saving. 20 FEB HISTORY GROUP MEETING TO BE IN KINGS HEAD. JANUARY PARISH COUNCIL MEETING AREA BOARD MEETING AT ALDERBURY MEMORIAL CENTRE: SOME INTERIOR PHOTOGRAPHS To see the photos in the website's Galleries section, click here. MEMORIAL CENTRE: AGM Sid Roberts, Chairman described the past year's activity - which mainly related to the construction of the building. He also took the opportunity to thank many people who had contributed to the project over the years - some living and some no longer with us. Sid finished by encouraging people to use the new building - a facility of which the whole village can be proud. Linda Palmer, Treasurer, then presented the Accounts for the past financial year. Again the key items of expenditure related to the construction project. Linda advised the meeting that once all the bills have been settled, Trustees will prepare a summary of income and costs for the whole project - that will be circulated across the village, as Trustees have done with previous communications. [To see the regular progress reports that the Trustees have issued in the last year or so, click here. ] Members of the public were invited to ask questions and many took the opportunity to ask about specific aspects of the project and about how the building will be operated going forward. The new caretaker was introduced — Sid Twine — and people had the opportunity to chat to Sid after meeting. Trustees are holding an 'open afternoon' on Sunday 2 February 2 till 4pm so that anyone can come and look round the building. Trustees will be on hand to provide tea and biscuits and answer any questions. 2014 FETE. It was decided the theme for this year should be "100 YEARS AGO". This will give quite a broad range of choices for the intended fancy dress competition. Details of the competitions which are displayed in Church will be confirmed at a later date – so watch for the updates in future magazines and on the village website. Members of the committee will be attending the Trust AGM to see how best to use the new hall and surrounding space for the fete layout.
If you feel you can help in any way, but are not able to regularly attend committee meetings, please contact any of the following: MEMORIAL CENTRE NEWS. Meanwhile, if you can't wait for the 24th and haven't had the chance to look for yourselves, we've added a few extra photos to the website gallery of external views of the construction of the new centre. They take the record up to early January. To see them, click here. 16 JAN HISTORY GROUP MEETING TO BE IN KINGS HEAD. 2013COMMISSIONER CONSULTING ON POLICE & CRIME COUNCIL TAX ELEMENT. Commissioner McPherson explains the need for an increase in a little more detail in a press release, which you can read by clicking here. The consultation period runs from 6 January to Monday the 3rd of February, 2014. During that period, the Commissioner and members of his staff will be attending Area Boards around the county to discuss the proposed increase with members of the public. You can also give your views via the Commissioner's website: click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. WASTE & RECYCLING COLLECTIONS IN JANUARY 2014. From 17th January onwards, collections are back on the usual schedule of alternate Fridays. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. IMPROVING YOUR "NON-DWELLING" SECURITY. FOOTBALL NEWS. JANE SCOTT TO ATTEND 5 DECEMBER SWAB MEETING AT DOWNTON. If you'd like to subscribe to be kept up-to-date with the local community news and events involving South Wilts, Salisbury, or other areas of Wiltshire, click here. FIREWORKS FOLLOW-UP. KING'S HEAD RE-OPENED. BEST FIREWORKS YET? LOCAL CRIME IN OCTOBER, 2013 BROADBAND FOLLOW-UP. BT refer to the launch of superfast broadband in a community as "rollout", which for Whiteparish is scheduled for summer 2014. Rollout here will apparently mean "installing one or possibly two fibre cabinets and the associated cabling work etc to connect up (we have to run fibre cable from the exchange to the new roadside cabinet)". This didn't seem a lot of cabinets, bearing in mind the widely spread area served by the Whiteparish exchange, so we asked whether, with the coming of fibre, superfast broadband would be orderable for all households who currently have a Whiteparish landline. The answer was "The overwhelming majority will be able to get high speed fibre. However, we will have a much better idea once all the planning and survey work is underway. I think the message to your readers is to keep in touch with [their] service providers and the GWB website for further info". So that's as much as we know right now, and it probably isn't worth badgering BT for more detailed info at the moment. Guess we'll have to be patient! However, if anyone gets any later and/or more authoritative news about these points or any other aspects of fibre broadband here, please let us know and we'll be pleased to share it via the website. ANNUAL FIREWORKS, 9th November 2013 . PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. LOCAL CRIME. He also attached the latest local crime bulletin, which seems to have been a fairly quiet month in the area overall, though there were two workshop burglaries in Whiteparish. For details, click here. GOODBYE TO THE VILLAGE HALL. Many thanks to Mike Thorne for contributing the photo of the JCB starting to munch through the far end. To quote Mike: "It sounded as if the the digger was eating giant cornflakes, and it made very short work of reducing the old wooden building to matchwood". Many thanks too to Mel Oakley for contributing three photos taken while the digger was completing its work later on the same day. So quite sad, really, but the construction of the new Memorial Centre will soon be finished, to replace both the hall and the pavilion. We've added a mini-gallery including the photos from Mike and Mel, and two or three other "before and after" shots, which you can see by clicking here. WILTSHIRE RESIDENTS' SURVEY. HISTORY SOCIETY PROGRAMME CHANGE. VICTORIAN BENNETTS IN WHITEPARISH. If you can help Will with his enquiry, his email address is willgrstevens @ gmail.com (delete spaces around the @.) STRONG START FOR SATURDAY FOOTBALL TEAM The Sunday team, playing in the Salisbury & District (Sunday) League Division 2, are not doing quite so well with one win so far, but there's plenty of season left. Sunday 6th October they'll be playing a local derby on the Memorial Ground against Alderbury; so if you're free at around 10.30 am, why not turn up and support them ? A ROOF OVER THEIR HEADS . .. . Just a little photographic update to the picture a couple of stories down: By the third week in September, the new Memorial Centre roof was covered, and mostly tiled. This should let the contractors working on the interior walls, floors, fittings etc really crack on—without being dripped on! GOOD NEWS RE BROADBAND! To see the text of the press release, click here. You will see that the according to the release, Whiteparish households will be able to order the faster broadand as from summer 2014. It's not clear at the moment if this means they'll just be taking orders, or if it will actually be possible to get connected as from then. (Have asked the press office for more details on this.) 2013 FLOWER & HOBBIES SHOW PHOTOS. MEMORIAL CENTRE. As you can see, the new Memorial Centre construction is progressing well, with the main walls all completed up to roof level, the roof timbers in place, and the under-roof insulation about to be added. This is one of the many photos currently in the website's photo gallery, showing progress since last year. To see the gallery, click here. For information about a 4-day period of possible traffic restrictions in Common Rd (and presumably parking restriction at the Surgery), see panel above. CONGRATULATIONS! . . . For some icing on the cake, Whiteparish beat Sherfield English in the annual inter-village cricket match for the Doug Dugard Memorial Shield a couple of weeks beforehand. 2013 FLOWER & HOBBIES SHOW. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS.. HISTORY GROUP: 2013/2014 PROGRAMMME. WHAT'S ALDERBURY GOT THAT WHITEPARISH HASN'T? One doesn't know exactly what this means. Are BT deciding whether to do anything at all for Whiteparish? Or deciding what level of upgrade we might get, with the possibility of getting some inferior technology solution that's a bit better than what we've got now, but nothing like so good as the really neat stuff our neighbours have been promised?! But if you are interested in Whiteparish getting the fastest practicable broadband (even if you personally are not especially fussed about it), then going to the relevant BT website to register your interest could help. If you haven't already done this, please do it now by clicking here and following the "Register your interest" link. NEW MEMORIAL CENTRE PHOTO GALLERY. NEW-LOOK PHOTO GALLERIES. The first new-look gallery features the construction of the new Memorial Centre. To see it, click here. AREA BOARD MEETING AT ALDERBURY, 1st AUGUST. To see the agenda and reports, click here. To check out the "Our Community Matters" website, dealing with happenings in the Southern Wilts area, click here. 2013 FETE PROCEEDS. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY FETE PHOTOS? PARISH COUNCIL MEETING, 11th JULY 2013. LOCAL BURGLARIES. Burglars will be opportunistic and in this hot weather they know that windows are left partially open and a lot of first floor windows are left completely insecure, please don’t make it easy for them." For the monthly report of local crimes that occurred during June 2013, also forwarded by PC Clissold, click here. (The text of the report mentions crimes "from 1st to 30th May", but we think that should actually read June.) [THANKS TO] THE PEOPLE OF WHITEPARISH. "On the evening of Friday 28th June 2013 my daughter and I were involved in a minor Road Traffic Accident whilst driving towards Romsey along Romsey Road Whiteparish, no one was hurt but the cars involved were damaged and barely drivable. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all the residents and passers-by who showed concern and offered assistance to us. It made a bad situation bearable to know that there were so many kind and caring people around that we could have called upon if required. The offered use of mobile phones that could get a signal, land line for longer calls to insurers and recovery firms were accepted and meant we got home a lot earlier than we thought we would.
Could you kindly publish this online or in print on my behalf? I did not take the names of the people involved but they will know who they are. SWAB JUNE NEWSLETTER POLICE & CRIME COMMISSIONER LAUNCHES £1 million Innovation Fund. The Commissioner's six main priorities, working with communities and partners, are to:
Mr Macpherson added: "This fund is about supporting innovative new ideas which will make a lasting difference to community safety and I'm particularly interested in projects that help to break cycles of crime and anti-social behaviour, including supporting repeat offenders." For more information and contact details, you can see the rest of the press release by clicking here. LOCAL CRIME DURING MAY To see the May summary, click here. SWAB MEETING, 6th JUNE MORE ON THE LOCAL CRIME FRONT. PARISH COUNCIL AGM ROGUE TRADERS For further information or advice, contact Wiltshire Council Trading Standards office in Trowbridge, or the Citizens' Advice consumer helpline on 08454-040506. RECENT CRIME REPORTS To help protect yourself against being the victim in one of these incident reports, see also next story, with advice from a Crime Prevention Officer on protecting your shed and its contents. SHED SECURITY Marking your tools to make them identifiable as yours with bright paint or scratching your postcode on them will make them less desirable to steal. Any equipment with a serial number should be registered with Immobilise.com. Chaining large items together makes them difficult to remove. If possible, more expensive items should be stored within a locked garage or inside the home. BAT WALK ! PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. Consequently, there are two vacancies on the Parish Council which will be filled by co-option. If you are interested, please contact the Parish Clerk. For her contact details, and a summary of other topics covered at the 18th April meeting, click here to see the meeting notes. Change of AGM Date: Please note that the Parish Council AGM, originally scheduled for 23 May 2013, will now be held on 9th May, in the Village Hall. Also that from then on, until the new Memorial Centre is built, Parish Council meetings will be held in All Saints Church. SWAB BRIEFING PAPER ON CCGs ANNUAL MUSIC FESTIVAL, April 2013 ELECTIONS. SWAB INVITES APPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNITY GRANTS. ANNUAL PARISH MEETING REPORT.
If your house is more than about half a mile from the Whiteparish exchange, you're probably already dissatisified with download speeds, and not being able to watch video clips etc without having to wait during buffering delays. Even if your broadband speeds seem fast enough for your current needs, they soon won't be. We don't want Whiteparish to be left behind, or left out altogether, once BT get their act together. They need to know that there's a lot of demand here for up-to-date broadband speeds. So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE click here to go to the relevant BT web page, where you can find out the latest situation by entering your Whiteparish postcode. And then folllow the links on the page to REGISTER YOUR INTEREST. As BT say, "If we get enough demand in your area it might mean that we can add it to the rollout plans.": Registering your interest costs nothing and doesn't carry any obligation, but it just might help Whiteparish to start to catch up with the high broadband speeds that are already commonplace in some parts of the country. BRITISH SUMMER TIME BEGINS . . . NO SPECIAL RECYCLING/WASTE REARRANGEMENTS FOR EASTER MEMORIAL TRUST PAGE
MEMORIAL CENTRE FUNDING. NEW SWAB-AREA WEBSITE COMMENTS WANTED ON DRAFT POLICE AND CRIME PLAN GOODBYE OLD FRIEND . . . "TREASURE ISLAND" PANTOMIME PHOTOGRAPHS This year we've also provided a page where you can display the panto photos in an extra-large format, for people with big computer screens. You can go to this page by clicking here; or you can try out both pages to find which format is best for your screen. (There's a link towards the top of each page to let you switch to displaying photos in the other format.) LOCAL FOOTPATHS INITIATIVE POLICE CRIME REPORTS FOR DECEMBER 2012 AND JANUARY 2013 The snow didn’t cause us too many problems, the only advice I try to pass to motorists to have a safe journey during the ice and snow is anticipate, anticipate, & anticipate!" For the December crime reports, click here. For January's reports, click here. FARMWATCH NEWSLETTER FOR JANUARY 2013 SWAB NEWS PARISH COUNCIL: ANNUAL PARISH MEETING For notes of the Parish Council meeting held on 17th January 2013, click here. WHITEPARISH MEMORIAL TRUST AGM. The next meeting will be held at 7.30 pm on Thursday January 31st, in All Saints Church; members of the public are welcome to attend. TALK ON CLARENDON PALACE.
2012PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. WASTE AND RECYCLING COLLECTIONS, CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR. CRIME REPORTS FOR NOVEMBER 2012 . Some news that may not have reached everyone yet, Sgt Dean Garvin has been successful in his promotion to substantive sergeant and has moved on to a new position in Salisbury Custody department, He has been our sergeant for two years and will be missed greatly and I am sure you will echo my thanks to him for his time with us. He will be replaced in January by Sergeant Dave Lennane who will take the reins of Alderbury and Wilton stations, I will ensure Sgt Lennane joins us at some Parish Council meetings and coffee mornings so you will get a chance to meet him." To see the November reports, click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. FASTER BROADBAND (sometime, maybe . . .) From a telephone enquiry to Wiltshire Online, it seems that BT will be largely responsible for formulating initial plans about who gets what, and that they will be giving a first indication of the results of their deliberations during the first quarter of 2013. According to the Wiltshire Online website, "The aim is for a minimum of 85% of premises across the GWB area (90% in each local authority area of Wiltshire, South Gloucestershire and Swindon) being able to access superfast broadband, over 24Mbps, by 2015 and all other premises to have a minimum access line speed of 2Mbps." So will we in Whiteparish be among the lucky 90%? Looks like we won't know until early next year. But if you're keen that we get 24+Mbps broadband here as part of the rollout, it wouldn't do any harm to contact Wilts Council or BT from time to time to enquire how plans are progressing. We don't want BT to be able to claim they'd had no indication of interest from Whiteparish, and to use that as an excuse for leaving us behind ! SUCCESSFUL 2012 FIREWORKS DISPLAY. SWAB HAVE MONEY TO GIVE AWAY (again). LOCAL CRIME IN OCTOBER 2012. ASH DIE-BACK DISEASE. If you see these symptoms, please double-check them at the website (www.forestry.gov.uk/chalara); and report them to the helpline: 08459 335577. To help stop the disease spreading: before visiting other places, clean mud and leaves from footwear, pushchairs, bikes, cars, dogs and horses; and do not remove leaves, plants or wood from this area. DODGY EMAILS Pretending to come from Vodafone. DON'T try to save the attached zip file, or open it. It contains a malicious .exe file (for details from the Cisco website, click here). Spammers are getting very clever at creating plausible-looking "malware" that looks as if it came from a reputable source, and can find its way past spam filters. The only safe approach to dealing with unexpected emails containing attachments is "if in doubt, delete". If you're not sure, paste a line or two of text from the suspicious email into google. More often than not that will bring up a load of hits confirming that the email is spam, a hoax, or malware. FLOWER SHOW EXHIBITS.
LOCAL CRIME IN SEPTEMBER. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS WILTSHIRE CORE STRATEGY. LOCAL CRIME IN AUGUST. ARRGGHH—WHAT'S HAPPENING TO THE CRICKET SQUARE?!
NEW POLICE NON-EMERGENCY NUMBER.
However it is important to emphasise that 999 is still the number when you want to contact the police in an emergency. To read the police press release on the subject, which gives more information about what constitutes an emergency, and some background about the change, click here. For a mini-poster in pdf format that you might like to print and keep or put by your phone (), click here. Alternatively, for a small reminder-type picture you might like to stick on the wall near your phone, click here. FIRST BATCH OF FLOWER SHOW PHOTOS. FOOTBALL CLUB WEBSITE. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. SWAB GIVING AWAY MONEY AGAIN . . . FIRST RESPONDER NEWS.
FINAL FOLLOW-UP RE "PRODUCED IN WHITEPARISH" SALE.
HISTORY GROUP PROGRAMME FOR COMING SEASON.
WESSEX WATER AWARD FOR MEMORIAL CENTRE WORK.
LOCAL CRIME FIGURES FOR JULY 2012.
"PRODUCED IN WHITEPARISH:" Follow-Up. FLOWER AND HOBBIES SHOW COMING SOON. For the handicraft, art, and children's section categories, click here. DAVID EAST DAY: Sunday August 19th. Dr ESSIGMAN LEAVING COMMON RD SURGERY. MINERALS SITE ALLOCATIONS SUBMISSION LOCAL PLAN. The WCC email said that information in it (in the email, that is) was confidential and should not be disseminated. However this warning seems a bit silly because there's nothing in the email that one couldn't find out by going to the "Consultation Portal" on the WCC website and registering there—so we've ignored it. AREA BOARD DISCUSSING FOOTPATHS. "PRODUCED IN WHITEPARISH" SALE, AUGUST 4th. If you would like to contribute some produce or handicrafts to the Sale, you can bring them to the hall on the morning of 4th August from about 9.00 am, or leave them with Colin & Gill Bray, or Colin or Gill could collect if necessary. If you have any questions about the event, phone Gill on 884882. CHAT WITH TOP COPS ON 23rd JULY ! At the last chat, topics raised included anti-social behaviour, traffic highways agency officers, Royal Military Police assisting Wiltshire Police as well as recruitment and career opportunities within the police service. For more information, including details of how the chat will be run and what type of questions will be approved, click here to visit the wiltshire police web site. CHARITY COMMMISSION'S PROPOSED SCHEME FOR NEW TRUST. 2012 FETE A REAL SUCCESS—CONSIDERING . . . For some photos of the fete, click here. FIRST RESPONDER NEWS. PARISH COUNCIL MEETING, 28 June 2012. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, "SPOTTY"
LOCAL CRIME FIGURES FOR JUNE 2012.
POLICE AND CRIME COMMISSIONER INFORMATION WEBSITE An information site about the election of the first ever Police and Crime Commissioner for Wiltshire has been launched. The Wiltshire Police Authority's website now includes details about the role and responsibilities of the forthcoming Police and Crime Commissioner and how they will be scrutinised. The site also includes a timeline highlighting key dates in the transition from Wiltshire Police Authority to the Police and Crime Commissioner, details about the election, a news section and links to useful documents and other websites for potential candidates. To visit the site, click here. Much like the existing police authority, the Police and Crime Commissioner will be responsible for overseeing Wiltshire Police on behalf of all residents in the Force area. They will represent people living across Wiltshire and Swindon. Elections for Police and Crime Commissioners take place on Thursday 15 November 2012. There will then be a formal seven day transition period before the commissioner takes office on Thursday 22 November. The Wiltshire Police area Police and Crime Commissioner will replace Wiltshire Police Authority, the group of 17 councillors and independent members who currently oversee Wiltshire Police. WASTE SITE ALLOCATIONS. 2012 BEST-KEPT VILLAGE COMPETITION. PARISH COUNCIL AGM, 24 May 2012. JUBILEE BEACON EVENT. JUBILEE PICNIC AT ALL SAINTS SCHOOL. LOCAL CRIME FIGURES FOR MAY 2012.
LAST NIGHT OF THE PROMS CONCERT. LOCAL CRIME FIGURES.
MEMORIAL GROUND TRUST UPDATE. MEMORIAL CENTRE UPDATE. PRINCE PHILIP DROPS IN ON FIRST RESPONDERS. Protocol prevented the First Responders taking any photos of the Duke of Edinburgh visiting their display, but for some other shots taken on the day, see the First Responders' page by clicking here.
MEMORIAL CENTRE/DRAFT CONTRACTOR CRITERIA. The two local trusts (Memorial Ground Trust and Village Hall Trust) who have joined forces to work on the Memorial Centre project, held their first joint meeting on April 4th. (For a diagram showing the structure and "staffing" of the working groups for the new project, click here.) To go to the Memorial Centre page on the website, click here. Local businesses who might be interested in tendering for the work are encouraged to look at the draft list of criteria that has been drawn up for selecting contractors who will be invited to tender; click here for more details. NEW YOUTH GROUP OPENS. The new Whiteparish Youth Group opened its doors for the first time on official opening day: 13th April 2012. You may well have seen the nice photo of the event that appeared in the Salisbury Journal and the Romsey Advertiser in the following week, but Suzanne Rendell has kindly sent us two more photos taken on the opening evening. To see the photos, and a little more about the Youth Group, click here. BROWNIES HAVE FUN PAINTING EASTER EGGS. We've added a new mini-gallery of photos showing the 1st Landford Brownies at Easter 2012 who hung their delicately painted eggs on a tree. They each painted an egg with colourful nail polishes, and Russell Sach came along to photograph them all. (Thanks to Russell for taking them, and to Chris Ellis for sending them.) To see the photos, click here. OPENING NIGHT FOR NEW YOUTH GROUP. Whiteparish's new Youth Group will be having an opening night in the Villlage Hall on Friday 13th April, from 7.00 pm to 10.00 pm, for Year 7-to-10s who live in the village to see the club and "join up to join in". Annual membership is just £10. Current Whiteparish Year 6s are also invited to come along, enjoy the evening, and sign up for their start date in July. REPORT OF MEMORIAL CENTRE PUBLIC MEETING, 20 MARCH. Linda Palmer has kindly sent a fuller report of the recent Public Meeting in the Village Hall. To see it/download it as a pdf file, click here. (Yes, we have a link to the same thing in the panel above, but we didn't want anyone to miss it !) ANNUAL PARISH MEETING. The Annual Parish Meeting (APM) was held in the Village Hall on 1st March, immediately followed by a regular Parish Council meeting. As usual a number of topics were discussed at both meetings but two items that caught the eye were these. (1) The Fete Committee are really short both of committee members and volunteers. They need more support, so if you're interersted in helping please get in touch with the committee. And (2) no person or organisation had come forward with regard to possible Jubilee celebrations in the village, so at the time of the APM nothing had been planned. For the full notes from the APM, click here. For the full notes from the regular PC meeting that followed, click here. MEMORIAL GROUND AWARD FROM SPORT ENGLAND. Sue King writes that Sport England announced officially on 21 March that Whiteparish has been awarded a legacy status for the Memorial ground as part of the Diamond Jubillee celebrations and the MGT have got £35880 for the new cricket square—this includes one years' maintenance money. Sheila Campbell has quotes which make her confident that, together with some R2 money, we have enough for the new square. Great news - particularly in the same week as the vote for the new centre! AND, ALAS, SOME MEMORIAL GROUND VANDALISM. A sad point from the report of the 19th March meeting of the Memorial Ground Trust (MGT): "Trustees were very sad to discover the Air skier equipment has been damaged beyond repair. PLEASE LET SHEILA CAMPBELL KNOW IF YOU SEE ANYTHING UNTOWARD ON THE GROUND – HELP US TO KEEP OUR EQUIPMENT SAFE FOR THE ENJOYMENT OF ALL. The items we provide cost hundreds of pounds and this mindless vandalism saddened us all." For the rest of the meeting highlights, click here. Tennis Coaching on the MUGA. Tennis coaching starts again after Easter on the MUGA (Multi-Use Games Area, on the Memorial Ground). Early booking is essential. First sessions are on Sat 21 April at 2pm and 3pm and will continue until July with a break at half term. To book contact James Kirkpatrick on 07748 483639 or info@puretennis.co.uk; or contact Sheila Campbell on 01794 884837 or spcam48@btinternet.com. James will also do private adult or childrens’ coaching if you contact him. MUGA membership is still available in various packages. Annual membership can be as little as £30. For info click here or visit the shop. The MUGA is available free of charge for one evening per week for an adult tennis club. If you are interested let Sheila Campbell know which nights you are available. The Memorial Ground Trust is always interested in new ideas for the use of the grounds or equipment – contact Sheila Campbell if you have any thoughts. SUCCESSFUL SWAB MEETING. Tom Bray of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board has written to say that the Community Planning Event held in Downton on 6th March went well, with a "fantastic turnout" of 70 people. For more information about the subjects discussed and the actions identified, click here. The next SWAB meeting will be at Morgan's Vale Village Hall at 7.00pm on 5th April. Apparently SWAB works closely with the Charities Information Bureau, whose website you can see by clicking here. The Bureau can help with advice on other, non-SWAB, sources of funding for local projects. So if you're trying to drum up funding for a local project, it might be worthwhile getting in touch with them. PANTO PHOTO GALLERY NOW ON WEBSITE. There's a full set of photos of "Red Riding Hood" in the website's Galleries section now, taken at the Friday evening show. To see them, click here. There's at least one shot from every scene, and at least one shot for each combination of cast members within a scene. We're also hoping to add a few "out-takes" to the site soon. LATER START TIME FOR 19 MARCH MGT MEETING. Please note that the regular meeting of the Memorial Ground Trust (MGT) on the evening of Monday 19th March in the Fountain Inn will start at 8.30 pm, not at 7.30 pm as previously stated. VERY ENJOYABLE "RED RIDING HOOD" FROM PEPPERBOX PLAYERS 2012's panto from the Pepperbox Players was great fun, as usual. There was a very enthusiastic audience for the Friday performance on 10th February (which we went to)—and we're sure the Saturday shows were just as well received. Strong performances from all concerned, whether "old stagers" or relatively new to the company (and it was nice to see Jimmy Goodland back on the boards). Our apologies for the delay in getting a set of photos up on the website's galleries section. We're working on them, and hope to have them on the site "real soon now" (ahem . . .) (Actually, in case you miss the follow-up paragraph above, the photos are now on the website, and you can see them by clicking here.) RASH OF LOCAL THEFTS FROM VEHICLES. PC Henry Clissold writes to warn us that within 72 hours, very recently, there were six separate thefts or attempted thefts from motor vehicles in the Southern Wiltshire NPT area. A number of these involved the theft of handbags or sat-navs left in plain sight in the vehicle. He asks that we please follow this simple timely advice:
Don't make it easy for the thieves!!! SWAB COMMUNITY PLANNING EVENT.. The Southern Wiltshire Area Board (SWAB) is hosting a special Community Planning Event on 6 March 2012 (7pm) at Downton's Trafalgar School where statistics about the area will be discussed. Interested residents are urged to come along and take part in the debate about how the area board should tackle these issues. This really important special event will present interesting Statistics about the area for consideration alongside our Community Plan 2010—15. The initial presentation, from Maggie Rae, Director for Public Health and Public Protection, will cover Health and wellbeing, Economy, Children and young people, Community safety, Housing, Transport, Environment, and Resilient communities. This will be followed by the debate, with the meeting scheduled to close soon after 8.50 pm. If you want to attend, you need to notify the organisers; either email Tom Bray by clicking here, or use the short online booking form. To view the Joint Strategic Assessment for our area, which contains many of the statistics that will emerge during Maggie Rae's presentation, click here. Finally, for an interesting Google map showing the locations of SWAB grants made since 2009, click here. FIRST RESPONDER NEWS. Latest news from the Whiteparish Community First Responder group includes the fact that they attended as many as 101 incidents during the past year, news of the proposed community access defibrillator, and photos from a trip to the Air Ambulance facility at Devizes. For the full report, click here. WHITEPARISH ALL SAINTS' CHURCHYARD. The PCC wishes to give notice that work will be carried out to the North East area of the graveyard during the early part of 2012 to level and re- seed a number of graves. A few of the existing headstones are tilting and need to be made safe
as they could be a hazard to those who visit or tend graves.
If you have any concerns or require further information, please contact WHITEPARISH MULTI USE GAMES AREA (MUGA). We are lucky to have such a wonderful resource in the village. Do come and use it. Application forms for membership are available on this website (click here to go to the MUGA page, where there's a link for downloading the form); and in the village shop. Annual membership lasts for a year from receiving your membership card. If you have any questions about membership or other comments about the memorial ground, contact spcam48@btinternet.com. EXTRA MEMORIAL GROUND TRUST MEETING. The Memorial Ground Trust are holding an extra meeting at 7.30 pm in the Fountain Inn on 13th February, to discuss the documents etc for the proposed merger of the Village Hall and Memorial Ground Trust charities. For the agenda, click here. MEMORIAL CENTRE PLANNING APPLICATION. The amended planning application for the new Memorial Centre is currently with the Wiltshire Council planning dept. The public consultation period for this application ends on 23rd February 2012, with a decision expected before 13 March. Villagers who wish to view the application or to submit comments on it can do so online on the Wiltshire Council website by clicking here. BROWNIES ACTIVITIES. To judge from the past year's review just received from "Little Owl", our local Brownies had another very full and interesting programme in 2011. To read all about it, click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. The Parish Council meeting held on 19th January 2012 covered gritting of the A27/Common Road junction, progress on the mooted new youth club, a rights-of-way survey (see also next item) and more. For details, click here. The next Parish Council meeting will be the Annual Parish Meeting, to be held at 7.30 pm in the Village Hall as usual on 1st March. FOOTPATHS MAP. We are pleased to have recently added a very useful rights-of-way map, provided by the Parish Council, to the website. This shows footpaths, byways, bridle-ways, etc within the parish, plus some of the footpaths etc of other adjoining parishes where they run near our parish boundary. To go to the new footpaths page, where there are download links for the map, click here. Hopefully the map will be interesting to villagers wanting to get better acquainted with "deepest Whiteparish" and anyone else interested in exploring the village and surroundings. 2011NEXT SWAB MEETING. The next meeting of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board will be held at 7.00 pm on Thursday 2nd February in Winterslow Village Hall. There are several interesting items on the agenda, including "What should the Area Board be doing in 2012/2013", Fortnightly Waste Collections, and the allocation of SIDs (Speed Indicator Devices for temporary installation in villages). For the full agenda, and instructions for getting to the venue, click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. It seems the Parish Council are considering adopting a telephone box! For more on this and the other topics discussed at the 8th December 2011 meeting, click here. WASTE & RECYCLING COLLECTIONS DURING CHRISTMAS PERIOD. For household waste and recycling bins, only one collection date has been rescheduled over the Christmas/New Year period: the collections that would "normally" have happened on Friday 30th December will be made on Saturday 31st December. Similarly there is just one rescheduling for garden waste: the collection that would otherwise have happened on Wednesday 28th December will be made on Thursday 29th December. (If you're lucky enough to live where your garden waste is collected, that is !) LOCAL CRIME IN NOVEMBER. To judge from the latest bulletin from the local Neighbourhood Policing Team, November 2011 was a relatively quiet month for crime in Whiteparish. (Though we have to remember that not all categories of crimes are listed in these regular reports.) Plenty going on elsewhere, though, including three successive thefts of fuel from aircraft at Old Sarum aerodrome (haven't seen that category before), and a Royal Mail postbox and a wheelie bin nicked in Landford (??) To see the full report, click here. MEMORIAL GROUND TRUST NEWS. For the highlights report of the MGT meeting held on 21st November, and for the hire fees and membership fees applicable from 1st February 2012, click here. SWAB NEWS. The December meeting of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board will be at held in Trafalgar School, Downton, at 7.00 pm on Thursday 15th December 2011. Among the items being discussed is an application from the Whiteparish Community First Responders (CFRs) for funding assistance for a publicly accessible defibrillator for the village. Out of interest, applications from Whiteparish seem to have been very rare. SWAB have prepared an interesting google map showing the locations of projects where funding help has been granted, and although there are apparently loads of approved projects in Alderbury, Landford, and Downton (and quite a few elsewhere), Whiteparish has had just two. So if you are involved with a community project that needs funding, it might be worthwhile to try applying to SWAB. To see the map, click here. To see the agenda for the December 15th SWAB meeting, which includes links to various supporting documents, click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. To see notes from the meeting held on 10th November 2011, when quite a range of topics were discussed including a proposal from the Whiteparish First Responders (CFRs) for a public access defribillator for the village, plans for setting up a youth club, and a "red gateway" on the A27, click here. LOCAL CRIME IN OCTOBER. Two burglaries in Whiteparish last month, unfortunately, plus what seems to be the most recent in a series of thefts here of copper wiring from transformer poles. To see the full list from the Alderbury & Laverstock Policing Team, click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. Malcolm Adams is a new co-opted member of the Parish Council, with responsibilities for Environment and Transport. For a full list of Councillors, their responsibilities, and Parish Council meeting dates until the end of 2012, click here to see the Parish Council page. For notes from the September meeting, click here. PUMPKIN AND HALLOWEEN FANCY DRESS PHOTOS. Many thanks again to Keith Hobbs for the nice photos of the Garden Club's annual Pumpkin and Halloween Fancy Dress Competitions, held on October 27th, which we've added to the website Galleries section. To see them, click here. 2011 FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR. The Annual Fireworks Display (sponsored and staged by Pains Fireworks for the benefit of All Saints School) will be held on Saturday 12th November on the Memorial Ground (reserve date for bad weather: Friday 18th). Gates open at 6.15 pm, and the display itself starts at 7.00 pm. Advance tickets will be available from the School Office and the Village Shop until 12.00 on the day of the display: adult £3.50, children 4—16 £2.50, under 4s free, family tickets (2 adults + 2 children or 1 adult + 3 children) £10.00. On the night an adult ticket is £5.00, children £3.00 each; no family tickets will be available on the gates. There will be a barbecue, refreshments, tea, coffee, beer and mulled wine on sale, sith fairgound rides for younger children. It's always a terrific show so do try to come and support the school! However, for insurance reasons the organisers (All Saints Primary School PTA) ask that you don't bring sparklers to this event. And remember the fireworks code: keep all pets indoors. If there are any updates to the arrangements, they will be included on the PTA's Facebook page which you can access by clicking here.
For larger pictures and the text of the commendation, click here. COMMUNITY FIRST RESPONDERS. Whiteparish Community First Responders (CFR) Group are looking into the possibility of using donated funds to install a community access defibrillator at a central point in the village. For more on this and the rest of the September news from the CFRs, click here.
LOCAL CRIME. The September 2011 Crime list from the Alderbury and Laverstock police team (covering crimes in August), shows more crimes listed for Whiteparish than for any of the other local communities, which is an unwelcome change. For more details, click here. (Sorry that some of the information in the bulletin is a bit out of date now; we're trying to catch up after a holiday.) SWAB NEWS. The October meeting of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board will be at held in Pitton Village Hall at 7.00 pm on Thursday 6th October 2011, when Concillor Jane Scott, OBE, the Leader oof Wiltshire Council, will be giving a short presentation and then taking questions. To see more on this and other items covered in the latest SWAB Newsletter, click here. (The link will take you to the new SWAB online discussion forum, which also includes the newsletter.) DOGS ON THE MEMORIAL GROUND—AND WHAT THEY LEAVE BEHIND. The Memorial Ground Trustees are concerned that some dog-owners are ignoring the notices warning that dogs are not allowed on the Memorial Ground (see longer message above and/or on the MGT page), and the trustees emphasise the health and safety implications. For other Memorial Ground news noted from the trustees' 12th September meeting, click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. The Parish Council Notes for the meeting on 18th August 2011 contain several items of interest, including the latest state of play in trying to get the surface of Dean Lane improved. For more on this, and othet items covered, click here. FLOWER & HOBBIES SHOW. As already mentioned, we hope to be able to publish a list of prizewinners soon, but in the meantime there's a selection of photos in the Galleries section. To see them, click here. RESCHEDULED WASTE COLLECTION. The Household Waste Collection that would normally have taken place on Friday 2nd September is rescheduled to Saturday 3rd September due to the August Bank Holiday. FLOWER & HOBBIES SHOW. The annual Flower aand Hobbies Show organised by the Garden Club took place on Saturday 27th August, and seemed to be pretty well-attended. A list of prizewinners, and some photos, will be added to the website soon. NEXT LOCAL SWAB MEETING The August 25th meeting of the South Wilts Area Board (SWAB) will be held in Alderbury Village Hall at 7.00 pm. Among the items discussed will be the new recycling collection arrangements that will start in March 2012, and a presentation from Wiltshire Council's Cabinet Member for Public Health and Protection Services, Cllr Keith Humphries. Also on the subject of SWAB, they are currently conducting a survey about Area Board activities. If you'd like to contribute to this, the survey closes on Friday 12th August, and you can complete it by clicking here. FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE 2011 FETE. This year’s committee held the usual “round up “ meeting to take stock of the events. We were extremely pleased to be able to agree two very large cheques be issued to the school and the church for £4,400 each. This leaves a small working balance for next year’s committee to pay deposits in the autumn for the loos etc. We are very conscious that generous sponsorship helps us cover our major expenses and letters have gone to those donors, not all of whom live in our village. It was particularly nice to see some different things this year and our grateful thanks go to two local small businesses, El Visage (Karen Gunning) for the nail decorating and Oakley Build and Design (Trevor Oakley) who procured the dunk tank at his own expense and generously donated the proceeds. Comments were received about there not being a tractor heading the fancy dress procession this year. This was because The New Forest Plonkers expressed a wish not to ride around the village. However we acknowledge that the general feeling is that people feel safer when a tractor leads the way, so some arrangement will no doubt be made to include the use of one next summer. Please put a note in your diaries that the next village fete will be on 16 June, 2012 and the autumn inaugural fete meeting will be on Thursday 6 October. JULY PARISH COUNCIL MEETING. The notes from the Parish Council meeting held on 7th July include the good news about the first round of the "Best-Kept Village" competition (see elsewhere) and the fact that there is currently a vacancy for a parish councillor. For the full notes, click here. MORE ON THE 2011 FETE. Sue King of the Fete Committee has written to say that this year the Fete and other Whiteparish Week activities raised a magnificent £8800 to be shared between the church and the school!! Well done to all involved! For the whole of Sue's report, including a breakdown prepared by treasurer Langdon Nichols, click here. MEMORIAL GROUND TRUST AGM. The MGT's Annual General Meeting, followed by a regular business meeting, was held on 20th June 2011. For the meeting notes, which include the names of officers and trustees for the coming year, click here. WHITEPARISH WEEK HORSE SHOW. Now that the Horse Show hosted by Brympton Riding Stables is becoming a regular feature of Whiteparish Week, it was disappointing this year that rain prevented it being held on Sunday 12th June as originally scheduled. Never mind, it was put back a week and quite a good turnout enjoyed the rescheduled event on Sunday 19th June, 2011. There was even some sunshine ! For some pictures, click here. FETE AND CARNIVAL. For the nth year running, the sun shone on fete day, though unfortunately some of the other Whiteparish Week events were affected by rain. We hope to have more material about the fete and other events in due course, but in the meantime, to see photos of the fete, click here. And for some excellent photos of some of the participants in the carnival parade, by Salisbury Journal chief photographer Roger Elliott, see p22 of the June 16th issue of the Journal. IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM FIRST RESPONDERS. In the report of their Open Evenings (23 May, 2011), the Whiteparish First Responder Group ask all residents as follows: "Please ensure that house name and numbers are visible from the road, and that all foliage is cut back so it can be seen clearly. Precious minutes can be saved if the team and ambulance crews can find the house quickly, which may mean the difference between life and death." For more about the Open Evening, click here. LOCAL CRIMES DURING MAY. The local crime reports for May 2011 from the neighbourhood policing team show most of the crime hereabouts to have been in Landford and Laverstock, with Whiteparish getting off fairly lightly. For details, click here. MGT AGM SCHEDULED FOR 20th June. The 2011 Annual General Meeting of the Memorial Ground Trust will be held in the Pavilion at 8.00 pm on Monday 20th June, immediately followed by a special meeting to elect officers for the coming year and to conduct the business of the trust. To see the AGM notice and agenda, click here. FIRST RESPONDERS. The Whiteparish Community First Responders have been chosen as one of the three groups for the Green token scheme at Waitrose, Romsey, during June 2011; so if you're a Waitrose customer, please drop your token into the First Responders "bin" this month. Any funds raised will go towards the 24/7 defibrillator access scheme for Whiteparish, and we understand that you can use tokens from the Salisbury Waitrose in the Romsey branch.. We now have a First Responder page on the website, which we'll hopefully add to over the next few months: click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. The report of the 26th May Parish Council meeting includes an updated list of Parish Councillor responsibilities, so if you want to know which Parish Councillor(s) to contact about particular problems, or anything else discussed at the meeting, click here. Not everybody knows this, but the Parish Council page also has links to a collection of PC meeting reports going back to 2005—to access these, click here. WHITEPARISH WEEK EVENTS PROGRAMME. For anyone who didn't get or see the programme provided with the June issue of Steeple & Street, the same info is available on the website's Fete page by clicking here. If you want a print-friendly (pdf) version, click here. MUGA AND MEMORIAL GROUND HIRE. Please note that the Memorial Ground Trust have revised the hire fees for the Memorial Ground and for the Multi-User Games Area (MUGA) within it. For details, click here. SWAB NEWS. The latest bi-monthly newsletter from the South Wiltshire Area Board includes some results from a survey about which issues local residents feel are important, and which of them SWAB should be concentrating on. There are also reminders about applying for community awards, and several other stories. The May newsletter hasn't found its way onto Wiltshire Council's website yet, but you can read it by clicking here. JUST A FEW DAYS LEFT . . . to complete the Wiltshire Council survey for Rural Broadband users (that's us). The last day for completing and submitting this important online survey is 3rd June. For details, see the panel further down the page. IT'S VERY NEARLY FETE TIME AGAIN. The Fete Committee and stallholders had their final meeting on May 5th, and everyone's getting ready for the Fete on June 11th and the other scheduled events during Whiteparish Week. Don't forget to mark your diary, and let's hope for good weather ! The committee have put together a sort of Q&A for volunteers, donors, and people who want to take part in the various activities, which you can view by clicking here. MGT COMMITTEE MEETING, 16 MAY 2011. For the highlights of the most recent meeting of the Memorial Ground Trust, held in their "summer venue" of the Pavilion, click here. LOCAL CRIME IN APRIL. The summary of crimes in local villages recently received from PC Henry Clissold shows quite an outbreak of vandalism in our near neighbours Alderbury and Clarendon, but happily a fairly quiet month in Whiteparish which included two instances of bicycle pump theft (why ? !). For the whole list, click here, but remember that some categories of crimes involving issues of confidentiality are intentionally omitted from these summaries. ROYAL WEDDING TEA PARTY. On the afternoon of 29th April, to mark the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, 153 children plus some grown-ups enjoyed a celebration tea party on the Memorial Ground, and received souvenir mugs. Sue King, one of the volunteer organisers, describes it as "A wonderful afternoon". For more on this, click here. For a small gallery of photos, click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. Among the items in the notes of the latest Parich Council meeting (14th April 2011) are the appointment of a new co-opted councillor, a reminder that Whiteparish has been entered into the 2011 Best Kept Village competition (so please do your bit and help keep the village tidy and well groomed!), and news of tennis coaching, to start on 21st May. For more on these and the other subjects discussed, click here. MORE ABOUT BROADBAND. Sorry, we do keep banging on about this, but getting faster broadband in Whiteparish is so important for the village . . . Here's a notice from Wiltshire Council about the questionnaire they're running as an early part of their scheme to improve broadband performance in rural areas like ours. Please use the link below and complete the questionnaire, if you haven't already done so. Whiteparish needs to tell the council loud and clear that we don't want our village left behind! Superfast broadband in Wiltshire Wiltshire Council is spearheading a drive to bring superfast broadband to communities across the county. The council is investing £16 million so more residents and businesses can have access to super fast broadband. The council is also bidding for a government grant and additional funding from the telecoms industry with the hope of generating more than £30m towards getting Wiltshire ahead in the digital revolution. The council has set a target of giving 85% of premises access to super fast broadband by 2015 – and that target could possibly rise to 95%. Supporting superfast broadband access is only one part of the council’s wider plans to get the county online. Being online is becoming increasingly important and the council will invest in educating people and small businesses to help them get the most out of the internet. The council will also help encourage more elderly people to use online services which will help give them greater independence. It will increase the number of its services that can be accessed online and look to develop its website so more people can pay bills and make enquiries online – increasing access and saving taxpayers’ money.
To make sure the council targets its investment to the areas which need it most, people across the county are being asked to fill in a survey. All the information gathered will help the council as it works with the telecoms industry to improve access to broadband across Wiltshire. Separate surveys aimed at businesses and residents are available online at: The survey can also be obtained by calling 0300 456 0100. The survey will run from April 26 to June 3. Your help in completing the survey or publicising it to local residents and businesses would be very much appreciated. Thank you for your help. Paul Mountford MORE ON THE CUP FINAL (see last item). Whiteparish won 3-1 ! WHITEPARISH IN CUP FINAL. Well, not THAT Cup Final, but A Cup Final . . . On Good Friday, Whiteparish Football Club play Alderbury in the final of the Norman Court Cup, at Downton, so Good Luck to our local team ! Kick-off is at 11.00 am. Why not go along and support them? BROADBAND NEWS: An Important Questionnaire. According to the Salisbury Journal, 14th April 2011, Wiltshire Council is aiming to invest £10 million in projects which, with extra funding from government grants and industry, should make superfast broadband available to up to 95% of premises in the county by 2015. For more information on the Wiltshire Council website, click here. From 26th April, there will be an internet questionnaire on that same link—please complete the questionnaire and help to reinforce the need for faster broadband in Whiteparish. SWAB NEWS. The Southern Wiltshire Area Board have invited residents to participate in an online survey about how they should spend about £40,000 that's available for projects in this area. The deadline is midnight on April 24th, so if you want to take part, click here, soon! The next SWAB meeting in these parts is on Wednesday 20th April, at Winterslow Village Hall, with a 6.30 pm start. The meeting is billed as being about "Big Society and Localism". For more details, click here. LOCAL CRIMES IN MARCH 2011. According to the latest list of local crimes from PC Clissold, there was only one reported crime in Whiteparish during March, though there seems to have been a bit of an outbreak in Alderbury. For more details, including some information about merging of the two local police teams based at Alderbury, click here. A police surgery is scheduled for 20th April 2011 at Whiteparish Village Store. BANK HOLIDAY WASTE & RECYCLING ARRANGEMENTS On Good Friday (22nd April), the waste and recycling collections will take place as normal. After that, collections that would otherwise have happened on Fridays are rescheduled as follows: ALTAR GUILD NEEDLEWORK DISPLAYED. At a Thanksgiving Service during March, some beautiful examples of the work of the Altar Guild were displayed in All Saints Church as tribute to the late Mrs Edna Fenwick, who had masterminded the production of most of the items shown. Dawn and Langdon Nichols forwarded us some photos, taken by Dr Peter Claydon, so thanks to all concerned. To view the photos, click here. ROYAL WEDDING PARTY UPDATE. Plans are coming together nicely for the Royal Wedding Party, planned to be held on the Memorial Ground at 3.30pm on Friday 29 April. This will be free to anyone in the village who would like to join in – young and old alike. The Parish Council, the Village Hall committee and the Memorial Ground Trust are supporting the event. Several kind folk have been in touch with offers of providing the food needed and I’m sure there will be enough hands around at the time to help serve!
If you would like to dress up on the day, then please do so to add to the fun – but remember we shall only be in the Village hall if it’s raining – so thermals might be needed!
If you have offered help, you will be contacted before the event. If you would still like to offer, then please contact: MEMORIAL GROUND TRUST MEETING, 21 MARCH 2011. For notes of the meeting, click here FETE DATE NOT FAR OFF NOW . . . In just a couple of months (and a bit) it"ll be Whiteparish Week again, culminating in the Fete on 11th June. The notes from the March meeting of the Fete Committee, have important info about how to book a craft/sales table; also pleas for gazebos, and for all stallholders to come to the next meeting on 5th May. For more details, click here. PARISH COUNCIL: Annual Parish Meeting. The Annual Parish Meeting was held on 3rd March in the Village Hall, where each councillor gave an overview of the past year's activities on their area of responsibility. For notes of this meeting, click here. The Annual Parish Meeting was immediately followed by a regular Parish Council meeting; for the notes of the regular meeting, click here. VISITING OWLS. Many thanks to Keith Hobbs for sending us some photos of Chrissie Harper's talk to the Garden Club's February meeting, all about owls (with some real ones on hand—literally !). To view Keith's photos, click here. ROYAL WEDDING 2011. The Memorial Ground Trustees invite the use of this village facility to hold a tea party and games on Friday 29 April at 3.30pm to celebrate the Royal wedding. The Village hall will be the alternative venue should the weather be inclement. The Parish Council have offered to support this occasion, which will likely translate into a memento for each child attending. A decision will be made after 25 March as to whether this event takes place, dependent on the number of people showing an interest.
Please put your child’s name in the book in the village shop or let the school know. I should also be grateful to receive names from anyone who would be prepared to help with offers of sandwiches, cakes etc. This could be a village event to remember !!!! 2011 PANTO PHOTOS. "The Canterbury Tales", presented on February 10th—12th by the Pepperbox Players, was the usual hilarious romp from our talented local troupe! We went on the Friday, and everyone in the close-to-packed Village Hall had a great time. For a bit more info and the list of cast members, click here. For some photos in the website's Galleries section, click here. 2010 PUMPKIN-FEST PICS. Photos of the Garden Club's Halloween Pumpkin and Fancy Dress Competition, from 28th October 2010, have just reached the galleries section. Many thanks to Keith Hobbs for supplying them. (And apologies for the delay; they apparently dropped into a hole in cyberspace, back in November, somewhere on their way to the website . . . To view them, click here. 2011 FETE—MORE VOLUNTEERS (AND TUG-OF-WAR-ERS) NEEDED. The fete committee are urgently seeking some volunteers to run or help with some of the planned activities for the fete itself and the preceding Friday night Hog Roast etc. If you'd like to help run the bar or be a marshal on the Friday night, or sell ice cream, or enter a team in a Tug of War competition, do get in touch with the committee. For more about this, and the notes of the most recent committee meeting, click here! MGT NOTES; NEW HIRE CHARGES. The notes from the January 31st Meeting of the Memorial Ground Trust are now available on the MGT page, where you can also find the hire charges for Memorial Ground (and MUGA) facilities for the 2011/12 financial year. For details, click here. POLICE NEWS AND CRIME REPORTS. The latest Neighbourhood Policing Newsletter forwarded to us by PC Henry Clissold includes items on FlyTipping and apparent success in combatting antisocial behaviour in Alderbury. Perhaps there's some connection between that and the fact that in the January crime list included in the same newsletter, Alderbury had no reported crimes whereas unfortunately Whiteparish suffered several thefts from vehicles and premises and one case of criminal damage. For more on these, click here, but note that some categories of crimes (crimes of violence or domestic disputes, for example), are omitted from these local lists for confidentiality reasons. CANTERBURY TALES Panto 3rd FEBRUARY: SWAB MEETING. The next meeting of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board (SWAB) will be held at 7.00 pm on Thursday 3rd February 2011, in Winterslow Village Hall (so fairly local for us), and all residents are invited. Included in the agenda are:
- Parish Councils' Emergency Planning - Community Resilience For the full agenda, click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. Following the sad news of the death of that very active and hard-working Councillor Dave Boakes, there is a vacancy on the Parish Council. For a combined report of the Parish Council meetings of 16th December 2010 and 20th January 2011, click here. 2010BROWNIE NEWS. "Little Owl" has sent a very interesting account of the local Brownie Troop's activities during 2010—it sounds like they had an exciting and very varied programme. For details, click here. CRIME OVER CHRISTMAS. The latest list of crimes for our locality shows several burglaries in Whiteparish (and in neighbouring Landford) during the Christmas 2010 period, though nothing was reported for West Dean or the Grimsteads. If you want to know more about police priorities in our area, need crime prevention advice, or would like to raise any other concerns, the local police hold regular Police Surgeries/Consultations in nearby villages. For dates and places, and the rest of the latest crime bulletin; click here. FASTER BROADBAND FOR WHITEPARISH CAMPAIGN. A huge thank-you to all those who surfed to BT's "race to infinity" website as we approached the end of last year, and registered their interest in getting faster broadband from the Whiteparish Exchange. According to BT's stated rules, if we could get about 550 votes (75% of the number of subscribers here), BT would get in touch with the village to discuss ways of improving broadband performance. Well, the number of votes cast wasn't anywhere near that, unfortunately, but bearing in mind that not many people knew about the BT "race" until it was publicised locally, and leaflets were only distributed round the village over the Xmas holiday when a lot of people were away, the 160 or so votes wasn't too bad a result. (Don't know the exact total, but vote 156 was cast at 4.20 pm on New Year's Eve!) Hopefully it will have been enough to convince BT that there is quite a bit of interest here in improved broadband, even if the votes were short of the percentage they stipulated (which many commentators believe was much too difficult a hurdle for most small rural exchanges to jump). We plan to include a new Broadband section in the website soon, to summarise the technologies that BT is supposed to be using to upgrade internet connections in most of the UK, and to consider the possibliities for Whiteparish, and what next steps the village might take to try to move things along. MORE ON THE NOVEMBER FIREWORKS. We've heard that through a lot of hard work on the part of All Saints School PTA and other volunteers, and in particular through the generosity of Pains Fireworks for staging the show, last November's display and associated attractions netted a magnificent £5,076.87 for school funds. Congratulations to all concerned ! PTA QUIZ. 16 teams gathered in the Village Hall on the evening of Saturday 11th December for an evening of good-humoured but competitive general-knowledge quizzery, organized by the All Saints School PTA, as a fund-raiser for the school. Winners were the oddly named "Beat the Bishops" (or something like that). For more, click here. For some photos, click here. WEBSITE USAGE. Villagers and other readers might be interested to know a little about the numbers of people visiting this website. In an average week, there are maybe 1400 or 1500 so-called "sessions" with the site, but not all of these are human visitors! Typically five or six hundred of them are robots, which trawl the worldwide web gathering statistics and other information for a whole host of purposes. Once we discount the robots, we are left with typical figures of seven or eight hundred human visitors in a week. Those are average figures, and there can be big variations. For example, for some reason, the third week in December 2010 was a bonanza one with about 1500 human visitors, as far as we can tell. What areas of the site get the most visitors? By far the most popular seem to be the pages about tithe data derived from the 1842 tithe map. We guess that these must be people from outside the village whose family trees include ancestors from the village, but we have no way of knowing for sure what visitors' motivations were. After these pages, other well-visited areas are the home page (not surprisingly), news and events, the school, church services, and the businesses list. WILTSHIRE POLICE AUTHORITY Consultation. Clare Woods, Internal Communications Officer at the Wiltshire Police Authority, writes as follows to tell us about " . . . a consultation taking place by Wiltshire Police Authority about future plans of policing in Wiltshire, in line with the requirement to save up to £15 million over the next four years due to cuts in funding. We are asking members of the public to read about these plans and to give their views via a short questionnaire, accessible via the Wiltshire Police Authority website homepage www.wiltshire-pa.gov.uk. Please note, the questionnaire will close on 9 February 2011. We would very much appreciate your support in this important consultation exercise about the future of policing in Wiltshire." NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH AND CRIME BULLETINS The December 2010 issue of the Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin contains some useful information about keeping children safe (from sex offenders) and about Wiltshire Police's Christmas drink and drug drive campaign for 2010. For more on these, click here. For the summary of local crimes during November (seemed pretty quiet), click here. Reports from MEMORIAL GROUND TRUST and 2011 FETE COMMITTEE. For the report of the Memorial Ground Trust meeting held on 22 November 2010, click here. For the report of the 2nd December 2010 meeting of the 2011 Fete Steering Committee, click here. CHRISTMAS/NEW YEAR WASTE & RECYCLING . The waste and recycling collections for the village will take place on Christmas Eve (Friday 24th December) and New Year's Eve (Friday 31st December). None of the collections are rescheduled this year. 2010 FIREWORKS. We unfortunately had to miss this year's show, but we gather that it truly was "spectacular" and enjoyed by all. More news of attendance, takings, etc to come, but in the meantime for some photos (kindly contributed by Robert Hill), click here. MEMORIAL CENTRE "SLOT" AT PARISH COUNCIL MEETINGS. In the report of the Parish Council's 4th November meeting, the council announced that from now on the new Memorial Centre will be discussed towards the beginning of each council meeting. The council want to encourage members of the public to attend and will be pleased to listen to their opinions. For more on this, and the other topics discussed at the same meeting, click here. PCSO BILL PARR . PC Henry Clissold writes to share the news that Police Community Support Officer Bill Parr, who has worked with him as a valued member of the police team at Alderbury for several years now, is moving on. For more on this, and forthcoming local Police Surgeries, and the latest Crime Report summary covering the month of October 2010, click here. ANNUAL FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR. The annual Fireworks Display, staged by courtesy of Messrs Pains Fireworks, and in aid of All Saints School and PTA, is scheduled for Saturday 13th November (with a reserve date of Friday 19th in case of unsuitable weather). Gates open at 6.15 pm on the Memorial Ground, and the Display itself starts at 7.00 pm. There will be a barbecue, refreshments, beer and mulled wine on sale, with fairground rides for younger children. Tickets can be bought from the school office, or from the village shop until 12.00 on the day of the display. Advance ticket prices are £3.50 per adult; £2.50 per child ((4 to 16); family tickets (2 adults, 2 children) £10.00); children under 4 are free. On the night, adults are £5.00 each; children are £3.00; but there will be no family tickets on sale at the gate. It's always truly a "SPECTACULAR" display—don't miss it! JUNIOR SWAB . . . The South West Area Board is working on piloting a children's board. In SWAB's latest newsletter, Chairman Richard Britton writes: "At our last Area Board I was able to report on the progress being made towards establishing a Youth Area Board. I am proud that the Southern Wiltshire Area Board is pioneering this proposal to involve our young people in the affairs of the Community Area – especially in view of the large number of important schools in our ‘patch’. On behalf of the Board I would like to pay tribute to the work of our Community Area Manager in pushing this idea forward. Tom, together with Emma Procter, has arranged for a workshop for 46 children between the ages of 4 and 16 to be held on 5 November in order to explore what sort of issues they would want to raise at an Area Board. We hope to hold the first formal Youth Area Board on 14 February but have yet to decide on its content and format. Hopefully we shall get a steer on this from the workshop event. This is a really important development which, if successful, can be rolled out across the County." To view the whole newsletter, which contains a lot of useful information and links, click here. HORSEWATCH. PC Henry Clissold has forwarded us the latest Horsewatch bulletin from the Wiltshire Police Rural Crimes unit, which includes info about the National Equestrian Crime Database (NECD), and how to get a reduced subscription to it (this reduction is only available until October 30th, unfortunately). To view, click here. FETE ALREADY? OK, we're heading for the depths of winter—but it's not too soon to be thinking about next summer, and in particular about the Fete and the other events that will make up Whiteparish Week for 2011. The first steering meeting was held in the Fountain Inn on 25 October, and the new committee are hoping to get more "names to attach to jobs", and volunteer marshals to help on Bands Night. For the committee's first report, click here. PARISH COUNCIL VACANCY. For more details of the vacancy arising from Peter Mallinson's resignation from the Parish Council, and other matters discussed at the meeting on 30th September, click here. LOCAL CRIME UP IN SEPTEMBER 2010. Unfortunately crime seems to be on the rise again in Whiteparish, to judge by the latest list forwarded by PC Clissold. For the listing of crimes here and in neighbouring villages, together with a schedule of local police surgeries where you can discuss police priorities and get crime prevention advice, click here. SWAB MEETING IN PITTON, 14 OCTOBER 2010 Whiteparish residents are invited to the next meeting of the South West Area Board, which will be held in Pitton Village Hall at 7.00 pm on Thursday 14 October 2010 (light refreshments available from 6.30 pm). For a full agenda, click here. TEMPORARY ROAD CLOSURES IN WEST DEAN IN NOVEMBER Between 2345 hrs on Wednesday 10th November and 0515 hrs on Thursday 11th November, and again for the same hours on the following night, a stretch of the C323 will be closed in the centre of West Dean. The section concerned is from the junction between Moody's Hill/Rectory Hill and East Dean Rd, extending about 130 metres north-east towards the level crossing. This is to allow essential track maintenance at the level crossing site. To see the closure notice, click here. NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH BULLETIN & LOCAL CRIME REPORTS FOR AUGUST. The latest bulletin from the Alderbury police team includes some interesting stats about crime county-wide, and about county residents' perceptions of those crimes, together with the welcome news that crime in the year to March 2010 had fallen, for the second successive year, by 7%. For more details, click here for the bulletin; click here for the local crimes list. MINERALS EXTRACTION SITES: DEADLINE FOR COMMENTS EXTENDED. The latest date for comments on Wiltshire Council's Minerals Site Options Report has been extended to October 31st 2010, and the Whiteparish Preservation Group are concerned that as many residents as possible send in their views. A useful leaflet on how you can have your say was distributed with the October edition of Steeple and Street, listing a lot of problems that the Preservation Group had found with the proposals outlined in the options document. For more information, or a copy of the Preservation Group's leaflet, or assistance, contact the group chairman: Ivor Ellis, on 884868, or email him at ivor.ellis[at symbol]gmail.com. 2010 FLOWER & HOBBIES SHOW PHOTOS. Keith Hobbs has kindly sent us a very nice set of photos taken at the show (held on Saturday 28th August). To view them, click here. 2010 FLOWER & HOBBIES SHOW RESULTS. To find out who won the cups, shields, and medals at this year's show, click here. PARISH COUNCIL NEWS. The Parish Council meeting on 12th August covered the usual wide range of topics, including speeding in the village, sand extraction, and vandalism of the pond rails. For more on these and other items discussed, click here. HISTORY GROUP PROGRAMME FOR 2010/2011. Looks like the Whiteparish History Group, who meet on the third Thursday every month from September to April (in the Kings Head at 7.30 pm) have another cracking programme of talks lined up for the coming few months, on topics ranging from the History of Punch & Judy to the Admiralty Depot at Dean. For the full programme on the History Group page, click here. AREA BOARD MEETING at ALDERBURY. Sorry folks, we've been away for a few days, so am a bit late putting this on the site. Still, in case you'd like to attend even at this short notice, there's a meeting of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board at 7.00 pm on Thursday 19th August, at 7.00 pm, in Alderbury Village Hall. Light refreshments will be available from 6.30 pm. Agenda items include: "PARISH NEWSLETTER". This doesn’t refer to our parish newsletter, but to a newsletter put out by Wiltshire Council covering topics they think will be of interest to local parish councils—and website visitors may find it of interest, too. To see a sample copy, click here. To see other newsletters in the same series, on the Wiltshire council website, click here. 2010 FETE UPDATE. Thanks to this year's very successful events during Fete week, All Saints Church and the Village School benefited to the tune of £3250 each, leaving enough in the kitty to pay deposits etc needed for next year. Well done and "Thank You" to all who supported the 2010 events. FLOWER & HOBBIES SHOW SOON. The Garden Club's 2010 Flower & Hobbies Show will be on Saturday 28th August in the Village Hall. The show itself opens at 2.30 pm, but the club will be accepting exhibits between 8.30 am and 10.45 am on show day. Entry forms will be available at the Village Hall on the previous evening (Friday 27th) between 6.00 pm and 7.00 pm. For handicraft, art, and children's classes, click here. LOCAL CRIME REPORTS FOR JULY. The latest crime summary from the Alderbury police team suggest it was a relatively quiet month locally, with only one crime listed for Whiteparish. (Though that's not much consolation, of course, for anyone unlucky enough to be a victim.) For more details, click here. August Bank Holiday: WASTE AND RECYCLING COLLECTIONS Due to the Bank Holiday on Monday 30th August, the waste and recycling collections that would normally have taken place on Friday 3rd September will be made on Saturday 4th September. 8th JULY PC NOTES. The Parish Council Notes for their 8th July 2010 meeting contain (as ever) several interesting pieces of news, including a Village Tidy-Up Day planned for 14th August, and a plea for land suitable for allotments in the village. There's more about both these items in the notice above, but for the full meeting notes document, click here. MEMORIAL GROUND TRUST AGM. The MGT AGM was held in the King's Head on 12 July. For notes of the meeting, and for meeting dates for the 12-month to the next AGM, click here. COMMENTS REQUESTED ON NEW COMMUNITY PLAN. Tom Bray, the Southern Wiltshire Community Area Manager, writes as follows: To view the draft plan, click here. To visit the Southern Area Board Web Page, with more info, click here. (Tom's email address, for comments or questions, is at the top of the draft plan.) BURGLARY PREVENTION, AND DISTRACTION BURGLARIES. The June 2010 Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin from PC Henry Clissold includes advice about how to help prevent burglaries and so-called "distraction burglaries". It seems that these bulletins are going to be produced on a three-monthly basis from now on, but that local crime summaries will continue to be made available monthly. So, for the June Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin, click here. For the June Crime Summary, click here. And for the July Crime Summary, click here! 2010 WHITEPARISH WEEK. This year the two new events (a Quiz Night and a Horse Show) were both evidently very successful, as were the Band Night/Hog Roast and other events in the week leading up to Saturday's Carnival and Fete. For many years now we've been really lucky with the weather for the Fete, and Saturday 19th June 2010 extended this run by another year, being dry and occasionally sunny. However, a strong and not especially warm breeze may have kept some visitors away (it wasn't exactly "flaming June"). Takings on some attractions were apparently a little down on 2009; but thanks to some cost savings this year, the overall profit for All Saints School and Church is estimated to be similar to last year. As always, everyone who came seemed to enjoy it. For a report from the Fete Committee, including a breakdown of takings from the treasurer, and prizewinners for the various events, click here. For some photographs, click here. PARISH COUNCIL AGM. The Parish Council AGM was held on 20th May, and included a report from Vice Chair John LeQuesne on his findings regarding a "Gypsy and Traveller Site Allocations Development Plan" document received from Wiltshire Council. To read more on this and the other items discussed, as well as notes from the special meeting held on 5th May, click here. MEMORIAL GROUND NEWS. At the Memorial Ground Trust meeting held on 18th May 2010, members voted in favour of supporting the proposed new community building. For more on this, and the other items discussed, click here. The Annual General Meeting of the trust will be held on Monday 12 July 2010, in the pavilion. Members of the public are welcome to attend, and the meeting will begin at 8.00 pm. TAMPERED CREDIT CARD SCAM. The May 2010 Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin from PC Henry Clissold includes advice about a recent spate of credit card fraud in the county, involving cards whose magnetic strips have been tampered with. Also, Wiltshire Police have come out well in a recent comprehansive quality assessment by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, being rated as excellent at reducing crime, good at policing, and offering value for money to the public. For details of these and other stories, click here. For the summary of local crime in our area during April 2010, click here. Late May Bank Holiday: WASTE AND RECYCLING COLLECTIONS Due to the Bank Holiday on Monday May 31st, the waste and recycling collections that would normally have taken place on Friday 4th June will be made on Saturday 5th June. PETERSFINGER PARK & RIDE. The new Park and Ride facility at Petersfinger will open on Tuesday 1st June, and will be free for the first five days. After this, all-day parking and use of the buses to and from Salisbury city centre will cost £2.50. However, anyone who parks there and cycles into the city can park for free. More information about the Petersfinger P & R will eventually be available at www.wiltshire.gov.uk/parkandride, though at the time of writing it's not there yet. In the meantime, to see timetable and other information, click here; for a promotional leaflet, click here; and for info on cycle training courses to be held in Salisbury, aimed at helping adults who lack confidence or don't have basic riding skills, click here! GENERAL ELECTION. Just in case you hadn't noticed, there's an election scheduled for Thursday 6th May! Our polling station will be the Village Hall, as usual, which will be open for voting between 7.00 am and 10.00 pm. Don't forget to vote! Whiteparish Football Club: Final league positions for 2009/2010. Both the Saturday and Sunday teams finished 5th in their respective divisions: the Salisbury & District Football League Division 1 (Saturday); and the Salisbury & District Football League Division 1 (Sunday). Stats for the season were as follows:
To see full results for the season (or most of them, anyway), click here. Goodbye to Anita as Parish Clerk. At the 15th April 2010 Parish Council Meeting, Mrs Anita Boakes received hearty thanks and a gift and flowers from from the Councillors for her work as Parish Clerk over the last 10 years. (The Chairman noted that Parish Council funds were not used for this.) Anita's replacement is Niccola Cooper, whose contact details are in the latest Parish Council Notes, along with summaries of the other topics discussed. For details, click here. QUIZ NIGHT FOR FETE WEEK. This year Whiteparish Week (leading up to the Fete) will include a Quiz Night starting at 7.30 pm on Tuesday 15th June, in the Village Hall. For more details of this, and other news from the 2010 Fete Committee, click here. MOST CRIME DOWN IN OUR AREA. The April 2010 Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin from PC Henry Clissold includes the welcome news that overall crime figures in the South Wiltshire Community Area (includes us) are down by 13.8%, although both domestic burglaries and pedal cycle thefts have increased. For details, click here. MEMORIAL GROUND HIRE CHARGES. The Memorial Ground Trust page includes notes from the two most recent meetings of the management committee, including the 2010 charges for hiring the MUGA and the main ground. For details, click here. 2010 FETE ART COMPETITION OPEN TO ADULTS. For the latest news from the fete committee, click here. Parish Council Supports Village Shop Plannning Application. At the extra meeting held on 16th February, the PC voted to support planning application S/2010/53 for a new shop and post office premises, etc. The latest Parish Council notes also include news of the appointment of a new Parish Clerk, a request for ideas for a Parish Council logo, and the possibility of creating a car park opposite the school. For more on these and other items discussed, click here. EASTER & EARLY MAY BANK HOLIDAY COLLECTIONS. The waste and recycling collection arrangements for the forthcoming bank holidays will be as follows. The same arrangements apply to normal household waste, plastic, card, and garden waste (where applicable), and to black boxes.
Stats About Our Area. Two interesting documents have been brought to our attention, each containing statistical info about how we in the South Wilts area compare to other areas of the county. One was compiled in support of a health-oriented strategic needs assessment, showing how we stack up against the other areas in terms of age groups/gender, "deprivation", life expectancy, teenage pregnancy rates, etc etc. It seems we have the highest alcohol consumption, but the lowest percentage of smokers. It also shows up some surprises about other areas: for example, why should Mere have the longest life expectancy for males, but the shortest for females? Probably best not to speculate ! To see the whole document, click here. The other document, Southern Wiltshire Area Profile, contains more general stats about population, vehicle ownership, crime, benefit claimants, and education, and can be viewed by clicking here. The March 2010 Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin. The latest bulletin from PC Henry Clissold reminds us that on icy mornings (and we haven't seen the last of them yet) the whole swept area of your windscreen must be clear of ice, or you are committing an offence. There is also news of illegal deer shooting close to us, in Hamptworth, and the usual local crime summary. For more detail, click here. Fete Planning Progress. For the latest on planning for this year's village fete, click here. Rural Broadband Survey. If, like us, you're two miles of motheaten copper wire away from the Whiteparish Exchange and you get rock-bottom broadband speeds—or if you're closer to the exchange but still think your broadband speed is unsatisfactory—it may be in your interests to take part in a rural broadband survey being conducted by Wilts Council. The closing date for taking part is 31st March, but it only takes two or three minutes so why not click here and do it straight away?! Unfortunately the survey doesn't seem to cater for people who can't get broadband at all, but one way round it might be to enter upload and download speeds of zero, or whatever your dialup connection can manage. SW Community Area Small Grants. The South Wilts Community Area Grant Scheme board has introduced a final opportunity to bid for small grants before the end ot this financial year, because they still have £3,531 to disburse. However, applications may not be considered unless they are received by 12 noon on 23 February. If you want to find out more about the scheme, click here. Other Area Board-related links that may be of interest are their Just a Minute newsletter and the SWAB website home page. ALADDIN (IN)SANE . . . The February 2010 Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin, from PC Henry Clissold includes some useful tips on safeguarding vehicles against opportunist thieves, and the monthly crime reports from hereabouts. For more detail, click here. Brownie Newz. "Little Owl" has sent us the latest activity report from the local Brownie troop, covering happenings in 2009 and looking ahead to some events being planned. For details, click here. Parish Council Meeting Report, 21st January 2010. The latest Parish Council report includes two invitations to villagers: the Council are asking for villagers' views before end-Feb on a proposal that 30 mph stickers are obtained for fixing to wheelie bins within the 30 mph limit; also villagers are encouraged to attend the 4th March annual Parish Meeting where electors can raise any village matter. For more on these and other items covered, including a warning about unlicensed hawkers (hmm...), click here. Memorial Ground Trust. For notes from the MGT Management Meeting held on 18 January 2010, click here. The January 2010 Farmwatch Bulletin, from the local police Rural Crimes Team, reviews recent rural and farming-related crime in the area—it seems a spate of thefts of Landrover Defenders continued beyond the Christmas period. The bulletin also includes advice on various ways of marking equipment to help protect against theft, or facilitate recovery after theft. For more details, click here. IT MUST (really) BE WINTER . . . The January 2010 Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin, forwarded by PC Henry Clissold, provides some tips on security marking your new presents ! For more details, click here. 2009Parish Council Meeting Report, 10th December 2009. The latest Parish Council report includes news of a new co-opted member of the council (Mrs Anne Baker), and action the council is taking about the A27 being flooded recently at Brickworth and in Cowesfield. The Southern Wilts Community Area Youth Development Co-ordinator will be attending the next meeting on 21 January, and the council encourages young people to come to the meeting and give their views on what's needed in Whiteparish. For more on these, and the other topics discussed, click here. Agenda for SWAB Meeting on 17th December. The agenda for the South Wilts Area Board meeting to be held in Whiteparish Village Hall on 17 December includes the following items for discussion: If you're interested in any of these, or if you just want to find out more about SWAB, doors open at 6.30 pm, and the meeting starts at 7.00. The December 2009 Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin, forwarded by PC Henry Clissold mentions the suspicion that horses and ponies in the district are being earmarked (with a small plait in their manes) for possible theft later. (The Salisbury Journal has covered the same story.) The bulletin summarises some precautions that owners can take to guard against theft of horses and ponies. Happily the regular reports of crimes in the area don't include any in Whiteparish, but there is quite an outbreak not far away in Laverstock/Ford. On a similar theme, PC Clissold has forwarded a bulletin from the Wiltshire Rural Crime Team which gives some interesting insights into the rural team's current activities and priorities county-wide. For the Neighbourhood Watch bulletin, click here. For the Farm Watch/Rural Crimes bulletin, click here. Refuse/Recycling collection for 2009/2010 Christmas and New Year Holiday. The arrangements are slightly more complicated than for previous bank holidays, with collections rescheduled as follows. (Note: most if not all households in Whiteparish are due one black-box collection during the period, which has been set for 4 January. The other rescheduled black box dates shown are for the benefit of any households on a different collection rota. )
Then back to normal. The above dates are copied from the WCC website; for more information, including recycling of Christmas trees, wrapping paper, etc, click here. Memorial Ground Trust. For notes from the MGT Management Meeting held on 23 November 2009, in the Pavilion, click here. Southern Wiltshire Area Board (SWAB) to meet in Whiteparish. The next meeting of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board (SWAB for short)—see also earlier item on the same subject, down the page—is scheduled for 17th December 2009, and will take place in Whiteparish Village Hall. Doors open at 6.30 pm for a 7.00 pm start. So if you want to find out more about this new local government initiative, or if you have points to raise, make a note in your diary. To see the SWAB home page, click here. If you're still a bit vague about the role of area boards, you won't be alone! But Councillor Richard Britton, the chairman of SWAB, is aware of this problem and recently distributed a message on the subject, basically indicating that the board themselves are still feeling their way. To see Councillor Britton's message, click here. The October 2009 Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin, forwarded by PC Henry Clissold includes news of attacks on cats in Alderbury, a useful summary of the restrictions on using by-ways, and the regular reports of crimes both in Whiteparish and neighbouring parishes. For details, click here. Parish Council Meeting Report, 22nd October 2009. The latest Parish Council report includes news of the affordable houses project in Newton Lane, which will apparently be finished ahead of schedule. All the houses have been allocated, and will be going to people with strong Whiteparish connections. For more on this, and the other topics discussed, click here. 2010 Fete and Carnival. The date for next year's Fete has been set for Saturday 19th June, with the theme of "Storytime", and as usual there will be other activities during the preceding week—more news of these later. For more information, including names and contact numbers of the organising committee, click here. 2009 Fireworks Display. This year's display, in aid of Whiteparish All Saints Primary School and kindly sponsored by Pains Fireworks, will be held on Saturday 14th November on the Memorial Ground, as usual. Gates open at 6.15 pm, and the display itself starts at 7.00 pm. There will be refreshments (including a barbecue) and drinks available; and fairground rides for younger children. If you buy your tickets in advance from the village shop or school office, they are £3.50 per adult, £2.50 per child (4—16) and under-fours are free, or a family ticket is £10. If you pay at the gate, it's £5 per adult and £3.00 per child. (In the event of wet weather, the alternate date is Friday 20th November.)
Steve was a very good friend and supporter of Whiteparish School for a long time, and a good sport. We remember once coming across him trudging back from a school fete towards the Fountain, many years ago, covered with the evil-smelling concoction he'd just been gunked with to raise school funds. Many in the village will miss him, and we wish him well in his travels and for the future. FLOWER SHOW AND HARVEST FESTIVAL PHOTOS. Two new flower-related photo galleries have been added to the website: one for the Flower and Hobbies Show at the end of August '09 (click here) and the other for some photos of the beautiful flower arrangements prepared by members of the Altar Guild for this year's Harvest Festival(click here). Many thanks to Dawn and Langdon Nichols for sending the latter—and apologies for the delay in getting them onto the website. (Have been a bit busy with other stuff.) The October 2009 Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin, forwarded by PC Henry Clissold includes news of a spate of thefts in Whiteparish during September, a telephone scam to look out for, and organisational changes at Alderbury Police Station. For details, click here. Parish Council Meeting Report, 17th September 2009. The latest Parish Council report includes items on the new Community Building, Trickey's Paddock, and the welcome news that the Whiteparish First Responders Group have been granted £1000 for the purchase of a new kit, including a defibrillator. For more on these, and the other topics discussed, click here. Memorial Ground Trust Management Committee. To see notes from the September Meeting, click here. 10 SEPTEMBER NEWSFLASH: RECENT HOUSE THEFTS LOCALLY. PC Henry Clissold writes: "Within the last 72 hours the Alderbury & Laverstock area has been hit by two dwelling burglaries; on both occasions the occupants have been away. Can I please urge all residents to check properties that are currently vacant while residents are away, and keep an extra cautious eye on them. I can think of nothing worse than returning from holiday to a burgled house, let's prevent this happening to anyone else. Many thanks for your cooperation, please tell everyone!!!" For more local policing news, to see the latest Neighbourhood Watch bulletin, click here. VILLAGE DESIGN STATEMENT: What is it? What's Happening? For anyone who has seen or heard references to a Whiteparish Village Design Statement, or noticed that some Parish Councillors have "VDS" in their list of responsibilities on the Parish Council page, and wondered what it's all about, here's how you can find out. The Steering Group for the Whiteparish VDS have started their own website, with information about how the Whiteparish VDS will be compiled, who's on the Steering Group, and how to join in an online discussion about it. All residents of the parish of Whiteparish are welcome to contribute. To find out more, you can go to the Steering Group website by clicking here. On the other hand, if you only want a rough idea of what a VDS is, and what it's intended to achieve, there's also a token page on the subject on this website; click here. Parish Council Meeting Report, 6th August 2009. The latest Parish Council report includes items on Parish Clerk Anita Boakes' plan to retire in 2010 and the need for a replacement, the good news that "Preliminary reports on bat and newt surveys show there will not be a problem with bats or newts" (which is bound to be good news re the proposed new community building . . . ), and the latest on Tricky's Paddock. For more on these, and the other topics discussed, click here. Refuse/Recycling collection for August 31 '09 Bank Holiday. Collection as normal on Friday 28th August, but the collections that would otherwise take place on the following Friday (4th September) will be made on Saturday 5th September. Then back to normal. New way of involving local people in council decisions . We recently received information about the launch of the Southern Wiltshire Area Board (SWAB for short)—one of 18 area boards that have been set up throughout Wiltshire. Apparently their purpose is to ensure that Wiltshire Council involves local people in decisions and to bring together the key partners operating in the area to ensure the right sort of services are being delivered to suit local communities. SWAB covers the "Southern Wiltshire Community area", which includes not just Whiteparish but the parishes of Alderbury, Britford, Clarendon Park, Coombe Bissett, Downton, Firsdown, Grimstead, Landford, Laverstock, Ford and Old Sarum, Odstock, Pitton and Farley, Redlynch, West Dean, and Winterslow. The board is made up of elected councillors; parish councils; a cabinet member from Wiltshire Council; senior reps from the police, fire and rescue; NHS; and ideally community groups and businesses. Because this is potentially an important new layer in the local government picture, we've set up a new page in the "Amenities" section of the website. To read more and find some links, click here. Flower & Hobbies Show Coming Soon. The Whiteparish Garden Club's annual Flower and Hobbies Show will be on August 29th, in the Village Hall, and the club are looking forward to welcoming exhibitors. For more information, including the Handicraft and Art classes on the schedule, click here. Ever thought about being a Special Constable? As described in the August 2009 Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin from PC Henry Clissold, Wiltshire police are currently seeking recruits to join the Special Constabulary. For more details of this, and local crimes in our area (unfortunately including some in Whiteparish last month), click here. Two Forthcoming Meetings about Tricky's Paddock. Parish Clerk Anita Boakes asked us to include the following notice about two planning-related meetings to take place in August 2009. This notice is to advise that planning application S/2009/0892, the second application for a gypsy site on Tricky’s Paddock, has been called in to be determined by the Southern Wiltshire Planning Committee by our Wiltshire Unitary Authority Councillor, Richard Britton. This planning application may be on the agenda for the meeting planned for either 6th August or 27th August 2009. This meeting will be held at 6 pm in the City Hall, Salisbury. As soon as the meeting date is known, a notice will be placed on the village notice board opposite the shop. If you are concerned about this application, it would be very helpful to attend the above meeting to express your views. A reminder that the date for the appeal hearing on the first planning application (S/2008/708) for a gypsy mobile home on Tricky’s Paddock has been set for 26th August 2009. The public may attend but if you wish to speak, you must make sure to register your intention with the administrative officer/secretary at the start of the enquiry. Material planning considerations only will be considered. A representative from the Parish Council will be attending. The meeting will be held in Whiteparish Village Hall and start at 10 am. Potholes, Community Building, and Temporary Closure of Newton Lane. These were among the matters raised during the "public statement/question time" section of the Parish Council meeting on 25th June 2009. For more about these, and other topics discussed during the remainder of the meeting, click here. Police Warning about Crime that can Follow Handbag Thefts. In the latest Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin, PC Henry Clissold includes a warning of a recent kind of scam; for details of this, and local crimes in our area (though happily none listed for Whiteparish last month), click here. NOTE FROM PARISH COUNCIL At this moment in time, the Parish Council has no knowledge of either document’s contents. Since publication about these matters last year caused concern in the village, please be assured that as and when the Parish Council receive information updates, you will be kept fully informed. Trevor King 2009 Fete Raises Over £7000! Sue King writes with good news from the Fete Committee: "I am very pleased to report, on behalf of this year's committee, that the grand sum of £7000 will be shared between the school and the church !!!" For the full report (and a rather less pleasing piece of news about the 2009 event), click here.
Police Concern about Recent Whiteparish Crime Incidents. In the latest Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin, PC Henry Clissold writes of his concern about worrying incidents at a Whiteparish location, including theft, criminal damage, and harassment, and asks for any information that may help the officers investigating these offences. The bulletin also summarises other recent crime in Whiteparish and nearby villages. For more information, click here. Name for Affordable Houses Project. As reported in the minutes of the 2009 Parish Council AGM (see below), the council has thanked all those who suggested names for the development. The one chosen is "Witchell Way", to honour the memory of the late Joan Witchell, who did so much for our community both in her nursing role and in many other ways. Parish Council AGM, 7th May 2009. Chairman Trevor King and Vice-Chairman John Le Quesne were re-elected unopposed, and representatives on Parish Council committees and outside bodies were elected. For a full report of the AGM and the regular meeting agenda which followed, click here. The current council, with new committee roles and contact information, can be found on the Parish Council page by clicking here. Refuse/Recycling collection for Late May Bank Holiday. Collection as normal on Friday 22nd May, but the collections that would otherwise take place on the following Friday (29th May) will be made on Saturday 30th May. Then back to normal. Police Newsflash. PC Henry Clissold has written to warn of suspicious behaviour observed very recently in a neighbouring village: " . . . (on) 13th May into 14th May a young male was seen in the Alderbury village dressed in dark clothing attempting to gain access to a house, this attempt was unsuccessful, no damage was caused and no items stolen. Can I please reiterate the need for security minded vigilance. This attempt failed as the property and all vehicles on the drive were secured." PC Clissold has also sent the latest Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin which includes April 09 figures for some categories of crime in the locality, which you can read by clicking here. SUNDAY FOOTIE SIDE TOP BY A MILE. Whiteparish's Sunday Football team were decisive winners of Division 2 of the Salisbury and District Sunday League, a more-than-comfortable 13 points clear of runners-up West Harnham. Congratulations to them. For the results for Saturday and Sunday sides, click here. Refuse/Recycling collection for Spring Bank Holiday. Collection as normal on Friday 1st May, but the collections that would otherwise take place on the following Friday (8th May) will be made on Saturday 9th May. Then back to normal. Police Advice for for householders. Now that the spring weather is here, the Wilts Police want have sent us some good advice on making your house and belongings safer from theft by taking a few simple precautions. For details, click here. CONGRATULATIONS . . . to Whiteparish's Sunday Football team, who are storming home in Division 2 of the Salisbury and District Sunday League. As of the end of March, they had 12 wins from 12 league matches and, with a lead of 9 points over nearest rivals West Harnham and just two league matches to go, they must be set to top the division. They have two home matches left on the Memorial Ground on 12th and 26th April—why not turn out and support them? For the (almost) complete results to date for both the Saturday and Sunday sides, click here. EASTER BANK HOLIDAY: Refuse & Recycling Arrangements. Friday collections will take place as normal on Good Friday (10th April). However, the collection that would normally have been made on Friday 17th will actually be done on Saturday 18th April. Then back to normal. Spring Is Here !
Clocks go forward at midnight on Saturday 28th March, and it's officially Spring (even if it doesn't feel much like it). So here are a couple of seasonal photos to brighten up the page: a foal (little girl) about a week old, snapped in a neighbour's field in mid-March, and the usual wonderful display of daffodils in All Saints churchyard at around the same time. Parish Council. The Annual Parish Meeting was hald on the 19th March 2009, immediately followed by the regular Parish Council meeting. For reports of both, click here. Also, as reported under in the Salisbury Journal (March 19, 2009), Parish Council chairman Trevor King was cleared of any misconduct after a lengthy investigation by Salisbury District Council's standard's committee into allegations that he had abused his position. Mr King was reported as commenting: "It has been a very unpleasant experience and I am obviously very pleased with the outcome. I have been a parish councillor for 20 years and this just makes me more determined than ever to carry on." For the full story on the Journal's website, click here. Neighbourhood Watch Bulletin, Feb 2009. PC Henry Clissold has sent an interesting recent bulletin, covering neighbourhood policing priorities, local crime reports by parish, and an alert about a spate of burglaries in South Wiltshire, with advice on some measures you can take to protect property. For more information, click here.
"VAMPIRE" a Great Success. The photo shows just some of the very happy cast (not to mention the equally happy audience!) at the finale of the Pepperbox Players' 2009 panto: "The Vampire Bites Back". For more, click here. For more photos, click here. PARISH COUNCIL ELECTION. The results of the election held on Thursday 12th February to fill the three vacancies on the Parish Council were as follows.
344 ballot papers were issued with one rejected. With an electorate of 1167, the turnout was therefore 29.48%. Notice from Wiltshire Council. The Parish Council has received a notice of consultation by Wiltshire Council (the new unitary authority) on the first stage of its Local Development Framework (LDF). Mrs Anita Boakes (Parish Clerk) explains: "It is only a scoping report (ie. stating which topics are being included rather than deciding anything)." The public are not being invited to comment at this stage but the notice is available via the website to keep villagers aware of what is happening. If people do have comments at this stage, they can be made to the Parish Clerk. For more information, click here. PARISH COUNCIL. The SDC elections team have issued a list of candidates for the election of three Whiteparish parish councillors, which is to be held on 12 February —to view it, click here. To view the the notes of the Parish Council meeting held on the 11th December 2008, click here. Police Advice for dogowners. Following a request from the Parish Council, PC Henry Clissold has written with some of the legal implications of dog-walking. For details, click here. WHITEPARISH MEMORIAL CENTRE Planning Comments Update. Dave Boakes, Project Team Chairman, has sent us the confirmed addresses and reference number for comments about the planning application referred to just below. Note that the closing date for public comments is 12th February 2009. For the other details, click here (the new details are appended under the original notice). Police Advice for AFTER Christmas! PC Henry Clissold and PCSO Bill Parr have written with some good suggestions for looking after all those presents we received a week or two back. For details, click here. 2008WHITEPARISH MEMORIAL CENTRE. Dave Boakes, Project Team Chairman, writes: "The project to develop a final proposal to build a replacement village hall and sports pavilion combined on the Memorial Ground is reaching a critical stage. Probably by the end of January 2009, there will be two planning applications under review by Salisbury District Council. These will be for the new building itself and for outline building development on the old hall site, the sale of which will be vital to adequate funding for the new centre. If these two applications are approved by SDC, and when a full business plan for the Centre has been finalised, it is planned to hold a village meeting to seek agreement from the residents to continue the project to completion." For the full text of Dave's notice, with information about sending in comments, click here. RETIREMENT OF MRS CAROL KITE. As most villagers will probably know, Mrs Carol Kite, the Headmistress of All Saints School, retired at the end of the Autumn term, 2008. Mrs Kite has led the school through a period when it flourished as perhaps never before—one of many highlights being an extraordinarily good Ofsted report in 2005, when the inspectors' report heaped praise on the school and the way it was run. One of the ways that Mrs Kite's retirement was marked was a "Posh Frocks and Sparkles" party in the Village Hall on 17th December, where everyone attending had a ball. For some photos, click here. CHRISTMAS/NEW YEAR RECYCLING. Three collections are rescheduled during and immediately after the holiday period. The collections that would otherwise have been on Friday 26th December and Friday 2nd January are both rescheduled to the following Mondays (29th December and 5th January, respectively). The collection that would otherwise have been on Friday 9th January is rescheduled to Saturday 10th January. Then back to normal! CONGRATULATIONS . . . To the Whiteparish Sunday Football Team, who went 11 league matches up to the end of November 2008 without a single loss (with just one draw), and twice knocked in 9 goals! PARISH COUNCIL VACANCIES. Following the resignations of three Parish Councillors recently, there are now vacancies on the council. For the official notice issued by the SDC Electoral Services Team about filling these vacancies via an election (if required), click here. Note: any requests for an election must be sent to the returning officer by 11 December 2008; see the Notice for more details. Police Advice for Christmas. PC Henry Clissold has written to pass on two useful documents with suggestions for protecting ourselves against crime at this time of year. For details, click here. Annual Fireworks Display in aid of All Saints School. This year the display, provided through the generosity of local firm Pains Fireworks, took place on the evening of Saturday 15th November, on the Memorial Ground. The drizzle that had threatened us cleared away before the display started, so everyone had a good view in mild and fairly clear weather. It looked as if attendance was at least as good as usual, and the display, as ever, was spectacular. For photos of this year's "fiery flowers in the sky", click here. PARISH COUNCIL CHAIRMAN REINSTATED. At a PC meeting on 6th November, Trevor King was re-elected as PC chairman, after being dramatically ousted from that position only weeks beforehand. Subsequently councillors Ian Scaife, Stuart McWilliam, and Bob Twiddy resigned. For a report in the Salisbury Journal, click here. For the PC notes of the meeting in question, covering this matter and other topics, click here. SHOCK OUSTING OF PARISH COUNCIL CHAIRMAN. As reported in the Salisbury Journal (Oct 9 2008), Trevor King, the long-serving chairman of Whiteparish Parish Council, stood down from that position after a vote of no confidence (proposed by Councillor Richard Clewer) during a packed and vociferous Parish Council meeting in the Village Hall on 2nd October. The no-confidence vote was passed by five to three, with one abstention. It was apparently triggered by a letter concerning a planning application which had been sent to certain villagers, but which some councillors had not known about. For more details of the Journal report, click here. Mrs Boakes has asked us to point out that in the Journal report it is not entirely clear that the letter asking for support for the planning application for the affordable housing was sent only to residents who had expressed a need for that type of house and not all residents of Whiteparish - between 25 and 30 letters. Also at the end of the Whiteparish piece, it is stated that the planning application would now be considered by the "full council". This is incorrect - it will be considered by the Southern Area Committee of SDC. For the regular notes covering the 2 October Parish Council meeting, click here. On 18/19 October 2008, a hard-copy leaflet was distributed to Whiteparish households, with a summary of the background to the most recent SDC proposals for housing in the area, and some suggestions for villagers who want to write to SDC with their own reactions to the SDC proposals. To view/download the text of this leaflet, click here. PTA Wine, Beer, and Music Evening. This event in late September raised over £600 for the PTA and was obviously enjoyed by the many who attended. For more details, and a YouTube clip, click here. Mini Songsters sing like angels for the Stars Appeal. A total of £417.00 was raised recently by the Mini Songsters towards the proposed new Children’s Centre at Salisbury District Hospital, who are keen for local children, schools and children’s services to get behind the Stars Appeal to raise £1,000,000 for this much needed facility. The Mini Songsters of Whiteparish and Alderbury sang to an audience at Whiteparish All Saints Church for a full hour without a break. The engaging performance encompassed a variety of well-known classic songs to include solo’s from some members. The Mini Songsters was started by Patricia Boyle in 1983 and is now in its third generation and comprises Patricia’s grandson Harry Keeley, Alex Brown, Eloise Bishop, Georgia Higgins, Poppy Sivyour, Ellie Nicholas, Isabelle Brown and Louis Townsend. (The Mini Songsters sing every Saturday between 9am and 10am in a relaxed environment in Alderbury and the group welcomes newcomers. For more information, please phone Patricia Boyle 01722 710570.) Stay Out Stranger (SOS) initiative Following what was reported as the brutal death of a pensioner in Landford in September, PC Henry Clissold has sent us a press release about the SOS campaign, which aims to stamp out doorstep crime. SOS promotes steps that househlders can take to avoid becoming victims of a so-called "distraction burglary". For the full text of the press release, click here. Update on Memorial Centre Project The Project Team have sent us an update on progress: the project is still very much alive, with a meeting with SDC planners to take place in early September, but some aspects of the project have proved difficult and time-consuming. For the full text of the update, click here. 2008 Flower & Hobbies Show The annual Flower & Hobbies Show, organised by the Garden Club, took place on 23rd August, with the prizes being presented this year by Dr Rosemary Parry of the Whiteparish Surgery. For some photos, click here.. For the prizewinners and the garden club's own report of ths show, click here. Ladies/Girls Football. We had a cry for help from Debbie Adlam, the Ladies/Girls Coordinator at Alderbury FC, to say that they are short of players for the coming season and desperately need a manager. They currently train once a week at Junction Road, Alderbury, on Thursday evenings. If anyone is interested (until Whiteparish starts its own ladies' team, of course), contact Debbie on 07900926002 or email her at dadlam@onetel.com. New Police Website. PC Henry Clissold tells us a new, much improved, website has launched for the Wiltshire Police Force, with some new multimedia facilities and many other features. For more information, click here. 2008 Village Carnival & Fete, Saturday 14th June. Well, the threatened showers didn't happen, and under warm sunny skies the Fete seemed a great success, very well attended, with everyone enjoying themselves. Early reports suggest that this year's fete raised just as much for the village church and school as last year's record-breaking event, possibly exceeding it. For more, click here. For photos, click here.  Grand Opening of the "MUGA" on Wednesday 11th June. In the photo Andrew Lax does the honours with the scissors, watched by children of Whiteparish All Saints School, parents, Nigel Peterson (right, chairman of the Memorial Ground Committee) and—is that someone in a flying suit? Hmm, intriguing. For more, click here. Thefts of Heating Oil in Salisbury Area. PC Henry Clissold has sent us a police bulletin about the increasing rate of oil thefts from domestic tanks recently, as oil prices rise and with an average oil tank costing £1000 to fill. For the whole bulletin, click here. Parish Council—Annual General Meeting report. For the minutes of what was evidently a well-attended (and rather long) PC AGM on 29th May, click here. Parish Council Plea to dog owners. The Parish Council have been receiving a lot of complaints recently about dogs fouling local pavements and footpaths, and the problems that can be caused by loose dogs. They have arranged for free "poo bags" to be available from the village shop, and they appeal to all dog owners to keep their pets under proper control. For details, click here. Police Disco Initiative! PC Henry Clissold has passed on news about Blues nZuz, an "exciting new initiative that has been launched by Wiltshire Police. A disco is held once every month, and all young people between the ages of 11 and 16 are invited. The scheme has been running for over a year in the north of the county and the Salisbury event has been running since January 2008". For details, click here. PC Responses to Recent SDC Planning Consultation Documents For details, and links for downloading documents, click here. Crime: and how to prevent it PC Henry Clissold has written with some recent local crime figures and some sound advice from Salisbury Crime Reduction Officers. For details, click here. Arrangements for Bank Holiday Refuse and Recycling Collections In the week following the May Bank Holiday, the collections that would normally happen on Friday 9th May will take place as Saturday 10th May. In the week following the Spring Bank Holiday, the collections that would normally happen on Friday 30th May will take place on Saturday 31st May. For more information about Bank Holiday collections and other aspects of local recycling, click here. Parish Council Vacancy. The long-standing vacancy on the Parish Council has now been filled—Bob Twiddy has now rejoined the council. For reports of meetings or for parish council contact information, click here.
Brownies Activities We've received a very nice report from "Little Owl" about Brownie activities last year—sounds like they had a really full and interesting programme. For more, click here. The Pompeii Panto ! This year's not-to-be-missed show from the Pepperbox Players was "The Pompeii Panto", staged on the evenings of Thursday 7th, Friday 8th, and Saturday 9th Feb, with a matinee on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately we were unable to go this year, but we hear it was the usual hilarious success ! We've asked our "usual channels" to see if they have any photos of this year's production, but meanwhile, if you took any, and they're sharp, and you'd like to see them on the website, do get in touch.
More Aerial Photos. We have some more aerial shots of the village, this time taken from a hot-air balloon in September 2007, so they're a little more up to date than the two other sets already on the website. To view them, click here. 2007 Annual Fireworks Display Guess how much this wonderful display, staged through the generosity of Pains Fireworks, raised for the village school this year! (Tiny clue in the photo.) For more information, click here. "Slum Survivor" Challenge. Did you wonder what the tents were doing in the churchyard at the end of October? They were being used by a group of 14 young people from Whiteparish and Winterslow, taking part in a project aimed at raising awareness of the living conditions that many people in the world have to endure. To read more, and for some photos, click here. Garden Club's Annnual Pumpkin Show and Halloween Fancy Dress Evening. For more about this well-attended event, with a list of prizewinners, click here. Police News PC Henry Clissold has written with a warning about lottery fraud. For more information, click here.. Also, our replacement PCSO is joining him soon, and he hopes to be able to share his/her identity and start date with us in the near future. Parish Council Meeting The minutes of the 13th Sept meeting include a brief summary of a WCC-proposed Minerals Site for our area. The PC strongly object to this proposal, and the Preservation Group are hoping to include a suggested letter of objection in Steeple & Street. For more details, click here. Police News PC Henry Clissold reported that crime has been reduced locally by 21%, and that our PCSO Jon Trounson was leaving the Alderbury Station. Also, if you've lost a bike recently, it just might be at Alderbury! For more details, click here.
Staddle Stone Thefts PC Henry Clissold has written to warn villagers of a spate of staddle stone thefts recently in the locality. For more details, click here.  A Camel in "The Street"? It was all part of the fun at the 2007 Annual Carnival, held on June 16th. Despite an unpromising weather forecast and downpours as close as Cowesfield, the rain held off (miraculously) and a good crowd had a good time. Lots of attractions, and Therese the (very well-behaved) Camel was definitely the star of the show. The events made over £7000 for the village school and the church—a new record. For more about the fete, click here. For Fete photographs, click here. Recycling in Whiteparish: The SDC Waste Minimisation Officer has arranged that cans, glass, paper and cardboard can be disposed of at the Whiteparish Service Station at Brickworth Corner. Whiteparish First Responders Group Open Evening: First Responders are a voluntary group that aim to provide emergency medical assistance even before professional ambulance resources arrive. The Whiteparish First Responders held an open evening 8.00 pm on Thursday 10th May in the Methodist Chapel, for anyone who is interested in joining, or helping, or just in finding out more about the group. For more details, click here. Parish Council AGM: This was held on Thursday 10th May in the Village Hall--for a summary, see the relevant Parish Council Notes .
MU Branch is no more. Sadly, because of dwindling membership, the long-established Whiteparish Branch of the Mothers Union has decided to close, and held their last meeting in December 2006. However, there are still Mothers Union branches in nearby Alderbury, West Dean, and Redlynch; and existing (or potential) members are encouraged to join one of these. 2006Memorial Centre project. The website now has a page for the Memorial Centre project; for details of what's happening, click here.
Representing the CPRE, Dr Peter Claydon recently presented the Parish Council with two certificates for Whiteparish's high placing in the Best-Kept Wiltshire Village competition for 2006. For more details, see the report of the 2nd November '06 meeting, available on the Parish Council page. . You can also read about recent progress on Low-Cost Housing for Whiteparish in the same report.
The Garden Club's very successful 2006 Flowers and Hobbies Show took place on August 26th. For some pictures, see the website's Galleries section; for a list of prizewinners, click here. On July 27th the Garden Club held what seems to have been a very enjoyable annual barbecue. For some pictures, click here. "Oh what a lovely fete we had . . . " on a beautiful afternoon on June 17th, preceded by a very enjoyable Hog Roast the previous evening. The two events together raised a magnificent £5150.59, to be shared between All Saints Church and All Saints Primary School. For a summing up and “thank you” from Sue King on behalf of the organisers, click here. For a few impressions about the day, click here. For Fete photographs, click here. And for Hog Roast photographs, click here. We've got some more aerial photos on the website. This batch were taken in 2004, and show something of the countryside around the vllage. To see them, click here. Local Brownies: The local Brownies organisation is looking for more adult helpers. For more details, click here. For more about Brownies and other youth groups in the area, look under "Organisations" in the main menu. Community Building Village Meeting: This well-supported meeting was held on 17th March to hear views and hold a vote on whether to support the attempt to develop a project for a single community building. The motion was carried by a large majority. For more details, click here. Pantomime Photos! Pepperbox Players staged their latest production "Panto at the OK Corral" in early February. Click here for some great photos (many thanks to Simon Walworth for supplying them) and some programme notes. 2005Date-rape drugs: For a warning from our Community Beat Officer PC Darren Willis about the dangers of so-called "date rape" drugs, click here. Now on the website: aerial photos of Whiteparish. To see them, click here. We've also taken the opportunity of grouping all the photo pages in one place. You can get to them via the "Village" menu, above, or by clicking here. The Parish Council received two certificates for Whiteparish being named joint runner-up in Best-Kept Wiltshire Village competition, 2005. For more details, see the report of the 1 December 05 meeting, available on the Parish Council page. . The Whiteparish History Group's fascinating story of "100 Years of an English Village" is now available on CD. For more info, click here. All Saints Primary School received an excellent OFSTED report. For more, click here. Forthcoming News and Events: Click here for our Forthcoming News and Events list, or see the diary sections for individual organisations. To suggest an event to be featured on the website, email us at events@whiteparish.co.uk. |
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If you want to find out more about Whiteparish and what's going on here, whether you live within the village or elsewhere, we hope that this website will be useful and informative. If you find any errors or have any suggestions for improvements, please let us know by emailing us at comments@whiteparish.co.uk. |
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Sue King writes: "A great time was had by all at the annual supper for the 100+ Club. This event raises funds to assist the running of our Memorial Centre. The profit raised this year was just over £700.
If you'd like to take part in the scarecrow-judging competition—and Sultry Suzy Scarecrow, left, thinks you definitely should—but you're wondering how on earth you'll find the time to check out all the entries round the village and choose a favourite before the closing date (Friday 12th), the website can help! We have a new photo gallery showing all the scarecrows that had been entered in the competition by last week, with a few extra ones. So if you've not handed in your choice of best scarecrow at the shop yet, you can still view all the entries without having to leave your armchair. And in case you haven't collected your entry form from the shop, there's still time. You can view the scarecrow photos by 
Whiteparishioners living near the village centre will probably know about this already, but others may not, so . . .
If you're a close follower of the website (well, we can but hope!), you may recall a 
. . . is what someone asked, reasonably enough, as the first of TWO helicopters landed on the Memorial Ground on the Friday evening before fete day, just as the "Wacky Olympics" were drawing to a close before giving way to the Hog Roast and Bands Night! Well, no, it wasn't part of the show—the medical staff at Whiteparish Surgery had an emergency on their hands. A patient needed to be flown to hospital, and the second helicopter had flown in a volunteer consultant anaesthetist who had to treat the patient before their flight.
Over the last few days, Whiteparish's population seems to have gone up dramatically—by over fifty newcomers: lounging around, involved in petty crime, even playing cricket on the verges of our busy roads. Scruffy dressers, too, some of them. Well in case you didn't realize, they're all part of what has already turned out to be a very successful idea from this year's fete committee.
Just a reminder about the week-long Music Festival being held between the 11th and 18th of April, in Whiteparish's All Saints Church, in aid of church funds. The events kick off on Saturday 11th April with a "Come and Sing" rehearsal and performance of Puccini's "Messa di Gloria", directed by Michael Keeley. On Tuesday 14th All Saints Church Choir perform music by Thomas Tallis and Thomas Ravenscroft, followed on Thursday by the Farrant Singers performing choral classics. Finally, on Saturday Will Pickvance (the chap on the left) brings his Edinburgh Fringe show "Anatomy of the Piano" to Whiteparish. All performances very reasonably priced; for more details, 
Our annual Fete was yet again blessed with fine weather (can't remember the last time we had a rainy one). Visitors seemed well up with other recent years, and everyone was having a good time. The photo shows 
ALL SAINTS SCHOOL VISITS THE MEMORIAL CENTRE SITE. On Tuesday March 5th, the youngest class at Whiteparish All Saints Primary School visited the Memorial Ground to see the site of the new Memorial Centre, where they were joined by some interested grown-ups (including Memorial Trust members and Parish Councillors) for a few photos to be taken by Salisbury Journal photographer Tom Gregory . Work was soon to recommence at the site after a day or two's delay (due to a problem with the digger), and a couple of days later the work of demolishing the remainder of the old pavilion had been completed, and the rubble all removed.
HALLOWEEN PRECAUTIONS. Wiltshire Police have sent out a package of information concerning %quot;dos and donts" for enjoying Halloween safely. For the full text of the accompanying press release, 
COMMENDATION FOR WENDY. Unfortunately, Wendy Hedley has been forced by ill health to retire from her position as coordinator of Whiteparish Community First Responders. On 12th October, Great Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust Locality Director, Paul Birkett-Wendes and Community Response Manager Julia Doel presented Wendy with a Commendation from the Service’s Chief Officer. All members of Whiteparish Responders were present at the ceremony, along with Wendy's daughter Lara and son-in-law Lee.
NEW NON-EMERGENCY NUMBER FOR WILTS POLICE.
Wiltshire Police has changed its non-emergency number to 101. The 101 number is being introduced nationally in phases and on 19 September it was launched across forces in the South West, including Wiltshire. Although 999 is a well recognised number to report emergencies, the 2010 British Crime Survey found that only half of the public knew which number to call if they wanted to speak to their local police about policing, non-urgent crime and anti-social behaviour. For more on the background to this change, 
Goodbye to Steve Worpole
Just a detail from . . . the beautiful banner that children of Whiteparish All Saints School put together for Easter 2008. For more about the project and the dedication ceremony, also some larger photos showing the whole of the banner, 
Can anyone help . . . with identifying the family in the photo, which was taken in 1907 at Newton Corner? For more info and a larger photo, 
Garden Club Annual Show This year's Garden Club Annual Flower and Hobbies Show was held on a sunny Saturday 25th August in the Village Hall. Pictured is PC Henry Clissold, our local Community Beat Manager, awarding the prizes. For more details, including all the class winners, 
Alice in Wonderland: The Pepperbox Players' 2007 production was, we reckon, definitely one of the best pantos they've staged in a proud history of good 'uns. We went to the last night, and laughed till it hurt. For a fuller report 
What's this chap doing up in the scaffolding? Must be something to do with the Parish Photo taken on 10th December. For more, and another picture, 
For more information about why the website is the way it is, and what we hope to do with it in the future; or to tell us about what changes or improvements YOU'D like to see in it, follow the "About Website" link.