April/May 2009

Allsorts Pre-School

Since news of Allsorts’ amazing achievement of the PLA Stage 3 accreditation appeared in the last edition of The Villager, we’ve been asked to share just what it means to the pre-school and our tiny tots. So here is “Everything you ever wanted to know about PLA Stage 3 accreditation but were afraid to ask…”!

What’s the PLA? The Pre-School Learning Alliance (PLA) is the largest voluntary sector provider of quality, affordable childcare and education in England. It offers professional and practical support to 16,000 nurseries, sessional pre-schools and parent and toddler groups, covering over 800,000 young children and their families every year. For more information, visit their website: www.pre-school.org.uk.

What’s a Stage 3 accreditation? To ensure the highest possible standards of education and care for children, the PLA operates an independent, quality assurance scheme, with three levels of accreditation, Stage 3 being the highest. Before a setting can be awarded any level, the scheme rigorously examines circa 300 aspects of quality, including curriculum planning, early learning goals, quality of teaching and parental involvement. Additionally, the scheme has Investors in Children status.

What’s in it for Allsorts? We have come a very long way since our early days as a playgroup, thanks to the combined effort from staff, committee and parents. This award is independent recognition of that transformation and of the highest standards of education and care, we provide for our little ones.

What’s in it for the parents and children? Parents can be assured we provide a safe, secure and stimulating environment for their tots, with good quality, educational opportunities and that our staff are well-skilled, trained and committed. Additionally, the scheme is the first to acknowledge the significance of involving parents, so they can feel actively encouraged to participate.

What’s in it for the village? Brightwell-cum-Sotwell can boast that it is home to one of only 50 settings, out of the many thousands throughout the UK, to have this prestigious, national stamp of approval. Such recognition confirms the value of what we do at Allsorts and, therefore, enhances our prospects for a sustained presence within the village and wider community.

Thank you to everyone who makes our local, village pre-school such a success story.

Victoria Clyde-Matthews

Brightwell School

I was initially seconded to Brightwell School as Acting Headteacher for two terms. This has now been extended to the end of the Term 6. I am very much looking forward to completing a year’s leadership at the school.

The end of last term was disrupted by heavy snow and unfortunately we had to close the school. However, the children had a great time with their families sledging, making snowmen and having fun.

There are many exciting things happening this term, especially in music and drama. Our school choir, under Wendy Murton’s direction, took part in an evening of music at the Corn Exchange. Our choir consists of children from Year 2 to Year 6. They sang with great enthusiasm and enjoyment and were a credit to the school. Excitement is mounting as our pantomime, Cinderella and Rockerfella will be perfomed by children in KS2 next week. The children have thoroughly enjoyed preparing for this event, learning their lines, learning lots of songs, making props, and designing and printing programmes and tickets. We certainly have some budding actors and singers! Children in our Dance Club have also been practising their routines for the Wallingford Dance Festival. Towards the end of term the whole school will take part in a poster competition organised by NAGS. The theme will be parking considerately, so look out for these posters around the village! From 16 – 20 March Class 4 will be going on a residential trip to Yenworthy in Somerset. As well as studying the area, they will be engaged in some challenging activities. I am sure that they will have a great time.

Finally, we have two projects which you may be able to help us with. We are going to start a Gardening Club, so if you are ‘green-fingered ‘ and feel that you could offer some time to work with the children we would love to hear from you. Also, we have lots of books in our library that need to be labelled with their Dewey system numbers.

If you can help with either of these projects, please contact the school on 837024 or e-mail: office.3221@brightwell.oxon.sch.uk

Angela Harbut

Brightwell-cum-Sotwell Community Village Stores Ltd

Devil hunting...

Planning Progress
The architect’s plans, ably guided by Phil Jones, received the unanimous support of the Trustees of the Village Hall and are with the SODC planning department. Thank you to all those who wrote in support. We now are eagerly – and hopefully – awaiting a decision. The “Limited” at the top of this article shows that we have formed the Industrial and Provident Society for the Benefit of the Community and our lawyer is drawing up leases and other necessary documents. Our deadline is 31 March 2009 as you will see... “Wine maketh merry but money answereth all things”

By now every house in the village will have received a “flyer” giving details of the Stores and asking for pledges so I won’t repeat it here. Many thanks to Adrian Wood, David Dobbin and all those who devised and organised its distribution; we have already received many pledges and are on our way to our target of £45,000. We will be contacting each house during the course of the month, so be warned!

The application for SODC funds has to be in by 31 March 2009 (that date again) and we are working hard to get all the many details completed by that time – they were very generous with a grant for the Jubilee Pavilion and we hope that it was a good precedent! Applications are going in for other funds (we have already received official approval from ViRSA) and we are hoping, with the help of Jemma Terry and Stuart Bailey, to tap the corporate market.

Management
Corinne Jones is advancing the plans for operating the Stores and will soon be contacting all those 150 people who volunteered to help. We still search for (paid) managers, possibly on a job share basis. We are being helped greatly by other village shops that have started up in our area. Any ideas or suggestions do contact Corinne on 836686.

What next?
We are greatly encouraged by the enthusiasm of the large number of villagers and village organisations who are helping in so many ways and cannot thank you enough. We await the planners of the SODC, we work hard on the funding applications, we plan a Village Meeting (tentative date 14 May in the Village Hall) and we eagerly anticipate the Midsummer Ball on 20 June
And we have found the devil…………..she’s in the detail!

Jim Sanger

St Agatha’s Church Extension

How is the project going?
Well, we are building momentum. Yes, I know it is some years since the Parish Plan was put together under the Vital Villages initiative, with its aim of “building a sustainable community”. The provenance for the planned extension stems from an objective identified in that Plan (I quote):

Action - To look at ways to foster greater integration of the Church and the community leading to improved facilities and utilisation of theChurch

How it will be tackled - To expand the church role in the community, for example utilisation of facilities - hold social and arts events

As with the Village Shop project, a key objective of the Parish Plan, good things sometimes do take longer to come along than we might wish. We now have a most exciting proposal for the extension to enhance significantly the Church’s ability to accommodate community activities and to carry out its ecumenical role.

Can you really call the provisional plans exciting?
The revised plans, on display in St Agatha’s, most certainly are. Please go and have a look at them. The PCC was encouraged by the Oxford Diocese and your responses to the questionnaires to consider a broader canvas - hence we now have an extension proposal with larger multi-purpose meeting room, a kitchen and two loos (one with facilities for the disabled) The overall design from the outside is inspiring.

Will all this not increase the cost?
Few things in life are free and, yes, the cost will be greater than for the initial proposal. We will clarify this shortly but the target is to meet c75% of the total through external grants with the balance raised locally. A sizeable part of this balance will come from existing Church funds set aside for such a project; the remainder we will seek from the Parish, challenging but achievable we believe with your support.

How about the responses to the questionnaires?
They are still coming in but so far they have been very encouraging with many suggestions taken into account in the revised plans. Some raise valid points which warrant a reply.

One says there should be more consultation and marketing of the proposals. We hope the questionnaire gives people an opportunity to have a say. The plans are on display in St Agatha’s and this display board will be updated as the project progresses. We also will use the pages of The Villager to report on developments. However I have some sympathy with another response: “This was mooted 4 years ago. JUST GET ON WITH IT!!”.

Another suggests that funds would be better spent on improving the existing building rather than building an extension. This Appeal is not intended to replace funding for other Church needs and, as part of this exercise, a 3-7 year projection of repair and maintenance requirements for St Agatha’s is being prepared to ensure this aspect is not overlooked. It should be borne in mind that many of the bodies we will be approaching for donations will support capital projects but not ongoing maintenance.

How long is all this going to take?
A little while, indeed! Securing planning permission for the extension will be far more complicated than for an ordinary building. The Oxford Diocese has to approve the project, as does English Heritage due to St Agatha’s Grade 11* listed status. Thereafter the plans are submitted to SODC. All being well, we hope to have all approvals in place by the third quarter this year. Realistically it may be towards the end of next year before the extension is completed.

Will any fund raising events be held?
You had better believe it, once the Appeal is launched later this year. We are nurturing a number of ideas but two very provisional dates for your diaries are:
Saturday 6 June - An evening concert in St Agatha’s (yes we appreciate we will not have planning permission by this date, this is a pre Appeal launch event)
Saturday 19 September - A sponsored walk for families, concluding with a bonfire and barbecue near St Agatha’s.

Why are you doing this at the same time as the Village Shop?
In an ideal world we would not launch this Appeal close to another Village project or at a time of difficult economic circumstances, but probably you can always find reasons to put such a project off. Any further delay and Mr “JUST GET ON WITH IT!!” would be apoplectic!

Seriously, both the Village Shop and the Church extension are very worthwhile projects which will benefit our community. We hope that both will be supported wholeheartedly.

Tony Lascelles
Chairman, St Agatha’s Church Extension Appeal Committee

Orchard and Fruit Tree Survey

Brightwell-cum-Sotwell has traditionally been a centre for orchards and fruit growing. Like many other fruit growing areas in England there has been a decline in the number and quality of orchards in the last 50 years. Recognising the environmental value of orchards, the Brightwell-cum-Sotwell Environment Group is carrying out a survey of the fruit trees and orchards in the village.

We are particularly interested in finding out about the apple trees in the village, for example, what varieties there are and the age of the trees and orchards. In addition, we hope to find out more about the wildlife found in and around our village fruit trees.

We would greatly value your contribution to the fruit tree survey by giving us information about any fruit trees you have in your garden.

If you would like more information, or you would like help with the identification of your apple trees, or sources of information about fruit trees and orchards please contact any of the members of the Environment Group named on this form. You can receive the survey form by email by contacting acbloomfield@googlemail.com

Publication of the results
Some villagers might already know their tree varieties and can complete the form now; others might want to wait until their trees are in bloom or fruiting before they can identify what they have. We hope to start receiving information soon but expect most of the survey to be carried out between May and October.

The results of the survey will be published by the end of the year and will be available in The Villager and on the village website. A full presentation will be given at an Environment Group meeting.

Alison Bloomfield

Brightwell Bees: The village tradition continues

"A chap from Wallingford has just called to say that he has a swarm of bees in an apple tree - let's go and collect it". That Sunday evening call in June 2006 from the village's legendary beekeeper Viola Crowe was an unforgettable day which started our beekeeping career.

A few minutes later, clad in white bee suits, Viola and I were introduced to the large rucksack sized swarm which was clinging tenuously to a sagging branch. Residents and neighbours were assembled at a safe distance as Viola sharply shook the Bramley's branch, and the tightly knit family of about 15,000 bees neatly dropped into the cardboard box that I was nervously holding. Whoops - I almost lost balance on the step ladder as the 3kg weight of the colony thudded into the box, catching me off guard. As dusk fell over our garden, the tail of a huge black carpet of bees was crawling from the now upturned box into their new home - a hastily installed hive at the bottom of our garden. "They marched in like an army, so the queen is fine" Viola confidently remarked. And so they were; the colony went on to make our first six jars of honey.

As the emerging cherry blossom heralds the start of another spring, our love of beekeeping has seen our hive number expand to about thirty, generously hosted in the parish at Sherwood Farm and Brightwell Vineyard, as well as locations with friends in surrounding villages.

The plight of bees has been well aired in the media over the past months, due in part to the ecological importance of honeybees as pollinators, but also because of our fascination with this insect, which represents a pinnacle of social organisation within the animal kingdom.

What makes a honeybee the "special one"? Perhaps a good starting point is to echo a question often askedwhen our customersare choosing a jar of honey. "Actually, why do bees produce honey?" An amazing fact is that a hive of bees will need a store of about 20 kg of honey to see it through the winter and early spring. This is because bees do not hibernate, but overwinter as a large colony of about 10,000 with the queen nestled in the middle, continually laying eggs for all but a few weeks in the depth of winter. In the nest or brood area of the hive, bees will use their honey fuelled energy to incubate their offspring at a constant temperature of 35°C - very close to our own body temperature. Even when the ground was covered with snow in February, bees were huddled together in a cluster, silently vibrating their wing muscles to maintain a warm nest area.To avoid being chilled, the bees on the edge of the cluster will, penguin like, swap places with their neighbours. By over wintering as a large colony, the honeybee hits the ground running when the first spring blossom emerges - in contrast to bumble bees, where a single queen emerging from hibernation has the awesome task of building a new nest all on her own.

At this time of the year you will see flowering cherry trees literally humming with honeybees, many conceived when the ground was covered with late winter snow. Over the coming weeks as bee numbers in each hive build up to a peak of around 50,000, we enter a very busy period in the beekeeper’s calendar. Each hive has to be inspected on a weekly basis between April and late July to prevent the colony from swarming. At each inspection, we examine each of the eleven frames in the nest area of the hive to search for queen cells. Worker bees will construct a large thimble shaped queen cell, subsequently feeding the larva on an exclusive diet of protein rich “royal jelly”. This dietary boost is all that is required to transform what would have been a sterile worker bee into a queen bee. When the heir apparent is only ten days old, the worker bees cut the food supply to the old queen, slimming her down ready for flight. Then, the old queen and almost half the workers in the colony will swarm out of the hive to find a new home, leaving the new queen to head the original colony. Beekeepers prevent swarming by moving the queen and a sizeable entourage of bees into a new hive as soon as queen cells are discovered – a technique called artificial swarming.

From mid-March, we’ve also been adding ‘supers’ to the hives. These honey boxes are placed above a queen excluder which separates the nest area of the hive from the honey. Spring honey is harvested in May, and summer honey in late August. The colour, flavour and aroma of the honey vary through the season as bees gather nectar from different floral sources.

Completing the seasonal cycle, bees will continue to make honey from late flowering plants such as asters and ivy, to build up the 20kg store which they need to see them through the winter. Through the season, a honeybee colony will have gathered on average a staggering 120 kg of nectar and 30 kg of pollen – no wonder we use the phrase “as busy as a bee”.

Steve Moll