June/July 2006

Allsorts Pre-School

We would like to make a very big thank you to everyone who has made a donation to our building fund. It is very much appreciated by all who are involved at the Pre-School, especially the children. However we are still short by approximately £13,000 and we need to raise the remaining funds by the end of the summer term so that the building work can start. The new building has to be up and running by the start of the new school year in September.

We raised £200 from the Nearly New Baby Sale that took place on Saturday 22 April in the Jubilee Pavilion, a big thank you to everyone that came along and supported us.

We are holding a Prize Draw on Saturday 1st July in the Pre-school. Raffle tickets are on sale at the moment, they cost £1 each and there are various prizes - 1st Prize Set Lunch for Two at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and other prizes include mobile phone worth over £200, iPod Nano, case of wine, Champagne, Hanging Baskets. We will be going round the village selling raffle tickets in the near future, but you may also purchase tickets by calling the Pre-school. All proceeds of the ticket sales will go to the new building fund.

At present we are going through an accreditation process at Allsorts. This means that we are to be assessed and inspected on the childcare that we provide and the curriculum that we use. There are 3 stages for us to complete and we are awaiting an assessor to complete stage 1. All the staff and committee are working hard towards the Accreditation and once completed we will be recognised by the Pre-School Learning Alliance for providing excellent childcare and provision.

We currently have a staff vacancy that has recently become available. We require a qualified and experienced staff member (preferably NVQ 2 or above) to work with our existing team - 19 hours per week over 5 days, good rates of pay depending on experience. For further information and to arrange a visit please contact the Chairman, Sam Balfour, on 01235 816701.

There are a few slots available for Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon sessions at the Pre-school (1pm – 3:30pm), so please contact us to know more. If you would like to arrange a visit to the Pre-school please call Hilary on 826387.

Zoe Davis

History Group Diary Project

In April 2005 I wrote an article in The Villager inviting people to keep a diary of their everyday life for just one day a month. The idea was to paint a picture of life in 21st century Brightwell-cum-Sotwell for those who come after us.

The last entries should have been made in March, and I now have several finished diaries. I can tell from these that the project has really caught people’s imaginations. One diary is stuffed full of the kind of country lore that might well otherwise have been forgotten; another is written in its entirety as a series of letters to someone called Tony. (The logic is that, since there are so many Tonys in the village now, there are bound to be more in the future!)

I know some people have fallen by the wayside, as they have e-mailed to confess that they haven’t done their ‘homework’! However, I also know that there are still a lot of literary masterpieces out there.

At the start of the project, I sent out monthly e-mail reminders to the 30-plus people who initially signed up. However, due to a catastrophic computer failure in January, I no longer have everyone’s e-mail address. So, if you are sitting on a diary, I would be grateful if you could let me have it. It can be handwritten, on A4 paper, e-mailed, or printed out and saved on disc. It would be great if people could also provide photographs of themselves and the interiors of their houses, especially the kitchen and sitting room. These can be prints or in digital format.

Individual diaries will not be made public. They will be collated and stored in the History Group Archives for the benefit of future generations.

Sally Dugan

Church Spring Fair

This was a very successful and well-attended event on 13 May, raising around £1200 for the Church Building Fund when all the expenses have been deducted. A big thank you to Dr Pauline Emerson for the use of her garden at Brightwell Manor and to everyone who helped, especially the ‘setters-up’ and ‘takers-down’.

Olive Sutcliffe

Parish Church: We’re glad we’re still here!

St. Agatha’s Church has stood in the village of Brightwell for 834 years, although people have probably been worshipping on the site for hundreds of years before that.

So it was encouraging to learn from the Vital Villages Survey in 2003 that a significant majority of you appreciated the churches in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell – not only as historic monuments, but also as places for special occasions and for spiritual refreshment and prayer. The view was also expressed that ways should be found to foster closer links between church and community.

We are glad of your vote of confidence, and we are seeking ways for the church to move forward with the community.

But whilst church buildings, like St. Agatha’s (and St. James) can be a blessing to many, they can also be a burden to the few. They are costly to maintain. The congregation willingly and generously fund the day to day running costs of the church. These include £20,000 to central church funds responsible for providing ministers throughout Church of England parishes and a further £17,000 for church ministry and mission, routine maintenance, and support for other charitable organisations.

The Church of God is not essentially a building but an assembly of people called to worship and serve God. There were no church buildings for the first period of the Church’s history. However, the Anglican Church now has a vast number of historic buildings of which it is the (sometimes reluctant!) custodian. These are often situated in the middle of small villages and much smaller worshipping communities.

Now St. Agatha’s needs some costly, essential work just to keep out the rain and further work to provide toilets which will make it more user friendly, versatile and allow it to be used for a wider range of events.

If you value either the ministry and witness of the Anglican Church in the community or the presence of an ancient building in the beautiful village of Brightwell or both, please support us as we seek to maintain a viable and sustainable Christian presence in the community and an ancient building that has stood at the heart of that community for centuries.

Jill Chatfield

Brightwell School

It is that testing time of year again. Year 2 and Year 6 children are currently taking the national tests for seven and eleven year olds respectively. The rest of the school will also undertake assessments in literacy and mathematics, as we move towards the end of the year. The information gathered from this is invaluable for summarising attainment, setting targets for learning, and tracking pupil progress through the school.

For our Early Years Open Morning, Miss Shinner and Class 1 put on a lovely assembly and activities morning this month for current, new and prospective parents. The Reception children, supported by some older children from Class 3, entertained parents with a colourful re-telling of the children’s story, A Very Hungry Caterpillar.

There have been several educational visits. Class 3 visited Hampton Court and spent a day there studying life in Tudor times. Class 2 and Class 4 visited The Northmoor Trust at Little Wittenham to study Pond and River life respectively. The Trust has recently received a substantial subsidy to develop their facility and we are looking forward to being involved in their exciting Project Timescape next year. More recently we celebrated the Queens 80th birthday with a special lunch. Year 5 and 6 children participated in a Tag Rugby Festival at Wallingford School and Year 3 and 4 took part in a Football Festival at Cholsey. Both teams acquitted themselves well, showing good skills and a positive sporting attitude. Our children have done remarkably well to raise £648 for Barnardo’s by caring for an ‘egg baby’ for two weeks. They also raised £55 for Books for Africa, on World Book Day, when they paid to come into school dressed as a book character. Our Friends of the School (FOBS) have generously purchased a digital video camera for school and extended the adventure trail in the playground. We also had a cycle rack installed as part of our efforts to encourage a healthy lifestyle.

Finally, as a result of my request for villagers to get involved with the school, our older children will be entertained about Life and Death in Ancient Egypt. It is just the sort of response we welcome and offers the children a unique opportunity for learning.

Forthcoming events include our Summer Fete on Friday 23 June between 6-9 pm. Also, on the evening of Wednesday 5 July, 6-8 pm, we will be holding a sports event where the children compete in their House Teams.

Roger Grant

Parish Council

Annual Parish Meeting - this was held on 27 April in the Village Hall. A full report of activities throughout the year was given by the Chairman Mrs Celia Collett who also placed specific emphasis on thanking the army of volunteers and helpers we have in the community that do a marvellous job and make our parish so successful. The meeting also heard a range of reports including news from our local beat officer WPC Pip Walker, Lord Bradshaw on Policing matters, Mrs Hilary Smith explaining Allsorts Pre School building objectives, Mrs Olive Sutcliffe on building proposals for St Agatha’s, Mrs Carole Dennis on the ‘Planning Process’, a written report by Mrs Mary Green on SODC matters and a summary by Mrs Celia Collett of the Council’s efforts to re-establish a village shop. The minutes of this meeting and copies of all these reports including contributions and questions from those attending are available at the Parish Office. Please ring the Clerk Mrs Jane Dix on 826968 for any information.

New Chairman - another new Parish year is underway and Mr Steve Luck is now Chairman of the Council with Mrs Carole Dennis as Vice Chairman. In taking up the role Mr Luck extended grateful thanks to both Mrs Celia Collett and Dr John Rodda for their success and effort during their respective periods in the Chair during the last year.

Garden waste and re-cycling - SODC, we are informed, are currently not hitting the required green waste targets. Changes are afoot and the last collection date for the eco-sacks will be Friday 2 June. This scheme is being replaced by a fortnightly collection of garden waste (wheeled bin service costing £29 per year) which starts at the beginning of June. Information packs are available from SODC. Waste is an issue and it is intended that a talk on recycling measures, green waste and associated subjects will be presented at a Council meeting later in the year. In the meantime, it has been suggested that SODC look seriously at assessing the amount of home and garden composting that is being undertaken throughout the district. Indeed, if a great deal of effort and expense is aimed at encouraging home composting it would seem logical to include this in the overall target figure calculation - if at all possible.

Affordable Housing - at the May meeting, the Council received a further report from SOHA concerning the provision of housing on the proposed Greenmere site. At this stage it is understood that funding is available for a scheme and the latest feasibility assessment now involves the provision of 4 one-bed roomed and 2 two-bed roomed flats. As before, an opportunity for full consultation will be provided for everyone and will take the form of a presentation at the Village Hall. This will be well advertised once dates and final details are known.

Concessionary Fares - forms and tokens are now available at the Post Office (Wednesdays and Fridays) in the Red Lion.

David Greasby

Save the Children

During Save the Children week Wallingford & District Branch collected a total of £1413.84. This amount included £614.87p from Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, many thanks to all our loyal collectors and supporters.

The total raised for the Plant Sale on 20 May was £1007.97 again many thanks to all.

The Annual Charity Cricket match will be on Sunday 25 June, thanks to both the Red Lion and Brightwell Cricket Club. All are welcome to come and enjoy a relaxing afternoon watching the cricket; there will also be a beer tent, buffet and children’s entertainment including a five-a side junior World Cup Tournament (there will be two tournaments gender and age mixed).

Celia Collett

Flower and Produce Show 2006

The Produce Show tent is always a star attraction at the village fete (especially when it’s raining!), but coming up with new ideas for classes each year can be quite a challenge.

Of course there is a hard core of old favourites. The tent would not be the same without its roses, hybrid tea and multi-headed, and the vases of cottage garden flowers. But it’s always hard to second-guess what kinds of things people would enjoy exhibiting.

Last year, for instance, a lack of entries in the older junior section told us we’d got something wrong. So, we’ve decided to lower the upper age limit to 12, and to encourage the older juniors to enter the adult classes. As luck would have it, Win Glendenning had found a trophy which was originally used when the W.I. used to run the show. So, we are now offering this – the Joan Sheard trophy – to the best under-16 entry in the adult classes.

Some simple rules to follow:
All gardening and cookery exhibits should be in a suitable container or on a plate. This makes it easier for us to move entries around as they come in.

Gardening: Leave stalks on all fruit and vegetables, and look for uniformity of size and colour. Big is not necessarily best.

Cookery: Preserves should be labelled to show date. All other entries should be wrapped in cling film or clear polythene bags.

Flower Arranging: Arrangements should be in proportion ,and should not exceed maximum dimensions where given.

Sally Dugan

Environment Group Garden Bird Survey 1996 – 2005

Over the past 10 years 15 households have fairly regularly returned bird survey reports, enough to show any trends in population levels.

Many bird populations have remained constant, being seen often in most gardens, e.g. Blackbird, Robin, Collared Dove, Great Tit.

Some birds that we see now would have been rarities ten years ago. Red Kite and Buzzard are seen flying over the village almost daily, and Buzzards are actually nesting in the parish. The Sparrowhawk, almost decimated as a result of feeding on birds that had eaten crops sprayed with DDT and similar pesticides, is now back to the levels of the 1950’s. Blackcaps are over-wintering in greater numbers as are Chiffchaffs. Last summer a Little Egret was sighted on the moat in the garden of Brightwell Manor, where it stayed for three days, this is something we definitely wouldn’t have seen ten years ago. By contrast the population of House Sparrows in some gardens has plummeted from about 30 ten years ago to zero at the present. Below is a summary of the bird population changes.

GARDEN BIRD SURVEY 1996 – 2005
POPULATION TRENDS

Paul Chilton

Brightwell-cum-Sotwell Cricket Club

Origin of the Club
The first written record of a Brightwell Village Cricket Team playing a match is in the Parson of North Moreton Albert Barff’s Scrapbook of North Moreton (1858 to 1872). The Scrapbook is a collection of manuscripts and Barff writes “We had two games with Brightwell, in the first match Moreton beat, in the second Brightwell beat”. As this is the first written record to be found so far, 1858 is the date that has been adopted as the year Brightwell Cricket Club was founded.

The Cricket Ground
Brightwell Parish Records show that the Brightwell Cricket Club has played on the Recreational Ground, in Mackney Lane since 1897 when Brightwell Parish purchased the ground from a local farmer, Edward Fairthorne. This is evidenced by an indenture that sets out the conditions for the use of the land.

As with many village cricket grounds, in the beginning the cutting of the outfield was undertaken by a flock of sheep, which was very effective but resulted in the need to sweep the “Sheep Droppings” off the square before the pitch could be prepared. The square being rolled by a working horse fitted with padded hooves pulling a roller.

Cricket was suspended during the war years and during the Second World War a search light was positioned on the centre of the cricket square. After the cessation of hostilities the club resumed playing with an expanded fixture list as improved motorised transport aided mobility and it became possible to play matches on Sundays.

The cricket square originally laid in the 1800’s was moved in the mid 1960’s from its original position to the right of centre of the current football pitch to a new location in the centre of the Recreation Ground. This was done to provide enough room to move the football pitch from the southern end of the Recreational Ground the current position adjacent to the main entrance.

The Pavilion
The Heart of any club is the pavilion. The first cricket pavilion was a very grand affair with a thatched roof, veranda and white picket fence and would have originally been built towards the end of the 19th century. The fate of the original pavilion is unknown; it was replaced in circa 1924. the second pavilion started life as a railway signal box and served the club well for the next 53 years until tragically, it was burnt down on the 25 December 1997. Temporary changing rooms and showers were created in the storage shed next to the pavilion until 2003 when a state of the art facility was built for use by all the community and named the Jubilee Pavilion in commemoration of the Queen Elizabeth the Second Jubilee.

The Cricket Club
Over its long history the Brightwell cum Sotwell Cricket Club has predominately played “Village Cricket” considered “Friendly Cricket”. There is a competitive edge to most games balanced by friendly banter; as a result games are devoid of the intense competition experienced in League Cricket. Games are arranged with as many of the Surrounding Oxfordshire Villages as possible, interspersed with visiting Nomad and the occasional Touring Sides. The Cricket Club won the Friendly Cup in 2005 for the second time, the last time was in 1998. The Friendly Cup started in 1989 and is played for by 8 local Oxfordshire Village Sunday Cricket Sides.

The club is particularly proud of the 8 fathers and sons available to play for the club in 2006, providing many games with a real family feeling.

All involved with the Brightwell cum Sotwell Cricket Club are looking forward to 2008, when the Club celebrates its 150th year, quite a legacy for the club and the village.

Officers of the Club 2006
President: Jim Sanger; Chairman: Phil Jones;
Captain and Treasurer: Laurence Harvey;
Vice Captain: Robert England;
Secretary and Fixtures: Tony Windsor (834908)
Groundsman: Steve Metcalf;
Vice Presidents: Gilbert Talbot, David Dobbin, Tony Hayzelden,
Bill Bradshaw, Trevor Wintle, Frank Plazas, Neil Inwood
Life member:Sam Holland

Match Ball Sponsors 2006
Bell Garage, Brightwell Garage, Lock&Co., Root One Garden Centre, Timberland Flooring, Windsor Business Solutions

Tony Windsor