June/July 2010

Community Village Stores: Counting Down

After our initial redesign of the foundations to counter the highest water table in 135 years and the deepest snowfall for 145 years, building has proceeded apace. The structure is built, the handsome lantern crowns the roof and the wooden cladding in place. All we need to do now is to wait until the moisture content of the floor screeds becomes low enough to enable the vinyl flooring to be laid. By the time you read this, we should be complete and the shop-fitting well on its way. Phil Jones has masterminded all of this and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

Celia Collett, Corinne Jones and their team are hard at work selecting stock and suppliers and co-ordinating the multitude of other tasks needed to get the shop up and running. The great news is that a Stores Manager has been recruited to start in the middle of June and she will be finalising all the many details with the help of the Operating Team. Volunteers are being organised – two and a half hour slots seem to be the popular length of time – and training sessions arranged. All you who volunteered will be contacted; anyone who has not yet come forward do contact Madeline Sanger on 833655.

David Dobbin’s team have now completed their fundraising task and held their last meeting in June. They raised (with Gift Aid) over £75,000 from the village, a magnificent total. Many thanks to them, to all you villagers and to the Community Association – what a village we live in! Now our task is to manage the cash flow from the funders and the ever-present VAT.

The usual provisos (weather, hung parliaments etc!) apply but our timetable now looks as if we will finish the building around the end of May. Shop-fitting, initial negotiations and stocking will take us through June and July and we should be able to have a “soft” opening at the end of July or the beginning of August. We will iron out some of the initial challenges during August and plan to have a Grand Gala Opening during September. Everybody will be notified and we hope that everybody will come!

When we have been up and running for a few months we aim to have a public feedback meeting to see what we can improve. This may coincide with our first AGM when you will have a chance to elect the management team to take the Stores triumphantly forward.

Ready and counting……ten….nine…

Jim Sanger

St Agatha’s Church Extension

Light at the end of the tunnel, if not quite dazzling, is certainly glowing. Agreement in principle to the plans has been given by the Oxford Diocese, English Heritage and SODC. A formal planning application is being put together by our architects under David Greasby’s watchful eye for submission in early June. Thereafter we will be inviting your help by writing to SODC in support of the project and by pledging a donation towards the funding required.

A display board in St Agatha’s outlines the project’s status – its raison d’etre, the plans, where the necessary funding is to be sought and how we are doing so far. This will be updated as we go along and will be displayed at various Village events (the Annual Parish meeting, St Agatha’s Spring Fair, the Fete and so on) to keep you informed of progress.

So far over £10,000 has been raised through local activities, in addition to c£15,000 held in the Church Building Fund, due to tremendous support from the village. By the time you read this, the Safari Supper will have been held. Its mastermind, Hilary Rogerson, advises that nearly 100 participants are signed up for what will be a great evening. Preparations for our big June weekend are proceeding apace.

Sincere thanks again to all who are contributing to and supporting these activities. We have a serious objective but aim to achieve it in a way in which everyone can join in and have an enjoyable time.

Tony Lascelles

Flower and Produce Show

Bring out your inner hippy: have a go at making a wind chime for this year's show at the village fete. We are sure that the inventive brains who produced last year's Worzel Gummidges will have fun with this new class - and we hope they are joined by many others. The chimes will be hung outside the show tent, and judging - as with last year's scarecrows - will be by popular vote.

Wind chimes are conventionally made from wood, porcelain or metal, but recycled materials - from old cookie cutters to CDs - could work equally well. Provided they make some kind of tinkly sound, rather than a dull thud, the only limit is your imagination.

Other new classes include half a dozen hen's eggs, and the best home-planted tub, to be judged in your own home. For photographers, there is 'A Village Landmark'; a set of four photos on the theme of Time - and 'Guess What This Is?': an unusual angle on a familiar object. Junior entrants can make posters for the village shop, decorated cup cakes, tie-dye T-shirts and pressed flower cards. Also, any under-16 entry in an adult class stands a chance of winning the Joan Sheard trophy, together with a cash prize.

Normally honour and glory - with maybe the odd trophy - are the only reward for entering the show. However, this year, we are grateful for prize sponsorship from Busy Baskets and Winterbrook Garden Services.

Sally Dugan

Local Geological Site

Probably few people will be aware that a Local Geological Site has recently been designated within our parish, - or more accurately astride the parish boundary between Brightwell and Little Wittenham. It is a small outcrop at the passing point inside the bend in the sunken lane which leads up towards the Wittenham Clumps. The former pit is largely invisible from the road, obscured by nettles and the overhanging branches and roots of a large hornbeam tree. The site belongs to the Northmoor Trust.

The sedimentary rock exposed here belongs to the Upper Greensand, deposited as marine sediment some 100 million years ago, and lying stratigraphically above the Gault Clay and below the Chalk, the latter now forming the crest of the Clumps. The Upper Greensand underlies much of our village, but in this area is neither green nor particularly sandy. It is a creamy-grey rock, known historically as Malmstone, which weathers to a sticky, pale-grey soil. Although it resembles a greyish chalk it is in fact largely made up, not of calcium carbonate material, but from tiny particles of silica derived from the spicules of ancient sponge organisms. It contains few fossils. A slight greenish tinge is due to the presence of glauconite, a sedimentary mineral which contains potassium. This is believed to act as a natural fertilizer,-which may explain why the belt of Upper Greensand soils between Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Milton Hill and Harwell proved so suitable for fruit growing.

The Malmstone is a permeable rock, in contrast to the underlying Gault Clay, so downward percolating groundwater emerges at the surface contact between the two. This determines the line of springs running through our village.

A Local Geological Site (formerly known as a Regionally Important Geological Site) is designated to indicate a site worthy of active conservation. A panel of county geologists and environmentalists made the recommendation on the basis that this is perhaps the only publicly-accessible site in the county where the Upper Greensand is exposed. There are a total of 42 Local Geological Sites across Oxfordshire.

It is not clear when this small pit was actively quarried, or how the stone was used. The rock is probably too soft to make a walling stone, but could have been used for some agricultural purpose. I would be pleased to hear from anyone who may know more about the origins and use of this pit.

Bill Horsfield