HEAR ABOUTS APRIL 2017 Cover image by Ian Smith The Free Community Magazine for Eglingham Parish North Charlton | South Charlton | Eglingham | & Everywhere Between From the Editor Email: [email protected] Another busy month has just passed and Address: The Croft we are now in April and what a beautiful 32 South Charlton start it has been! (this is being written on Alnwick the 2nd of April) Temperatures are into the Northumberland mid teens, the birds are busy and singing NE66 2NA happily away attracting their mates for the Phone: (Andy) 07730 559223 season, the hedges are greening up and already the grass has been cut - (some of it 3 times already!). So contrast that with just 70 years ago... the country was beginning to come out of one of the snowiest winters ever seen ...and Trump denies the world is getting warmer! Anyways, its just a couple of weeks until the cricket season, so winter will no doubt return for one last blast just in time for that! Andy Rock Cricket Club You may have seen a few weeks ago about a new initiative from the ECB about getting 5-8yos (girls & boys) into playing cricket. Well, Rock CC are one of the clubs in the county that will be running these sessions. Full details can be found at https://www.ecb.co.uk/play/all- stars. If you don’t have any 5-8yos, pass this onto those that do. Our seniors season starts on April 22nd away to Stobswood - a full fixture list can be seen at www.rockcc.co.uk/fixtures/ We hope to see you during the season! Andy Gray - Asst. Sec. www.eglingham.info SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Hear Abouts is all about you the reader within our Parish. It is written by yourselves (or by those just beyond our borders) and without those submissions there would be no Hear Abouts. Just a few things to note while submitting content to us which helps us out though. Please email all content to the email address [email protected] and no other. There is less chance of it getting lost and forgotten about then. Please send content typed in an attached document file (eg Word). Please name the file with the article title, or be descriptive in it. It gets a little confusing when you have 4 files all called hear_abouts_artcle.docx Pictures make things pretty! If you have an image to accompany the article great! Pictures tell a thousand words! A good size image helps us deliver a quality print. So ideally images should be around 2000 pixels on the longest edge. Please remember to own or have permission to use the picture you send. Even as a non-profit we are liable to claims of using copyrighted images, even within our small print run. DISCLAIMER Just a reminder for the easily offended or argumentative. Please note that the views expressed within are those of the named contributors not the Hear Abouts team. Thank you. Feel free to write in with a reply to anything to be published though! Also please be aware that Hear Abouts is made available online digitally at www.eglingham.info and is searchable worldwide, so any information you provide will be published “beyond our borders”. Eglingham Cricket Club With spring maintenance well on the way, the time for digging out those cricket whites and protection, see if they still fit or if the mice have devoured them, has arrived. The season kicks off with our local derby at Chatton on Sunday 23rd April, followed by Genetics away on 30th April and then Bamburgh away on 7th May. For all cricketers old and new please do contact Gordon (usually to be found in his office) with availability. Date for the diary is our blue riband game on July 9th against the Hunt for the Peter Cotham Memorial Trophy. See you all soon The Scorer Brownieside & South Charlton Leek Club Please contact Bob on 579317 for entries for Giant Cabbage and Tattie in a bucket competitions ASAP Lunch Club South Charlton Village Hall Wednesday, 19th April at 12 noon Join us for Soup and Pudding followed by a Cuppa All welcome! Grants awarded from Innogy Renewables UK Middlemoor Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund December 2016 Panel meeting: St Maurice’s Parish Church Council Automation of church clock £8,204 South Charlton Village Hall Committee Improvements to the village hall £23,040 William Robertson Homes Replacement of two Kitchens £10,000 Little Acorns Learning resources for children £3,841 Middlemoor Community Benefit Fund Panel Members Wanted We are currently looking for Community Panel Members for the Innogy Renewables UK Middlemoor Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund. As a local parish council in close proximity to the wind farm we would appreciate any help you may be able to offer in promoting this vacancy. The panel member position will involve three meetings a year to make recommendations on grant applications to the Community Foundation. We are particularly interested in attracting applicants from North Charlton, which is currently unrepresented on the Panel. The deadline for applications to the position of community panel member is 1 June 2017. The £81,000 per year fund covers the Parish of Eglingham, Northumberland. Community groups, charities, parish councils and schools can apply for grants from £250 upwards for a range of projects. Individuals can apply for grants up to £2,000. Priority is given to applications that come from, or benefit residents within the Parish of Eglingham. For more information on how to apply to become a panel member, contact Pete Barrett, Senior Programme Advisor on 0191 222 0945 or at [email protected]. The next deadline for grant applications to the Fund is Wednesday 31st June 2017, and for more details on how to apply please visit www.communityfoundation.org.uk/ apply. Pete Barrett Senior Programme Advisor Eglingham WI South Charlton was once again the venue for our March meeting, with most of our members attending. At the conclusion of our usual business our President Brenda announced that the charities we would be supporting for 2018, our centenary year, would be the oncology unit at Alnwick Infirmary and the palliative care unit at Wansbeck hospital, in memory of Fiona Robson. The speaker for this meeting was Roz Tinlin of Coquet Chocolates, who makes all kinds of varieties of chocolate to sell at shows and fairs. We were told that the Aztecs were using cocoa beans 3,000 years ago and that chocolate was introduced into Europe by Christopher Columbus in 1502. She explained how chocolate varies considerably according to the percentage of cocoa solids in the brand. German chocolate would appear to be excellent quality while the cheaper brands use less solids and white chocolate contains no cocoa solids but mainly cocoa butter. Then the part we had all been looking forward to. We were given five samples to taste. Four chocolate buttons and one truffle. The buttons came from Ghana,Trinidad,the Amazon rain forest and Cuba. Some thought a slight tobacco taste in the latter. The last truffle was made from a ganache mixed with Earl Grey tea. Roz then demonstrated how she made her ganache. Apparently a little chocolate does one no harm. We were told of a hospital trial where some patients with heart problems were split into two groups. One group were given a small amount of plain chocolate each day, while the other took a placebo. The group who had chocolate made some slight improvement. At the end of her talk Roz showed us the many different varieties of chocolate she makes and, of course, there were bars to buy. Romaine gave a vote of thanks. The raffle was won by Catherine Lister. Our next meeting will be on 6 April, again at South Charlton. This time the speaker will be Colin Buxton and his talk is Air Fighting in WW1 - the efforts of an RNAS (Royal Naval Air Service). His talk will cover types of air craft, the role of the squadron with details of some combats. Plus the way of life of the airmen and several of their profiles. This should be an extremely interesting evening and all visitors will be very welcome to come along to hear him and join us for supper. Pat Ives Eglingham Photo Club Photo of the Month A colourful scene at Doxford lake by Mark Popely is April’s Photo of the Month selected by the Hear Abouts editorial team. Learning to live with the telly For more than 50 years I have studiously ignored television. The times I have stopped to look at it have reinforced my belief that it is staffed by febrile nitwits who think they are god’s gift to humanity. I saw a bit of Comic Relief the other week. Febrile nitwits? Not nearly strong enough to describe that shambolic embarrassment. They had two years to prepare and they came up with that! Really! But. A funny thing has been happening over the last few months. I have actually found things that entertain me on the television. I might not care whether I miss an episode or not, but if it is on, then I will watch and actually get some pleasure from it, which I never did in the past. There was a little programme on the other night about someone who painted a copy of a picture (on the right) and put it in place of the original in Manchester Art Gallery. People wandered about and tried to spot the fake. This is an absolutely ludicrous thing to try and do.