The Letc mbe Register The Letcombe Regis Parish Newsletter December 2018 Diary December Mondays 3,10 7.30 - 9.00 pm Voices in the Vale with Lisa Doscher Village Hall Tuesdays 4,11,18 9.30 - 10.45 am Hatha Yoga with Beth Village Hall Tuesdays 4,11,18 9.30 - 11.00 am Ridgeway Handbell Group East Challow Fridays 7,14,21,28 10.00 am / 11.00 am Tennis Cardio Class / All ability Coaching Tennis Courts Saturdays 1,8,15,22,29 9.00 am Tennis - 1 hour Cardio Tennis Courts Sat 1 10.00 am - noon St. Andrew’s Gift Day St. Andrew’s Sat 1 4.00 pm Richmond - Voices in the Vale Community Choir Richmond Sat 1 7.00 pm St. Andrew’s Day Concert - The Saxonians - jazz quartet St. Andrew’s Sun 2 10.00 am Matins - lay led St. Andrew’s Sun 2 3.00 pm Richmond - Cream Tea and Schubert Richmond Wed 5 8.00 pm Book Buffs Greyhound Inn Sun 9 10.00 am Holy Communion St. Andrew’s Sun 9 8.00 pm Greyhound - Pub Quiz Greyhound Inn Mon 10 7.30 pm WI - ‘A Tudor Christmas’ Village Hall Wed 12 7.30 pm Film Club - ‘The Death of Stalin’ Village Hall Fri 14 4.00 pm Richmond - Christmas Carols (children & residents) Richmond Sat 15 1.30 - 4.30 pm Nature Reserve Work Party Nature Reserve Sat 15 6.00 pm Carol Service St. Andrew’s Sun 16 10.00 am Matins - lay led St. Andrew’s Sun 16 4.00 - 7.00 pm Greyhound Folk Club Greyhound Inn Fri 21 7.30 pm Bingo! - jackpot £100 - all welcome Sports Pavilion Sun 23 10.00 am Matins St. Andrew’s Mon 24 11.30 pm Midnight Communion St. Andrew’s Sun 30 10.00 am Benefice Communion at St Laurence West Challow Holiday Waste Collections Monday 31st December - The Grey Landfill bin and Food waste bins will not be collected until Wednesday 2nd January. th Monday 24 December - the Green Recycling bin and Food waste bins will be collected as normal. (This includes Monday 7th January - the Green Recycling bin and Food the Brown Garden waste bin for those of you who waste bins will be collected the next day on Tuesday 8th subscribe to the service). January. (On this occasion there will be no Brown Garden waste collection). January Sun 6 3.00 pm Film Club - special free screening - ‘Paddington 2’ Village Hall © 2018 Francesca Engelmann for Letcombe Regis Parish Council Issue 160 The Letcombe Register December 2018 Letcombe Regis Parish Council Best wishes for a joyful Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year It barely seems a moment ago since last Christmas was to all our friends being celebrated, and here we are a few weeks away from and neighbours. this years celebrations! The Parish Council Christmas tree is due for delivery in early December and will be erected in Loretta and Mike Light its usual Church Corner place. As ever we would like to thank the Church for their help in providing the electricity supply to ensure it ‘twinkles’ into the night. This is clearly Tributary to the Letcombe Brook the time for families and friends to gather, but it can also be a lonely time for those on their own, so please continue to The tributary to the Letcombe Brook which runs alongside keep a friendly eye on any neighbours who could find Warborough Road from Highwell (Springlake) currently has themselves alone. little or no water flow and some areas of the stream have no water at all. The Parish Council met recently on 19th November and we were delighted to welcome a newly co-opted councillor The Parish Council has been in touch with the relevant Michelle Benton to the Parish Council. We all look forward authorities in order to resolve the issue. The matter has been raised with the officer for the Letcombe Brook Project to working with her. The main focus of the meeting was to nd consider proposals for next year’s budget and currently and upon his return from leave on the 2 December and these proposals mean no uplift in the precept. The final we will be discussing the resolution. approval will be made at our January Meeting once the final funding allocations are available from the Vale of the In the meantime the Environment Agency will only take White Horse. action if anyone sees fish in distress in their area of the stream. If you do please call their Incident Three requests for community grant support were hotline Telephone: 0800 80 70 60, they have a 24-hour considered and PC approved two of the applications. The service. Wantage Independent Advice Centre will receive £250 ( in It would be useful if you would also let the Parish Clerk the past year they have supported our parishioners on 688 know as well - [email protected] / 07491000305 occasions ); and £150 has been agreed to support Be Free Young Carers, which is a local based charity offering Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service - emotional support, social activities and training amongst other things for those aged 8 – 25 with a family caring Cooking fires responsibility. In making its decision the PC considers carefully the benefits to the Parish residents. We have built All it takes is one distraction in a continuing amount for Community Grants in next year’s Did you know that 1 in 3 people rescued from house fires in budget, so please contact the Parish Clerk if you would like Oxfordshire are rescued from cooking fires? Or that more details on how to apply. distraction is the main cause of cooking fires? It has been brought to our notice that the opportunities for It's easy to get distracted - the phone rings, someone's at sitting and ‘resting a while’ on the Millennium Green are the door or a TV show catches your attention. If you need limited. As a result the Parish Council are seeking to to leave your cooking, even for a couple of minutes: improve this by the purchase and installation of three new, • turn down the heat easily maintained, benches. These will be in place later in • set the timer the spring. Consideration is also being given to placing a • or ask someone to watch it for you bench in the Parish Council Burial Ground, as currently Or could find that Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service there is nowhere to sit. firefighters join you for dinner! Our next meeting is Scheduled for Monday 21st January, Find out more at: www.365alive.co.uk/cooking 8pm in the Village Hall. All are welcome to attend, and indeed if there is any matter you would like to raise please Letcombes WI contact the Parish Clerk in advance of the meeting. The WI had a most enjoyable meeting in November, when Finally, the Parish Council wishes you all a wonderful David Day gave a most enthusiastic and interesting Festive Celebration and a Peaceful and Prosperous New presentation about the Pendon Museum. At our next Year. meeting at the Village Hall on December 11th, Martin Sirot-Smith will be talking about “A Tudor Christmas”, and Jeanne Lapsley members are asked to bring a plate of goodies for a Chairman, Letcombe Regis Parish Council Christmas Feast. This Christmas the Oxfordshire Federation is organising contributions to local Food Banks. All sorts of non-perishable foods are welcome, as long as they have a Jeanne and Stephen and Family fairly distant “use by” date. Bring your donations along to wish all of our friends in the meeting, and we will see that they get to The Wantage Food Bank before Christmas. Letcombe Regis a Very Happy Christmas and Peaceful and Subscriptions will be due in January, so if members bring Healthy New Year their chequebooks along, we can start collecting them now, and get that over with. © 2018 Francesca Engelmann for Letcombe Regis Parish Council 2 The Letcombe Register December 2018 St Andrew’s Church If our Editor and her brilliant team are their usual efficient selves, this edition of the Register will be with you before December 1st in time to remind you about the Saxonians concert taking place at St Andrew’s on Saturday at 7pm. The idea of a saxophone quartet sounds fun and their programme of light classical and jazzy music will be the perfect start to Christmas festivities. If you haven’t bought tickets yet – don’t worry, you can pay on the door and your £12:50 includes interval refreshments.Accompanied children free. Don’t miss it! There’s another musical treat a fortnight later when St Andrew’s holds its Carol Service on Saturday 15th at 6pm. This is always a very special evening as the Christmas story is told again through much-loved readings, interspersed with anthems from the choir which has been busy rehearsing under its musical director Marilyn Mitcham. And Joe Barber will be back from Balliol to play th 200 Club the organ for us. The 100 anniversary of the signing of the Armistice is reflected this year, not only in the poetry but also in the music which is by composers from Britain, 200 Club Draw — No 9 December 2018 France, Austria and Germany. And after you’ve sung your favourite carols, there will be mulled wine and mince pies Christmas Prize Draw to send you home feeling suitably Christmassy. 16 Claire TAYLOR £100 The collection at the Carol Service, like all our collections 147 Helen WOOD £50 over Christmas, will go to the charities we support at this time of year: CRISIS and The Children’s Society.