BROAD TOWN NEWS – DECEMBER 2024 / JANUARY 2025
Keeping everyone in touch with what is going on in and around our parish.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Broad Town News Editors
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
26th November 1pm - 4:00 pm Techie tea party Cotswold House Lyneham
29th November 5pm - 8:00 pm Food for thought Fish & Chips in the Village Hall
30th November 10am to 12:30pm Christmas Coffee Morning & Craft Sale in the Village Hall
4th December 10am to Noon Made in Broad Town in the Village Hall
5th December 3:15pm Broad Town School’s Christmas Fair Broad Town School
7th December 9:30am – 4:00pm Foodbank in the Village Hall
8th December 9:30am – 4:00pm Foodbank Village Hall
11th December 10am to Noon Community Coffee Morning Village Hall
18th December 10am to noon Made in Broad Town in the Village Hall
18th December 10am to noon Local Policing Team Roadshow in the Village Hall
19th December at 7pm Carol Service in the Village Hall
20th December 5:30pm Carol singing around the Village.
20th December 8pm Carol singing in the hall Village Hall
20th December 5pm – 8:00pm Food for thought Fish & Chips in the Village Hall
25th December at 10.30am Christmas Communion in the Village Hall
8th January 10am to Noon Community Coffee Morning in the Village Hall
15th January 10am to Noon Made in Broad Town in the Village Hall
22nd January 10am to Noon Community Coffee Morning in the Village Hall
29th January 10am to Noon Made in Broad Town in the Village Hall
1st February 2025 Noon to 2pm Soup & Pudding lunch in the Village Hall
COMMUNITY COFFEE MQRNING
Alzheimer’s Support Christmas Fundraising Coffee Morning. There will be a fundraising coffee morning and craft sale in the village hall on Saturday November 30th from 10am-12.30pm with all proceeds going to Alzheimer’s Support Wiltshire. This local charity provides people with dementia and their carers with much needed advice and support in the form of award-winning day clubs, home support, memory cafes and more than 40 community activity groups throughout Wiltshire. Their team of trained advisors are often the first port of call following a new dementia diagnosis and provide invaluable support and advice to help people with dementia to continue to lead as normal a life as possible, keeping both minds and bodies active whilst reducing social isolation. We would love to see you at this charity Christmas coffee morning – please see separate poster. Our December coffee morning will be on Wednesday December 11th. Our proceeds from this morning will also be going to Alzheimer’s Support Wiltshire and as a thank you for all your support throughout the year, there will be a FREE RAFFLE with some great prizes to be won! There will also be plenty of delicious cake so please come along to enjoy our final coffee morning of 2024. The community coffee mornings are always on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month, so our first coffee morning of the new year will be on January 8th, followed by one on the 22nd so please join us from 10 – 12 noon in the village hall to enjoy delicious homemade cakes, sausage rolls, coffee, tea and hot chocolate. A Happy Christmas to everyone from the Community Coffee Mornings Team!
CHRISTMAS FOODBANK COLLECTION
Please donate as generously as you are able so that families who continue to struggle are able to enjoy Christmas.
All the usual items of non-perishable food, toiletries and Christmas goodies, sweets and chocolates.
Where -Village Hall When - Sat. 7th & Sun 8th December, Time. - 9.30am - 4pm
CHURCH SERVICES
"Wishing everyone Joy and Peace this Christmas and the New Year”
Unfortunately, we are currently unable to use the heating system in the church and therefore the Carol Service and Christmas Day service will be held in the Village Hall. So, a 'warm' welcome awaits everyone as we celebrate Christmas at the following Services:
19th December at 7pm in the Village Hall - Carol Service
25th December at 10.30am in the Village Hall - Christmas Communion
We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped with the care of the Church in any way over the past year. Your help is much appreciated and valued. Thank you.
CAROL SINGING AROUND THE VILLAGE
20th December Carol Singing in the Village. Meet at the hall at 5:30 pm
Paul & Anne will be serving their delicious, mulled wine £1 mince pies FREE courtesy of Food for Thought at 8pm for more Carol singing in the Hall.
EATING IN THE 50’s
1) Pasta was not eaten. 2) Curry was a surname. 3) A takeaway was a mathematical problem. 4) A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower. 5) Crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not. 6) Rice was only eaten as a milk pudding. 7) A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining. 8) Brown bread was something only poor people ate. 9) Oil was for lubricating; fat was for cooking. 10) Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green. 11) Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days and was regarded as being white gold, Cubed sugar was regarded as posh. 12) Fish didn’t have fingers. 13) Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi. 14) None of us had ever heard of yoghurt. 15) Healthy food consisted of anything edible
BISHOP’S LETTER
December is not the best month for a birthday, believe me, I know. Having a birthday in December has always been a bit of an anti-climax for me, especially when one is a member of the clergy and there’s another carol service to do. Birthday cards get mixed up with Christmas cards and bottle gifts get saved for Christmas itself. Consequently, I’ve never been that bothered to celebrate my birthday and have been happy for it to go largely unnoticed, that is, until coming into this job only to find the date gets published in The Times each year! And yet, for us all, young and older, the passing of another year is always a milestone, whether we party or deny the passage of time. In December as Christians, our focus is on the greatest birth of all. Advent prepares us and is a useful time of reflection upon true meaning and how the darkness of our world does become shattered by light. Imagine this dark time of year without the coming birthday of Jesus. And yet, as we celebrate with lights and parties and gifts, our world feels very dark in these days. There is no escaping the terror of war, even if we only watch from afar as the plight of hostage and civilian goes on and on in the lands in which our Saviour was born. The largely comfortable in our world – that’s most of us here – struggle to imagine the plight of the Ukrainian or the Palestinian, the homeless person or the marginalised. And we know, for many, Christmas only exaggerates a time of loss and loneliness. So the only real focus for us all in December, the only place where present is also presence, is the birth of Jesus Christ. Emmanuel, God with us, the almost unbelievable reality that God chooses to be born among us as one of us, as a human child, and still we tell that true story today. For me, this fact is why I believe. Reality in history means real God in real time. One who knows, one who loves, one who lived for us. The incarnation – the birth of love. Whenever your birthday is I send you every blessing. In December, we celebrate the birth of the Word made flesh, the Light of the World and the Prince of Peace. To Jesus our Lord, on my birthday and every day, I pray, many happy returns!
The Rt Revd Stephen Lake, Bishop of Salisbury
MADE IN BROAD TOWN
November 30th Christmas Coffee Morning & Craft Sale. Please see the poster elsewhere in this newsletter. This is a great opportunity to buy Christmas gifts, edible festive treats and decorations all made in our village. We will have a wide range of very affordable items for sale including nestboxes, fabric memo boards, painted glassware & tealight holders, knitted toys, hats & mittens, Christmas cards, bookmarks, keyrings, many types of Christmas decorations, candy cane holders, chutneys, mince pies, fudge and mini-Christmas cakes. Please come and have a browse! All proceeds to Alzheimer’s Support Wiltshire. Stock levels permitting, we are also hoping to run a stall at the village school’s Christmas Fair on Thursday December 5th, from 3.15pm at the school. All welcome! Glass Painting: We’ve had a very busy last few sessions including having another go at glass painting, this time with a festive theme. Thank you again to Terri for running this extremely enjoyable session: We’ve also enjoyed creating stars of various sorts, some of which are destined to be used as decorations for the shelter opposite the village church.
December Meetings: Our meetings will take place on Wednesdays the 4th and 18th when we will be making festive items ready for Christmas. On the 4th we will be making more angels and stars, and the 18th will be a bring your own craft or hobby session but there will be a surprise festive activity too!
January Meetings: Our new year will start with a meeting on January 15th, followed by one on January 29th so please come along and join in – please note that we are meeting on the 3rd and 5th Wednesdays in January as the first Wednesday is a New Year’s Day holiday. During our January 15th session we will be kicking off the new year with a ‘New Year Nibbles’ event. Please bring along some festive/new year food or drink to share if you can. If you haven’t been to a Made in Broad Town session before we’d love to see you. Especially now the days are getting chillier, a reminder that everyone is welcome to come along for hot drinks, biscuits and a chat – join in with our craft session or bring along your own craft/hobby or you are very welcome to just watch what others are doing while enjoying some refreshments. We also always have other activities available such as colouring sheets, jigsaws, playing cards and dominoes etc. Our sessions are usually on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday mornings of the month, new crafters and hobbyists are always welcome! Please email us if you have any questions. The sessions run from 10 – 12 noon in the village hall, all welcome, the £2 suggested donation is voluntary. Email: Linda Boyden lindaboyden12@gmail. com; Helen Greer hjgreer1@gmail.com
NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICING TEAM
Broad Town Village Hall 18th December 10am-12noon
Come and enjoy FREE mince pies & FREE Hot drinks. When you meet your local Policing team.
PARISH COUNCIL UPDATE
Keep up to date at https://www.broadtownparishcouncil.org.uk
Redhills Play Area - We have installed a new bin, replacing the rusty old bin which had reached the end of its life. Also, RoSPA have carried out their annual inspection of the play area at Redhills and no significant problems were found. The report can be viewed at https://www.broadtownparishcouncil.org.uk/your community/redhills-playing-fields-and-play-area/ Parish Steward
Luckily the Parish Steward managed to visit us the day before he was called onto gritting duties, and he dug out roadside grips and cleared culverts and drains of the leaves which were in danger of clogging them up. If you see a blocked gully or drain, the best way to report it is using MyWilts online reporting https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/mywilts-online-reporting.
The next Parish Council meetings will be at 6.30pm in the village hall on 9th December and 13th January when we will be agreeing the budget and setting the precept for the forthcoming year.
All are welcome and the agenda will be posted on our website and on the notice boards in due course. “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”
SOCIAL CLUB
Food for Thought Evenings. Food for Thought will be selling their delicious Fish and Chips (and burgers, sausages, scampi etc) outside the Village Hall from 5 – 8pm on: Friday 29th November Friday 20th December (carol singing evening) The Social Club opens at 5pm through to 11pm for you to enjoy your takeaway in the Village Hall with a drink or two. Feel free to bring your own cutlery and crockery if you wish but please take it home with you afterwards to wash up! If you would like to pre-order or have any queries, they can be contacted via text, WhatsApp or Messenger on 07515 288414. Membership Renewal January is the month for renewing your Social Club membership – a bargain at just £2 per person (£3 any other time). New members are always welcome. Find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FourWaysBroadTown
PLEASE NOTE that all copy to be included in the next edition should be emailed to: BroadTownNews@gmail.com by the 22nd of EVERY month. Except December
For any queries, please contact Ray Manley 01793 731564