Broad Town News-April 2015

April 2015 BROAD TOWN NEWS Published by Christ Church

Sponsors this month are the Parish Council

Day/ Date	Time	Church	Service	Readers	Sidesman	Chalice	Cleaner	Flowers
Thursday Apr 2	7.30pm	Tockenham	Benefice Communion with
Maundy Thursday			the stripping of the altar
Friday Apr 3	2pm	Broad Town	Music and meditation	TBA	C Green		W Cameron-Street	Lent
Good Friday			at the cross
Sunday Apr 5	8am	Clyffe Pypard	Said Communion
Easter Day	9.15am	Tockenham	Family Communion*
	11am	Broad Town	Family Communion*	C Marshall / M Green	D Marshall	D Marshall	M Green	Easter
	11am	Hilmarton	Family Communion*
Sunday Apr 12	9.15am	Clyffe Pypard	Family Communion
Easter 2	11am	Hilmarton	Family Service*
	6pm	Tockenham	Evensong
	6pm	Broad Town	Evensong	M Manley / F Holness	R Manley		M Green	M Green
Sunday Apr 19	9.15am	Tockenham	Morning Prayer
Easter 3	11am	Broad Town	Sung Communion	J Drury / C Green	J Wallis	C Green	J Rendell	M Green
	6pm	Hilmarton	Evensong
Monday Apr 20	7pm	Hilmarton	Licensing Service for Rev Rachma Abbott
Sunday Apr 26	10.30am	Clyffe Pypard	Benefice Communion to welcome Rachma to the Benefice
Easter 4

* Denotes a service that is particularly suitable for all ages.

WORKING TOGETHER

One thing this Benefice has shown over the last year has been a togetherness. The benefice council has continued to work well and, in different ways, we have supported each other’s activities. This team spirit has really shown itself in the decoration of the Rectory. Whenever there has been a call for help it has come – and we have had fun doing it. I am sure that, in some ways, this Benefice is stronger than it was a year ago.

Our deeper strength has been called on and not found wanting.

So hopefully we are now ready for the next stage in our Church and Village life and any demands on us it may make.

FAREWELL

This month we say a fond farewell to Connie Brazier from Cotmarsh. She was born in Croydon in 1930. She went to boarding school in her teens where she acquired her love of nature. She went to Art School but her art was a hobby till the 1970s when she had her first one-person show.

Connie also had a great love of gardening, reading and music.

She is succeeded by two sons and two grand-daughters.

A MESSAGE FROM REV. RACHMA ABBOTT

I’ve been asked to write a piece introducing myself to the people of Woodhill Benefice – in and beyond the churches. In addition, on a recent visit to the vicarage at Clyffe Pypard for the purpose of measuring rooms and digging a pond, someone commented to me that ‘Rachma wasn’t a ‘standard’ name for a vicar’, I find myself smiling remembering this and wondering what the standard for vicars might look like in the new neighbourhood that I’ll be joining from April 20^th.

I was born in London and first lived in hearing distance of the old Arsenal ground. I’m still a fan. I spent a significant part of my childhood in Zambia where my mum Ruth Hartley painted and taught art and my Dad, Mike Bush was a doctor until the end of his life. His work with people with HIV and AIDS was recognised when he was awarded his OBE. I’m still interested in what happens both in Zambia and to people worldwide living with HIV.

I was away at boarding school of which I’m not a fan. Then, apart from two interludes studying, including my theological studies at Cranmer Hall, Durham, I lived in London’s East End. Here I had my son Stephen Bush and we were baptised together at St Mary’s Bow. Later I trained and served as a Reader (LLM) before going off to be ordained.

My son now works at the New Statesman, lives in Hackney and is preparing to marry his partner Felicity Slater (who works for the Fabian Society) in November (I’m a big fan of him and her and very excited about their plans). They are both very involved with the Labour Party (probably best if I’m discreet about my level of fandom in political terms!)

From the East End, I moved to a 3 church setting in the Parish of Staines where I met Steven Abbott. After 6 years’ post-graduate molecular biology research and 4 years’ consultancy to IBM Steven has spent his working life in Education since: the last 12 years as a self-employed tutor of Maths (KS2, KS3, GCSE and A level) based in the Twickenham area. We’ve been married nearly 4 years. I’m still a fan - in spite of the introduction of several fish tanks and a cat, called Mittens, into our life.

From Staines I moved to my current post which has involved being Chaplain in an FE College and incumbent of Westfield St Peter’s not far from Bath. I’ve loved being here and delighted as I am about moving to serve at Woodhill and be an Associate Priest at Lyneham with Bradenstoke there is some sorrow in leaving the people here in Westfield.

The most exciting thing I’ve done so far this year is spend 30 days in silence doing the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola – when you meet me you may be very surprised to discover that I like silence. But with a move to meet all of you and my son’s wedding there’s a lot more exciting things to happen in 2015.

CHRIST CHURCH, BROAD TOWN – FINANCE UPDATE

The 2014 accounts were presented at the annual general meeting on 1 March and thanks to the generosity of existing and new supporters, the excess of expenditure over income was only £174 at the end of 2014 (£544 in 2013). This year’s budget at present, is indicating a likely shortfall of around £500 so we need to find ways to increase income again to at least break even. Fundraising events planned so far are:-

• 9^th May – Coffee Morning with plant sale - At the Church
• 12^th September. – Coffee Morning with book sale - At the Church
• 3^rd October - Harvest Supper - At the Village Hall,
• 5^th Dec - Christmas Bazaar & Raffle

Your support at any or all of these events would be greatly appreciated to keep your village church viable. Please put these dates in your diary now.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

30^th March CLPG Meeting

2^nd April Maundy Thursday

3^rd April Good Friday

5^th April Easter Sunday

7^th April Next Big Gig Meeting

13^th April Back to School

13^th April Annual Parish Council Meeting

15^th April WI

18^th April Hilmarton Moviola

20^th April Licensing of new Rector

25^th April Gentlemen’s Breakfast Club

5^th Sept Big Gig

CONCESSIONARY BUS PASSES

With effect from 1^st April 2015 concessionary travel will start at 9.30am Monday to Friday. All journeys prior to 9.30am will be at the standard rate. This is a Wiltshire Council decision and brings Wiltshire into line with the rest of the country.

BROAD TOWN SCHOOL

Broad Town Pre-School are currently considering the possibility of offering a small after school and/or breakfast Kids club in Broad Town to help meet the childcare needs of working parents in the local community. Before we explore the idea any further we want to establish if there is a real need for it and enough demand to make it viable to run. Attached to the newsletter is a questionnaire where we would very much appreciate your feedback.

BROAD TOWN WI

We started our March meeting with a very enjoyable t’ai chi session run by Faith Smith.

Following refreshments we continued the evening with our AGM. Rosie Law stood down as President after three very successful years at the helm. Jane Rowe also handed over the position as secretary and Kate Galea left the committee after several years’ service. A new committee was formed with Jenni Cable as President and task of Secretary shared between and Michelle Sanders and Kate Orton. The meeting closed with a vote of thanks to the outgoing President.

In April we will be revisiting the subject of dementia with a workshop session with Allison Bucknell from Dementia Friends. She will be helping us to manage our responses to sufferers of dementia. The meeting is at 7.30pm at Broad Town Village Hall.

We are a friendly group and welcome new members. Our meetings are generally held on the third Wednesday of the month at the Village Hall. If you are interested visiting us please contact Jane on 01793 731105 or look at our information on the Broad Town village website

PARISH CLERKS CLIPPINGS

1. The next Parish Council meeting on 13th April 2015 will be the Annual Parish meeting, at which the Council would be pleased to hear any reports of Village activities. It will be followed by the regular meeting.

2. A mother in the Village is keen to update/improve the young childrens play facilities on the Redhills playing field; she will obviously need support. Watch this space for more information.

3. There is still a vacancy for a Councillor.

4. The Chairman made a proposal at the last PC meeting to consider the way ahead to supplement the CLPG report..The details are in the minutes of the meeting.

BROAD TOWN COMMUNITY LED PLANNING (CLP) GROUP

Our work on the draft Broad Town section of the Area Neighbourhood Plan goes on, as the draft Plan that we presented to the Parish Council has not been accepted in its current format. Instead the Parish Council has proposed that there will be a referendum to choose between two different versions of the draft Plan. One version of the Plan will rely on the Wiltshire Council agreed policy for small villages, and the other will offer a policy of supporting limited development if it enables acceptable benefits to community facilities. The Parish Council has proposed that the CLPG role will be to provide a balanced summary of information to inform the debate in advance of the referendum. What is your opinion? There will be a meeting of the CLPG on Monday 30^th March from 7pm to 9pm. in the Village Hall – we are really friendly and we provide refreshments! – at which you can put your view forward.

Please contact us if you would like to go on to our mailing list on lorraine@mrsbillis.co.uk. More information is on our Community Forum on www.broad-town.co.uk

A MESSAGE FROM CHURCH FARM HOUSE

Dear Village Residents,

For those of you who don't know, Church Farm House is the first house to the south of the school and is immediately adjacent to the two fields on which there is a plan to build a housing estate.

My wife and I along with our three children arrived in this wonderful village in July last year, unaware of this proposal nor of the Neighbourhood Plan that will ultimately allow or halt the development of this estate or any other similar large scale development in our village.

Since the Hannick Homes Public Consultation and even more so since their insertion in the last newsletter, we have been under the impression that there are some residents who think we own the fields in question and are behind this proposal. To avoid any misunderstanding, we would like to clarify that these fields are not owned by us and that we are not supporting this plan nor responsible for it.

We understand how sensitive the subject of development can be, especially for a small village like ours. Each one of us is entitled to our own opinion, which we believe the Parish Council will consider when approving the Broad Town element of the Neighbourhood Plan.

We really love living in Broad Town and have already met many wonderful residents; we look forward to meeting many more of you over the next few months and hope that we can continue to enjoy the beautiful untouched open spaces of our village for many years to come.

Warm wishes from all at Church Farm House

FAREWELL GREEN FIELDS OF BROAD TOWN?

Did you know that Broad Town is approaching a crossroads concerning housing development in our village?

For many years Broad Town has been protected by a “red-line” on a map that limited development of new houses to replacement and filling in spaces between existing houses. This ‘red-line’ also protected the green spaces of our village and restricted development sprawling at the edges. This “red-line” has now gone and it is up to us all to decide where & how much development we’re prepared to accept. If we do nothing then the Council and Planners would be entitled to assume that the residents of Broad Town are willing to have the character of their village changed forever.

The deadline for the submission of the Broad Town chapter of the Area Neighbourhood Plan is fast approaching, and the contents of the plan will cast in law what type of developments are allowed in the future.

A developer is currently pushing for a plan that includes development on our green spaces and goes beyond the modest infill housing that would be considered by Wiltshire Council as part of their core strategy for small villages. The same developer held a consultation meeting recently which proposed the building of a housing estate in the midst of our village; they conducted a limited survey, which did not capture the majority view of the village, and have provided their ‘evidence’ to our Parish Council; They promise ‘additional benefits’, but we ask whether these are enough to justify the loss of our precious green spaces especially when they could possibly be obtained from other sources?

Village politics is never that interesting or exciting, but if you want to protect our green spaces then you can do so by letting the Parish Council know your feelings or by talking to the Community Led Planning Group (CLPG), which is set up to allow members of the village to have their say in the Neighbourhood Plan.

The next meeting of the CLPG is Monday 30^th March from 7-9pm at the village hall and the next meeting of the Parish Council will be announced on the Broad Town website and in this news letter.

Make sure YOUR views count.

BROAD TOWN DOG OWNERS

If you would like to join a friendly group of dog walkers for a walk in the local area, we meet each month on a Sunday around the middle of the month at around 11.00am. The date /walk / meeting place are agreed each month by the walkers and we try to include a watering hole at the end of the walk. If you are interested please call/e-mail Annette on 07974763645 / annette.moore@live.co.uk for more information. We are happy to e-mail you each month with dates and places so you can choose to walk or not.
All dogs and walkers are very welcome, we also welcome walkers without dogs to join us (please be prepared for friendly doggy greetings!)

Just a reminder that I am here to help with information to (hopefully) solve problems and make your life a little easier. Please call me,

Ellen Blacker on 07557 110414 or email me at rwbcrickladegnc@communityfirst.org.uk

GENTLEMEN'S BREAKFAST CLUB

25^th April 2015 is the date of the next Breakfast Club at the Mallard Public House, Lyneham.

Our speaker will be Michael Page talk entitled Verging on the ridiculous (Life at St Pauls Cathedral)

Gentlemen, we were almost full to capacity last Saturday and I would not have been able to accept any more bookings. If, after booking, you find you are unable to attend, please let me know so that if there is a waiting list I can give someone else a chance. David May email davemay104@yahoo.co.uk

HATHA YOGA

Weekly Hatha Yoga at Broad Town Village Hall. For more details please contact Polly Fouracres by email - polly@4fouracres.com.

THE GUILD OF WILTSHIRE ARTISTS

Run workshops at the Village Hall on every third Saturday of the month from 10am to 4pm. All are welcome including painters who are beginners.

Tea and Coffee provided but do bring a packed lunch. Help will be given to those who request it. Contact telephone numbers 731154, 731519.

DISCLAIMER

Broad Town Newsletter (BTN) takes all reasonable care to ensure that pages published are accurate. Articles and letters submitted may be the personal opinion of the author and, as such, are not endorsed by BTN. BTN takes no responsibility for the consequences of error or for any loss or damage suffered by users of any of the information published on any of these pages, and such information does not form any basis of a contract with readers or users of it.

MAY 2015 EDITION

Will organisations or anyone wishing to have news, etc. included in the May edition please note that items must be submitted to

Margaret Green, 5 Eastwood Avenue, Royal Wootton Bassett, Wilts. SN4 8BX. cliveggreen@waitrose.com

BY 6pm FRIDAY APRIL.24^th IT IS REGRETTED THAT SUBMISSIONS AFTER THAT TIME WILL NOT BE INCLUDED