Another month, another cover

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Quiet month in the village?

Diary dates for September
Thursday 1 Parish Council, Village Hall, 7.30pm
Friday 2 Crib drive, Village Hall, 2pm
Saturday 3 Debating Society, Church Rooms, 10am to noon
Saturday 3 Village Fete, Village Hall grounds, 2pm start
Sunday 4 Wargames club, Village Hall, 2.30pm to 6pm
Monday 5 Monday Mardle, Church Rooms, 2.15pm to 4.15pm
Tuesday 6 Coffee and chat, Church Rooms, 10.30am to 12 noon
Wednesday 7 Women's Fellowship, Methodist Chapel, 2.30pm
Thursday 8 Breckland Flower and Garden Club, Village Hall, 2pm
Thursday 8 Social and Wine Circle, Church Rooms, 7.45pm
Friday 9 Yogacise, Village Hall, start of weekly sessions, 9am
Friday 9 'One Stop Bus' outside Village Shop, 10am to 12 noon
Sunday 11 Harvest Festival, Methodist Chapel, Hargham Rd, 10.45am
Sunday 11 Produce and Handicraft Show, Village Hall, 2pm
Sunday 11 Askew Agricultural Museum, open 2pm to 5pm
Sunday 11 Old Buckenham windmill, open 2pm to 5pm
Monday 12 Whist drive, Church Rooms, 2pm
Monday 12 Service and sale of produce, Methodist Chapel, 7.15pm
Wednesday 14 Luncheon Club, Village Hall, 10am to 2pm
Wednesday 14 Kids' Street Dance, start of weekly sessions, 4pm to 6pm
Sunday 18 Wargames club, Village Hall, 2.30pm to 6pm
Monday 19 Monday Mardle, Church Rooms, 2.15pm to 4.15pm
Monday 19 Buckenham Pre-school AGM, Pre-school building, 7.30pm
Wednesday 21 Songs of Praise, Methodist Chapel, 7.30pm
Thursday 22 Women's Institute, Village Hall, 7.30pm
Friday 23 A Hat Trick of Plays, OB Players, Village Hall, 7.30pm
Saturday 24 Open Parish Council Forum, Village Hall, 10am
Saturday 24 A Hat Trick of Plays, OB Players, Village Hall, 7.30pm
Tuesday 27 Village Fete 'wash up' meeting, Village Hall, 7.30pm
Wednesday 28 Luncheon Club outing

Memories at the Fete

The day war broke out

Wymondham and Attleborough Talking Newspaper (WATN) will be trying to collect up some interesting information at the Old Buckenham village fete on Saturday 3 September. Being the "3rd of September", the day that the war broke out, it is hoped that as well as informing people at the fete about the service that WATN provides, they will be able to record some of the local people telling of their experiences in the village during the last war. This is particularly appropriate as 453rd Bomb Group of the Amercan airforce was based at Old Buckenham Airfield during that time.
Members of WATN aim to record short features to go into the weekly summary of local news that they produce for those with limited or no vision. Their attendance at the fete, which opens at 2pm at Old Buckenham Village Hall, may also introduce this service to those who could benefit from it.

Keep moving

Exercise for all ages
Two new activities will start in Old Buckenham Village Hall next month.
Eileen Oliver’s first Yogacise class will be on Friday 9 September. Normally these classes will start at 9.30am but this first session will need to start at 9am because of other hall bookings. Eileen is sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
Meg Howard is starting weekly ‘Kids Street Dance’ classes in the Village Hall on Wednesdays. The first one is on Wednesday 14 September from 4pm to 6pm.

Genuine help for Third World

Textile collections
Members of the local community are no doubt fully aware that from time to time the village, through the Old Buckenham Village Environmental and Recycling Group, arrange to collect textiles for the Third World. Any remuneration from this exercise through landfill payments, etc, is paid into village organisations.
Recently the situation arose where some households left collections for the Salvation Army and the collection failed to materialise. One resident telephoned the Salvation Army to be informed they had no knowledge of a collection taking place in Old Buckenham. It has since been established through Radio Norfolk that the proposed collection was not genuine.
Our village collections are genuine. Before committing ourselves to the operation our District Councillor, Adrian Joel, visited the premises at West Bromwich to satisfy himself of all aspects of their operation.
The next village collection is on Tuesday 4 October with kerbside collection commencing at 9am (or if you prefer at the Village Hall car park between 8.30am and 9am). If you have uncollected donations from another appeal please ring Mike on 860462 to arrange collection.

Answers on village issues

Quiz your parish council
A special forum meeting arranged by Old Buckenham Parish Council will be held on Saturday 24 September at the Village Hall starting at 10am.
There will be an update by parish council members on various village projects and this will be followed by an open forum for residents to put forward their ideas and opinions. So you have just a month to think up those questions.


Six hundred up
Some irrelevant statistics. This is the six hundreth post on this blog since it started in 2008. The site now gets about 150 visits a week and three-quarters of these are from the UK.
The United States come next with 8% and all other countries are less than 2%. Visits have come from around 150 different countries all over the world and a third of all visits have arrived via a Google search.

Practical recycling

Garage sales galore
There was activity all over Old Buckenham today with over thirty households having their own personal garage sales. People came from far and near to see what they could find, with one person's 'rubbish' often turning out to be just what they wanted. There was extra car traffic, plenty of people cycling around and even more walking from place to place and discovering parts of the village that they had never seen before.
The event was organised to raise funds to pay for more equipment on the recently opened recreation area. Over a hundred people bought maps to find where all the sales were taking place while the hot dogs, bacon rolls and other refreshments sold out quicker than expected.
Those households selling their unwanted goods seemed satisfied with the level of sales and so a lot of stuff that would have gone to landfill went away to live a little longer.
The weather just about managed to stay dry, the sun popped out occasionally and soon after lunchtime everything calmed down and the village returned to its near normal sleepy Sunday state.

Coming soon from Old Buckenham Players

Just click on the image to enlarge it

Call my wine bluff

Social and Wine sampler
The Old Buckenham Social and Wine Circle meeting in August took the form of a “Call my Bluff” but with wine instead of words. The attendance was low but there were two teams in action as they tried to identify four mystery wines. Chairman David Sallnow and his wife Jenny had also provided three descriptions for each of these wines. The descriptions were of course full of the flowery language that ‘wine experts’ seem to revel in so deciding on the correct one was a difficult job.
Even so the teams managed to choose the correct wine in three out of the four bottles It was also interesting to find out that all four wines were from a local supermarket and had cost less than £4 a bottle.
There was time for some discussion on what wines the members preferred and thanks were given to David and Jenny for all the time and energy they had spent in preparing everything for the evening.
At the next meeting on Thursday 8 September the speaker will be Natalie Hutchinson with a talk entitled “Help to move on”. All are welcome to come along that evening at 7.45pm in the Church Rooms.

Swirls and Curls

Breckland Flower and Garden Club
Rosemary Ward brought her slides of Southern France to the August meeting illustrating Roman fortifications and some of the flowers that managed to grow amongst the ancient stones, as well as colourful meadows found higher up in the mountains.
'Swirls and Curls' were much in evidence on the competition table - the winner of the new hands class was Janet Skidmore and Ursula Jackson won the old hands class as well as the monthly cup.
Jean Vernon won the table show with her vase of three stems of 'hot colour from the border'.
The next meeting will be held at Old Buckenham Village Hall on Thursday 8 September at 2pm when 'The Girls' will be demonstrating 'Autumn Medley'.
The competition title is 'Garden Harvest' - a basket to include fruit and/or vegetables; the Joan Fisher cup to be awarded for the best use of colour.
Any fruit, flower or vegetable can be brought for the table show.
Visitors are always welcome at the meetings. Further details from Pat on 457305 or Sally on 788712.

Victorian gentlemen

Famous men in Norwich
At Old Buckenham WI’s meeting in late July the speaker was Barbara Miller from Norwich. The subject of her talk was "Three Victorian Gentleman and one other". The three gentlemen in question were Thomas Bignold, Jacob Henry Tillett and Jeremiah James Colman.
James Bignold, the founder of Norwich Union, ran an insurance business from a back room in a house in the Haymarket before moving on to premises in Surrey Street. He was Mayor of the City from 1843 to 1848 and was knighted in 1854.
Jacob Henry Tillett (1818-1892) was born into a non-conformist Norwich family. He became a solicitor in 1839 and was a Liberal Party politician. In 1845 he was one of the founder members of Norfolk News. When the paper was first published it consisted of four pages of local news. It came out on a Saturday and the concern was that people might read it on a Sunday! (The paper subsequently became the EDP as we know it today).
Jeremiah James Colman was of course the founder of the Colman Mustard empire. He was also a Mayor of Norwich and a Liberal MP. He was a great benefactor to the City of Norwich, giving money for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft and for the west front of Norwich Cathedral.
The fourth Victoria gentleman was William Houghton Clabburn. He was a major industrialist of Norwich, being a partner in the company, Clabburn Son & Crisp, which manufactured the famous Norwich shawls. This gentleman was the most generous patron of Frederick Sandys, a pre-Raphelite painter (also born in Norwich). Clabburn and Sandys were friends as well as patron and artist. Clabburn owned 23 paintings, many of which were portraits of the three Victorian gentlemen described earlier.
After the break for refreshments, members were pleased to welcome a member from Diss WI who had represented them at the National Annual General Meeting held in Liverpool in June. She reported back that 21,000 new members had joined the WI during the last 12 months. Plans are well under way for the WI Centenary Year (1915) including a 15,000-member capacity at the O2 Arena in London. Speakers at the Liverpool meeting included Erwin James (Guardian columnist and former prison inmate), Dr Rita Gardner, the first woman Director of the Royal Geographical Society and Sir Steven Redgrave, who talked about his worldwide charity work as Fairtrade Ambassador. He applauded the WI for its role as one of the founders of the fairtrade movement in the UK. The meeting ended with the appearance of the national WI singing group, The Harmonies, who performed a medley of hits from their album.

Fun for all

A Party in the Park
Bucks Just Play invited everyone along to their Party in the Park at the Old Buckenham Children's Play Area on Saturday 6 August. It was a free event funded by a Sustainability grant from Community Spaces.
There were constant queues for the face painting while Stevie Spud entertained with items such as plate spinning and ballon animals.
It is just over a year since the play area was officially opened and it is proving very popular with the local children (as well as their mums, dads, carers, grandparents, etc). Well done to all concerned.

How much remains?

The view today
Just compare this photograph of what is now "The Clinic on the Green" with the drawing done in 1947 of the same scene (posted earlier on Thursday 28 July).

Blooming better allotments

What a difference nine months makes
Just compare the picture taken late in October 2010 with one taken at the end of July this year.

Still plenty to do

Diary dates for August

Tuesday 2           Coffee and chat, Church Rooms, 10.30am to 12 noon

Wednesday 3      Luncheon Club, Village Hall, 10am to 2pm

Wednesday 3      Women's Fellowship, Methodist Chapel, 2.30pm

Monday 4           Monday Mardle, Church Rooms, 2.15pm to 4.15pm

Friday 5               Crib drive, Village Hall, 7.30pm

Friday 5               Norfolk Balloon Meet, Old Buckenham Airfield

Saturday 6         Party in the Park, Children's Play Area, 2pm to 4pm

Saturday 6          Norfolk Balloon Meet, Old Buckenham Airfield

Sunday 7             Norfolk Balloon Meet, Old Buckenham Airfield

Sunday 7             Wargames club, Village Hall, 2.30pm to 6pm

Monday 8           Whist drive, Church Rooms, 2pm

Tuesday 9         Oil scheme meeting, Church Rooms, 7pm

Thursday 11       Breckland Flower and Garden Club, Village Hall, 2pm

Thursday 11       Social and Wine Circle, Church Rooms, 7.45pm

Friday 12            'One Stop Bus' outside Village Shop, 10am to 12 noon

Sunday 14          Askew Agricultural Museum, open 2pm to 5pm

Sunday 14          Old Buckenham windmill, open 2pm to 5pm

Tuesday 16        Village Fete meeting, Village Hall, 7.30pm

Wednesday 17   Luncheon Club, Village Hall, 10am to 2pm

Wednesday 17   Songs of Praise, Methodist Chapel, 7.30pm

Saturday 20        Garage sale at Karmel, the Green, 8am to 4pm

Sunday 21          Village Garage Sale, maps available from 10am

Sunday 21          Wargames club, Village Hall, 2.30pm to 6pm

 Thursday 25      Women's Institute, Village Hall, 7.30pm