Ampney Crucis Times

Plans are well advanced for re-issuing the Parish Directory in May. The accuracy of the directory depends on input from the parish, particularly if you can answer ‘yes’ to any of the following questions:

· Are you a recent arrival in the parish (since 10 October 2000)?

· Do you own a weekend cottage in the parish?

· Have you changed your house name or telephone number in the last two years?

· Do you wish to have certain details (e.g. telephone number) withheld?

More details are in the main item on page 3.

Census Day

The next ten yearly census will take place on Sunday 29 April. Every household in the country will be required to complete a census form and return it in a post free envelope provided. More details in April’s ACT.

Want to help?

The whole Census project needs part-time Team Leaders and Enumerators. Applicants should be over 18. The positions will last for about two months and carry a small salary. For further details, phone the Census Recruitment Helpline on 0845 306 2001.

Parish Council news

Finances

At its meeting on 8 January, the Parish Council set the precept for the coming financial year. The total amount being raised is £4,477 which is nearly 10% down on last year’s precept of £5,250. The amount per household will be shown on individual Council Tax bills but, as a guide, the precept means an annual payment of £14.76 for a Band D household.

The key amounts, in common with previous years, are the Clerk’s salary and the annual grass cutting contract. As mentioned in the last edition of ACT, we have been able to reduce the amount required for Burial Ground maintenance because of the help given to us by volunteers (and we plan to have a Spring Clean on April 7/8 – see page 4).

Relatively major items of work scheduled for 2001/02 will be the repairs to the Praying Cross (most of the costs will be covered by dipping into the reserves), the replacement of one of the memorial benches (which will be covered largely by grants) and the long anticipated ditch work to be done alongside the Burial Ground.

Jubilee celebrations

As you will know, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee will be in June 2002 with an extra Bank Holiday being planned (the first Monday in June will replace the Spring Bank Holiday and the following day will be the extra Bank Holiday). The Parish Council feels sure that the village will want to celebrate the event in some way and will be discussing the setting up of a working party with other village organisations. If you would like to get involved with this project, contact Sally Hebbs (É 850241).

Annual Parish meeting –

The Annual Parish Meeting will be held in the Village Hall on Monday 14 May. This is your opportunity to comment on the work done by the Parish Council on your behalf and to raise issues that you feel need to be discussed.

More details will be in the April edition of ACT.

Gardening Club

‘A handful of flowers; the history of the bouquet’

This the title of a talk to be given by Mrs Morris on Thursday 15 February , at 7.30 p.m. in the Village Hall (tea and coffee from 7 p.m.) As usual, members and non-members welcome.

Ampney United

The season has been a little disrupted by the bad weather; fixtures for February are as follows (kick-off at 2.30 p.m.).

3^rd – Falcons (A); 10th – Woodmancote (H); 17^th – Kings (H) ; 24^th – FC Staverton (A).

Neighbourhood alert

Crime

Some of you will know that there were a rash of incidents in January. One car was stolen (the thieves were eventually caught), two cars were tampered with (one lost its radio, the other suffered the significantly more serious loss of all four wheels) and a house was broken into and some valuable items stolen. Please be on your guard; there is a good deal of car crime in the Cotswold area so we all need to be vigilant. If you plan to be away, even for only a day or so, the general advice is to tell a neighbour so that they can be on the lookout for any unexpected activity round your house.

There is a clear need for better communication between the various Neighbourhood Watch schemes in the village and this will be taken forward by the Parish Council. In the meantime, the central part of the village is still without a scheme and needs a co-ordinator willing to take this on. If you are interested, please contact David Vessey (É851438).

Neighbour watch

Hand in hand with this goes the rather more delicate subject of keeping an eye on people at risk, principally because everybody relishes their independence and nobody likes being thought of as being ‘at risk’. However, there have been incidents of falls and illness (some involving people who would most definitely not regard themselves as being ‘at risk’) where the alertness of their neighbours has prevented a more serious outcome.

Newsletter report

Feedback required

This newsletter was yet another result of the Village Appraisal. 42% of respondents felt that a (bigger) newsletter was needed and so ACT was launched at the end of January last year. The Appraisal produced some quite detailed suggestions regarding content with the top six requirements being as follows (in order of popularity):

Details of future events

For sale/wanted/help needed etc

Planning applications

Parish Council news

Write-ups of recent events

Personal news – births, exam results etc

We had an article about planning applications last year where we explained that the 28 days response requirements for planning applications meant that ACT was simply not a suitable vehicle for them (and details of all planning applications are, of course, posted on the notice boards).

The remaining five items are what the newsletter was introduced for and, in the first year of ACT, some 50 topics have been covered. There is always room for more as ACT is currently rather heavily biased towards Parish Council news. We will be asking all the club and sports secretaries to bear ACT in mind when they are thinking about publicity but, as ever, the amount and range of information in the newsletter is largely governed by the readers.

If you have any comments you would like to make about the newsletter, we would be very pleased to hear from you. Do you like the style? Are the items too long or too short? Is there any information about the village you would like to see regularly featured? Drop a line to David Vessey (Convamore, Ampney Crucis) or Fran Huckle (3 Dudley Farm, Ampney Crucis).

New editor

Our request for additional editorial help on ACT has resulted in success. Elizabeth Gerver joins the team which now numbers three, each of whom will have the responsibility of two editions of ACT per year.

Parish Directory – your input required

The Parish Directory got a very high ‘approval rating’ in the Village Appraisal and so we are therefore starting out to reissue the directory in May. We are also planning to add some improvements which resulted from the Appraisal. We will be including a map of the main village and, providing there is the demand, details of local services (see below).

Newcomers to the parish

We follow the same structure as a telephone directory and include name and initials, house name or number, street, postcode and telephone number. The starting point will be the current edition of the Parish Directory updated using the Electoral Roll which is issued in February. This is accurate as at 10 October 2000 so there is always the problem of including newcomers to the parish. If you have arrived in the parish since last October and want to be absolutely sure of having your name in the directory, please return the attached slip to me, David Vessey, or to any Parish Councillor, as soon as possible and by the end of March at the very latest.

If you are a ‘weekend visitor’ but would still like your details in the directory, please also fill in the slip.

Change of telephone number/house name

The existing directory was compiled two years ago so it would help us to know if your telephone number has changed since then.

We would also like to know if your house name has changed recently. The Parish Council has agreed to keep Ordnance Survey advised of name changes so that the large scale OS maps used to support planning applications can be kept up-to-date.

‘Ex-directory’ numbers and names

Naturally, we never knowingly include the telephone numbers of people who wish to remain ‘ex-directory’. If you would prefer your telephone number to be withheld from the directory, please fill in the slip. Also, you have the right to privacy and may elect to have the entire record withheld though this will, of course, detract from the main purpose of the directory.

Local services

If you offer a service (e.g. office services, bed and breakfast etc etc) and would like other people in the parish to be aware of it, this is your chance to have details included in the directory. Please use the attached slip.

Village Hall News

Two events to note in your diaries.

Women at War

Cotswold Museums Service's touring exhibition will be on display in the Hall from 19 February to 2 March. On Wednesday 21 February from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. there will be a ‘hands-on workshop’ for all ages based on life on the Home Front during the Second World War.

Village quiz

The next Village Quiz will be on Thursday 29 March at 7.30 p.m. Groups and individuals are invited to register their teams of up to four people with Anne Bridges, ((652471). The registration fee is £1 per team member.

This popular event attracted eighteen teams last year. Can we beat that number this year?

Toddler Group

The Humpty Dumpty Toddler Group resumed in October and now runs from 10 a.m. till 11.30 a.m. every Tuesday morning in the Village Hall. We usually have between 8 and 12 children. Last term we ran messy activities, including printing, collage, playdough, painting and 'gloop'. We also produced our own party hats for the Christmas party which ended the term and was a great success, thanks to Santa's visit! The Cirencester toddler group support worker, Nicky, also ran a music and movement session for us.

This term we have two activities planned. On 30 January we have 'Storytime' with Carol from the Bingham Library and on 6 March we have a 'Paintbox' session with Nicky of PATA (Parent & Toddler Association). We would be glad to welcome new and familiar faces, so if you haven't tried us yet (and even if you have!) do drop in.

Ampney Crucis Save the Children

A report from Lorna Everatt

After viewing a tour by Princess Anne in Africa, a few of us decided we should not only give money, but also our time, to aid the suffering of the people depicted. A letter sent to Princess Anne was forwarded to the Fund, who sent us a mass of information including the fact that over 90% of funds raised by Save the Children go directly to children at home and abroad

We could not adopt a village as we had asked as it would cause friction with neighbouring communities. However, we could sponsor a child and so Nirmala, a fatherless child in Sri Lanka, became our protégé. A coffee morning was held to raise money for the first payment and it was decided to serve teas on Sunday afternoons, with home-made scones and cakes.

There was a snag! We never knew if we should cater for 6 or 60, so when Bridget Pembroke's brother, who owned a coach company, asked if we could cope with forty plus during the week, we were delighted. We knew how many to cater for, and when, which meant that apart from making the tea, all would be ready. We also sell Save the Children goods and find it a double reward, giving so much pleasure to mostly retired people.

Teas are not the only way by which we raise funds. Other people have been wonderful in raising money for us on their own in many different ways. Last year we were most grateful to Mr and Mrs Scott for opening the gardens of Ampney Park to the public and we are pleased to announce that they will be repeating this on the afternoon of Sunday 25 March, with money raised being shared between Save the Children and the Church funds (refreshments available).

In the early days, whenever there was a catastrophe, we would send a cheque for £100. This led to a visit from the Area Organiser, who decided we should become the Ampney Crucis Area Branch with its own committee which meets 4 or 5 times a year (new members would be very welcome!) We get help and support from people from all the local villages though we are always grateful for more volunteers to help as and when they can; illustrated talks are always available to interested groups.

Please contact Lorna Everatt (( 851292) or our Secretary, Nicoll Ferguson ((851497).

Village Spring Clean

The annual village Spring Clean will take place over the weekend of 7 and 8 April. April in general is scheduled to be Spring Clean month for the Cotswold District. The District Council will very kindly supply us with gloves and plastic sacks. We hope everybody will take the time to clear up their own immediate ‘patch’ and that we will also get a good group of volunteers to prowl round the village removing rubbish. Sunday April 8 will specifically be a clean up day for the Burial Ground.

More details will appear on the notice boards nearer the time.

Classified ads

Part-time help required for weekend sorting/delivery of newspapers. Generous wage/allowance paid. Must be reliable and flexible.
For further details, phone 851664

Personal ads in this column cost £1 per ad per issue. Local businesses can place an ad (£5) or sponsor an issue (£10).
Contact the editors for details.

Advertisements will be placed on a first come, first served basis and space is limited to up to 5 ads per issue.

Copy deadline for next issue (April): Thursday 15^th March

Produced by Ampney Crucis Parish Council for the information of residents.
No liability can be accepted by the Council or Councillors for any losses, however caused, arising from this publication