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Gaydon Parish Magazine October 2007

This Month's Diary

Village Coffee   Sat 13th 11am          Village Hall
Harvest Supper     Sat 13th 7pm           Village Hall
Friendship Club  Tues 23rd 2.30pm       Trevose
Pilates            Tuesdays 8pm           Village Hall
Toddler Group     Thursdays 10-11.30am   Village Hall
Mobile Library     Thursdays 4th and 18th

Burton Dassett Gardening Club

Burton Dassett Gardening Club would like to welcome new members.
We meet on the 2nd Monday in the month and meetings alternate between Northend and Knightcote.
The meeting on Monday 8 October will be held in Knightcote Village Hall at 7.30pm, where Mr Manton is demonstrating country Crafts.
Please contact Helen James on 01295 770369    or Linda Lower on 01295 770375 for more information.

Flag

The flag was raised on 15 September to commemorate the Battle of Britain in 1940.

Friendship Club

The October meeting will be on Tuesday 23rd at 2.30pm at Trevose, Kineton Road, by kind invitation of Mrs Pauline Layton. We would be pleased to see anyone who would like to spend an hour or so in congenial - rather than gongenial - company with a cup of tea. Just ring 640549 or 641834 for further details.

Christmas Market

Saturday 17 November at 2pm in the Village Hall Please make a note of the date in your diaries!
If anybody would like to run a stall or help with teas, etc. please get in touch with Mary Fox or Margaret Phelps on 641384 or 640559.

Village Coffee

The Village Hall will be open at 11am on Saturday 13 October for the monthly Bring and Buy and Coffee Morning. Cakes and other produce will be on sale; coffee, tea and biscuits available. All contributions will be welcome!

Harvest Festival

Our celebrations this year will be a break from tradition: we are focusing on another source of our food - the sea.
This autumn there will not be the usual house-to-house collection for The Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.
Instead, we will have a Fish & Chip Supper in the Village Hall at 7pm on Saturday 13 October to give thanks for the work of the trawlermen who risk their lives to bring us our fish.
They work in very difficult and dangerous circumstances and the money the RNM raises goes to help the families of those lost or injured at sea.
Tickets for the event will cost £6 (no concessions) and can be bought from Margaret Phelps on 640559 or Mary Fox on 641834.
Please get your tickets by Sunday 7th October so that we know how many people to cater for. You are assured of an entertaining evening!
If you are unable to come, please feel free to make a donation to the Mission via Margaret or Mary.

Mobile Library

The van will be visiting the village on Thursdays 4th and 18th this month; and on Thursday 1st November.

Welcome

We welcome to the village Barbara and Philip White who live in Manor Court. We hope that they will enjoy being in Gaydon.

Over 60s Christmas Lunch

Newcomers to the village may be interested to know that we hold a Christmas Lunch for the older inhabitants of Gaydon and Chadshunt which is cooked and served for them by younger people in the village.
The organisers invite everyone who is over 60 (and partner) to come to the lunch; anyone who would like to help with the preparations is asked to get in touch.
The Lunch will be held this year on Sunday 9 December at 12.45pm in the Village Hall. Invitations will be sent out next month and cooks and helpers will be contacted shortly. If you would like to be invited - or would like to join the team of cooks and helpers - please contact: Julie Rickman at the Old Bakehouse on 640349; or Liz Thomas at Ashley House, Upper Farm Meadow, on 641144.

Parish Council News

The Parish Council has been very busy in recent weeks dealing with a number of ongoing issues in the village beyond the normal two monthly meetings that the Council convenes.
We are continuing to monitor the aftermath of the flooding and a range of proposals that have been suggested subsequently in an attempt to solve this problem.
Meetings have been convened to discuss the amendment to the application for a Nursery at the site of what was the Plymouth Brethren meeting hall on the Kineton Road. Objections have been raised by the Parish Council based on the Highways objections on the grounds of traffic safety.
The Parish Council has also objected to - and asked a number of questions about - the proposed expansion of the composting site at Kingston Grange Farm. We have asked questions about the volume of traffic, the inclusion of food waste as well as green waste and the potential environmental impact of this expansion.
As ever, if you would like further information, the Parish Council holds a surgery on Saturdays in the Parish Office behind the Village Hall between 10.00 and 1.00. Or you can contact the clerk whose details are on the back page.

Holiday Art Competition

Congratulations to Alexandra and Edward Hill and Gemma Hotchkiss who will be given their prizes at the Growing Together service on Sunday 14 October.

Pilates

Tuesday evenings 8.00pm
There are spaces available in the Pilates Class which is held in the Village Hall on Tuesday evenings.
Pilates is an exercise system that is particularly good for your back. Our instructor Debbie Birch is fully trained and qualified.
It costs £35.00 for five sessions.
We are a mixed group - anyone is welcome, male or female; and there is no age limit - we have people from fourteen to seventy-five years old. There are even people from Other Villages!
If you are interested please call Madeleine on 640636

September Parish Council Meeting

We are still waiting for the VAS (speed sign) to be installed opposite St. Giles Road on the Kineton Road. A further VAS has been requested on the Kineton Road going towards Kineton.
Highways are also deciding whether painting 30mph on the road going away from the roundabout towards Kineton would help our speeding problem.
The damaged kerbstone around the roundabout has been reported and we hope it will be repaired shortly.
The dog warden continues to patrol our village and she has said that if she sees any stray dogs she will take them away.
The bus shelter is now a 'no smoking' area and signs have been erected.
Tony McGrath has very kindly replaced the glass in the village noticeboard.
John Rickman gave a brief report on his progress on the village flood defence plan. Both local and district councillors were very supportive and felt that funds would be made available for some schemes.
We achieved a silver award in the Best Kept Village Competition.
Next meeting: Tuesday, 6th November at 8pm in the Village Hall.

Gaydon with Chadshunt Services for October 2007 AD

7th
8.00   Eucharist        Burton Dassett
10.00  Family Eucharist Fenny Compton      
11.15  Morning Service  Gaydon
11.30  Eucharist        Farnborough
3.00pm HarvestFestival  Chadshunt
14th
9.00   Eucharist        Fenny Compton
10.00  Morning Service  Farnborough
10.00  Eucharist        Northend
11.15  Growing Togetherand Harvest Festival  Gaydon
6.00pm Evening Prayer     Northend
21st
8.00   Eucharist       Farnborough
9.00   Eucharist       Gaydon
10.30  Morning Service Fenny Compton         
10.30  Village Communion                   Northend
28th
9.30   Eucharist       Northend
10.30  Family Service  Fenny Compton
11.30  Eucharist       Gaydon      
6.30pm Evening Prayer  Farnborough

Pastoral Ministry

To arrange baptisms, marriages, visits at home or in hospital, the Sacrament of Reconciliation or for any other pastoral matter, please contact the Vicar on 01295 770400 or email philip.francis@regents.ox.ac.uk

Weekday Service in Gaydon

There will be a Prayer Book service of Eucharist on Wednesday 10 October at 11am.

All Saints' Church, Chadshunt

There will be a Harvest Festival at Chadshunt Church on Sunday 7 October at 3pm. This is a rare opportunity to attend a service at the beautiful old church which stands in the grounds of Chadshunt House.

The Vicar's Letter

On the last day of October we celebrate the feast of All Saints, then on the first day of November we commemorate all who have died on All Souls Day. Henry Vaughn wrote the following words which sum up what we celebrate on these two days:
They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit ling'ring here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.

To remember the saints of God and those whom we love but see no longer, can help us both to persevere in the Christian faith, as well as temper our sad experience of loss. In the Eucharistic Prayer we find the words:
'Therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we praise and glorify your name saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty, heaven and earth are full of your glory, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord'.
Jesus is the one who comes to bring us life. Through our belief that the Church of God is one, on earth and in heaven, we can rejoice that we are surrounded by a great company and fellowship of believers, those around us as well as those who have died and are alive in Christ our Resurrection and our Life.
There will be a eucharist celebrated at All Saints Burton Dassett on All Saints Day 1st November at 7pm; and at Fenny Compton on All Souls Day on 2nd November at 7pm. If you have names of departed loved ones you would like remembering at the All Souls eucharist, please email or phone them through to me; or put the names on the lists you will find in the churches.

Nature Notes

Sometimes the countryside reflects prevailing events and a walk in the countryside around the village reveals land being ploughed extensively to sow Winter Wheat.
Farmers hope that the high and spiralling cost of this crop will show a good return and this may be the only agricultural enterprise that will show a profit this year.
Sheep and cattle are restricted to the fields and cannot be moved till the present Foot and Mouth and Blue Tongue scares have (hopefully) diminished.
A cold summer can bring some benefits. There are record numbers of (Blackthorn) Sloes and blackberries in the hedgerows. However, the swallows and House Martins seem to have left early due to the lack
of insects.
It's clear that bird and butterfly populations will have been seriously hit and that quite a few trees look "ill". The combination of low temperatures and erratic rainfall bring on leaf-fall and stimulate the autumnal process weeks earlier than usual.
Those of us who are still drying out our properties from the flooding must hope that the frosts will come later!
I notice several Wasp beetles on my windows. These insects resemble a wasp's colouration but are not winged and may have emerged from abandoned wasps' nest early in the season.
Several Red Kites have been seen over Gaydon but do not stay long. They probably come up the M40 from the release area on the Paul Getty estate near High Wycombe, where they are regularly fed on chicken scraps by the locals. Our own local Buzzards tend to exist on carrion like roadkills and dead rabbits.
A large Grass snake was seen in Church Road and several roadkills identified as wild Polecats which confirms that this species is now established in Warwickshire.   
Bernard Price

Flood Report

The Gaydon flood prevention plan in summary is "to retard the run-off of surface water from higher ground wherever possible and let it flow into the village at a rate that the drains can handle".
To this end, several sites have been identified where water could be held behind a bank of earth and released through a pipe situated at ground level. Two of these sites are on the field at the back of the Kineton Road. The owner of the land gave permission for a survey to be made and the measurements have been completed. The next stage is for the survey results to be examined by an engineer and plans drawn from them. After this we need to get permission for the works to go ahead and then to implement them.
Meanwhile the trial scheme behind the Old Bakehouse and the Village Hall is nearly complete. It has been sown with grass seed and I hope it will soon start looking attractive as well as preventing flood water from entering Church Road.
As the above process will take a long time to complete, I urge all householders who were flooded to do what you can to protect your own properties in the meantime.
At its simplest, this means identifying where the water enters your property and putting up a barrier to prevent it coming in. If anyone would like help with this, or to discuss it, please get in touch with me.
John Rickman

The Gaydon Inn Bonfire Night

Sunday 4 November
Large Bonfire lit at 7.30pm
Firework Display starting at 8pm
Barbecue
Refreshments from the Inn
We look forward to seeing you on our Bonfire Night
and we hope you have a fantastic evening!
Free Entry