The Link Magazine
Linking the villages of - Somersham, Willisham, Offton and Flowton - Suffolk
The Link Magazine
Linking the villages of - Somersham, Willisham, Offton and Flowton - Suffolk
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God
was disproportionately generous. I
was particularly fond of a close-harmony song that began Are there aspects of God that were kept back when Jesus was born? That cannot be, because when the Christ-child grew up, he told his friend Philip, who asked about it, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." (John ch.14v.9) Generally speaking, once I've given a gift, I tend to congratulate myself on getting that one solved, and turn my attention to something else. God is not limited in these kinds of all-too-human ways. He gives Himself. A
Christian Youth Worker in a Comprehensive School was asked by interested
churchgoers who had no contact with anyone of the age group, As
the season draws near, I wish you a very Happy Christmas. 1st
December Purple 8th
December Purple 15th
December Purple 22nd
December Purple 25th
December Gold or White 29th
December White 5th
January White 12th
January Gold or White 19th
January White 26th
January White ***************************************** We thank all our readers and advertisers for their support during 2002, and wish you all a very Happy Christmas and peaceful New Year. WILLISHAM CHURCH NOTES BonfireEvening Christmas Services OFFTON & WILLISHAM PARISH COUNCIL
Tree Planting ceremony On Sunday 1st December 2002 a small group of villagers gathered to watch Parish Councillors plant two ornamental trees on the grass verges at North Acres to commemorate the Queen's Golden Jubilee. SOMERSHAM FOOTBALL CLUB Since our last notes
the 1st team have only played 2 games. On Saturday 12th October they beat
Stag Tavern 6-1 at home, but went down 4-1 the following week at Dennington,
who are league leaders. Our win over Stag Tavern now means the 1st team
has won more games so far this season than they did for the whole of the
previous one. The Reserves have played 3 games. Losing 2-1 away against
St. Clements Reserves on 12th October, 9-1 at home against Tacket Street
BBOB -the worst performance by any Somersham team for many a day - but
following it up by beating The Chequers 4-1 at home on 26th October. Let's
hope this result will help to bring better fortunes in the future.
Dennis Mumby SOMERSHAM BROWNIES From the 21st- 24th
October we joined Copdock and Washbrook Our theme this year was Harry Potter and the Guiders became the various professors, whilst the Brownies were divided into the appropriate houses (selected by The Sorting Hat of course). Our holiday home became Hogwarts, and we were able to have a night-time walk in the woods and also a nearly midnight candlelit feast. We even managed to play a game of Quidditch!! POPPY
APPEAL The collection for
Somersham amounted to £244.45, sincere thanks to Mrs. F. Southgate,
Mr. and Mrs.Foulkes -Flint, Mr.P.Houghton and Mr. R. Mason. Carole Thirkettle 1944-2002 Mrs Carole Thirkettle, 'The Link's' main distributor in Offton, died on September 26th in The Ipswich Hospital's Hospice. A year of treatment for cancer in both Ipswich and London hospitals was to no avail. Throughout the period of treatment she remained positive and continued to be ready for others. Carole, a straightforward girl, came from the land of The Prince Bishops - County Durham. The great outdoors was one of her enjoyments and she and her husband Eric were often seen around the village walking their dog. Carole's private funeral took place on Oct 4. A dignified and moving non-religious ceremony was held, led by local Humanist officiant Mrs. Margaret Nelson, in the presence of her immediate family, relatives and a few friends. Following the ceremony Carole was buried at the Green Burial Site in Wrabness where those present dropped a sprig of rosemary on the coffin as a token of remembrance. At the grave a striking poem called "Lightning" by Susanne Vega was read and Mrs Wendy Davis, Carole's sister, spoke on behalf of the family. A tree will be planted on her grave to create, with others, a woodland near the river Stour. She will be sorely missed by all who knew her. (Our thanks to Pieter Rondeboom for this tribute) Farewell
also to:
Somersham Curch Notes The Christmas Bazaar will be on Saturday 30th November from 2pm in the Village Hall. See advert for more details. Christmas Quiz Sheets are selling well - if you haven't got yours yet they are available from the Village Shop, Somersham Garage or Christine's. Somersham
Church Services The Carol Service will be on Sunday 22nd December at 6.30pm. There
will not be a Midnight Communion at Somersham church, ****************************************** Very many thanks for all your good wishes, get well cards and flowers after my recent operation. They certainly cheered me up and helped towards a speedy recovery. Pat Woolhouse
With Christmas approaching us and with this being the last newsletter before Christmas, please remember to hide presents when they are left in your car or when shopping. Unfortunately thieves target Christmas shoppers when their cars are left unattended. Also, when at home try and keep Christmas presents out of sight of windows so they can't be seen by an opportunist thief. Thank-you to all the residents of Springfield Way, Somersham who now kindly park on the road rather than the path. I had received a few complaints from local residents, especially mums with prams, so thank you once again. I am having a similar problem at Offton in Castle Rise. Please would you not park on the grass verge and keep your vehicles on the road. There should soon be new parking arrangements in Offton, so please complete your questionnaire and return it to the Parish Council as soon as possible. No
crime in our four villages during October, but Barking Church was broken
into on October 12th and several pieces of historical note were stolen.
With the bad weather approaching us now, please ensure that, when driving, your windscreens are ice-free and that there is no condensation on the inside of the windscreen. Not only is this very dangerous, but could cost you £30 in a fixed penalty ticket. Finally, my time has come to be posted. After Christmas I will be working as a school liaison officer within the schools in the Mid Suffolk area. I am looking forward to my new role, but will obviously miss all the friends I have made whilst working as a beat officer. I thank you all for your help and support during the past four years as I could not have done the job without your help. I will ensure my replacement continues to update you all via the Link Newsletter, so please watch this space. Finally, thank you all for your help as you make my job easier. Thank you to you all. Take care. WPC 167 Diane Porter 01473 613500 Police Station Multi-charity Christmas card shop in Sudbury
Somersham Parish Council
Being a Councillor for the Parish Council allows you to help shape the future for the village and improve everyday life for everyone in the village, if you have time, then please apply to be a councillor. If
you wish to find out about these vacancies or apply then please contact
the Clerk to the Council. New
Conservation Walk This is a permissive path, with permission of the landowners who have opened this path along an historical landscape under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme run by DEFRA. It has not been created as a right of way. When
using the path please follow the Country Code and observe any other requirements
stated. Maps of the path are shown on the path itself. Please do not disturb
wildlife, livestock and other visitors while using the path and keep dogs
under control. Anyone
young or old, with or without a disability may ask to make certain journeys
for which neither a family car nor any form of suitable public transport
is available, journeys such as to friends or to the doctors, dentist or
optician can all be made. However, journeys for work, school, day care
and hospital appointments where NHS or other public transport is available
cannot usually be accepted.
Mid
Suffolk District Council have leaflets available on how to fit security
lights in the correct positions to ensure your property is lit when people
are near the property, and not when cars or people on the pavement go
past. Forthcoming
Meetings ************** Andrew
Mayhew From Margie and Mick Lungley On our recent retirement from The Limeburners, Offton, we would like to take this opportunity to thank friends and customers most sincerely for our help, loyalty and custom during our stay, dating back to 1985. It was sad to leave after so many years but we will certainly always remember the happy times. Our grateful thanks to so many of you for your good wishes and the generosity shown to us on our departure. We have been overwhelmed. Once
again, our thanks to everyone.
Flowton News The
Flowton baby count complete! ******************************* **********************************
Date
for your diary:
Flowton has tea-towels and recipe books available from the back of the church. Why not pop in and buy some to send to friends for Christmas. Thanks to those in Flowton who contributed to the recent door-to-door collection for the Royal National Institute for the Blind which raised £65.18. NRC Patchwork and Quilting Patchwork and quilting classes will continue in Flowton's warm Church Vestry during the Winter and Spring. If you are interested please contact Mary Carter on 01473 658522 for more details. Encounter Two 2002 Despite the sad situation in the Holy land, encounter thrives. This year groups of young people from Jerusalem and east London met for the second year of the encounter to continue their education programme of learning more about their own faith, the faiths and cultures of others, and to study the importance of dialogue and conflict resolution. These young Jews, Christians and Muslims have, like their predecessors on encounter One (1999-2000), have made firm friendships across geographical and ethnic divides. The venue this year was a catholic Youth Centre in Freiburg where a number of their staff and four volunteers were our hosts. They already had experience of exchange visits to the Holy Land and Lebanon but were keen to learn about our wider contacts and workshop methods. We also opened up local contacts for them at a mosque and a synagogue where we were warmly welcomed. At the mosque our London co-ordinator was approached by a young Muslim university student speaking excellent English. Learning of our invitation to a synagogue service that evening he asked if he might come too. This, we felt, was what it was all about! To share in worship with other Abrahamic faiths helps us to appreciate our common humanity and gain deeper understanding of the God we all worship. Students worked and played hard. I was impressed to observe their capacity for concentrating in workshops for two or three hour slots. Early on, they were asked to circulate in the group matching certain facts about themselves. Of course, there was no complete match! We learned we are all different. Later in the week, role plays were undertaken with enthusiasm and highlighted how potentially impossible situations could be reconciled. The nearby Black Forest provided a venue for relaxation and barbecues. Travelling on a double-decker German train was an unusual experience, especially when we called at a station called Ah-ha. In Strasbourg, visits to the Council of Europe and Court of Human Rights were interesting, but students from the Holy Land were left feeling too acutely aware of that which they cannot take for granted. Jewish students from Jerusalem were not with us for 'security reasons'. They wrote to the group talking of "violence and hatred all around us" but said "We pray for you for better times between people" A reply was sent from those at Freiburg: "We really missed you! Tonight we have our Thanksgiving Service...we will miss your presence, but will be thinking and praying for you." This final act of celebration in a beautiful modern chapel (with Christian cross removed) took the form of a reading from each faith group and private meditation. A German Youth Worker read their own Charter of Human rights prepared by the group during the week. An important clause was a desire to live in freedom. In a touching ceremony we went up one by one to sign the Charter. Joan Dorrell Lay Chair, Bosmere Deanery Synod. ***************************** The last meeting of the Liaison Group was held on Wednesday 25th September 2002 at Elmsett Village Hall. An analysis on the Complaints Log entries for the period since the last meeting was presented, and this showed that the complaints to movements ratio over the last 3 month period had fallen to 1%. The airfield manager's report stated that following the removal of a number of trees considered obstacles to aircraft, the airfield has now reactivated its license with the CAA. There has been further discussion of security issues with police and customs units, and this means that an aircraft shelter is still being investigated. The airfield Open Day had raised £184 for Elmsett School, £1102 for Whatfield School, and £461 for the Ipswich Children's Hospice. Acknowledging
that due to lack of significant ground features pilots have real difficulty
following the optimum flying circuit, there had been some investigation
into the use of ground markers at key places around the circuit. These
would have to large (15 metres by 6 metres minimum), brightly coloured,
and, to be effective at a distance could not be flat on the ground. The Liaison Group Chairman serves for one year, so the current Chairman was stepping down. He felt that the Group had made progress over the last year, and whilst no one should be complacent, the low level of complaints showed that the procedures now in place were working well. The next meeting will be held on Wednesday 19th March 2003. Diary
Dates: Jeannie Wright, Airfield Liaison Officer.
Carol Service, Sunday, December 15th at 10 am. Christmas
Day, Wednesday 25th December , Dates for your diary in 2003:
************************************* Do come and see our Epiphany play! -The
Very Hopeless Camel arrives in Bethlehem - on Sunday January 5th 2003 at 4 pm.
Thank
you so much to Jan Dickson, David, Helen and Sam Thorne, Thomas King
and Simon Gray for participating in the sponsored cycle ride on September
14th, either by walking or cycling. Together, through generous sponsorship
you raised the wonderful sum of £310.00. This money is split between
Suffolk Historic Churches Trust and our own church here in Offton. Very
well done! It is a great result and our share with go into the Church
Fabric Fund to help with the new extension. Church Extension At last, after two and a half years of discussion with all the different authorities, ( Diocesan Advisory Board, English Heritage, The Society for the Care of Ancient Buildings, Planners, Building Control and the Environment Health Department) we are about to start work on the extension to our church. It is hoped that it may be completed by March (weather permitting). The PCC are confident that this is going to be of great benefit to many people in the community. PTC
It
saddens me to see how dog owners allow their dogs to foul the public footpaths,
which I thought were there for the pleasure of walkers. It would be much
appreciated if dog owners would keep ONLY to public footpaths and remove
their dogs pooh, whenever and where ever they foul the footpaths. To place
the droppings under a hedge would be more acceptable.
Somersham Primary School We have had the inspectors from Ofsted in school for a visit. They stayed with us for three days at the end of November and we hope very much they liked what they saw. We are very proud of our school and what the children have achieved since the last time the inspectors came! So here we are again, the month all children look forward to the most. We have arranged for our lovely Christingle Service to be held in Somersham Church on the 13th December and then back to the school hall for refreshments afterwards. There will be a collection plate in the church for the Children's Society. These are the people who supply the candles for the Christingle and are therefore our chosen charity each year at this time. No doubt there will be the annual parties and even (if they are very, very well behaved) the good old talent show! With decorations to be put up, cards to be made, carols to learn, Christmas dinner to eat ("Yippee," for Tanya and Maxine) Oh! And one hundred and one other things to do before the end of term, Christmas will be here before we can say "Crackers". Just one very sad note to end on...Mrs White, who has worked her socks off with Class Three and is a much loved member of staff, is leaving us...but before we get our hankies out she ahs agreed to be on our supply teacher list, hooray! So it probably won't be ages before we have a chance to say "Hello" to her once again. F.O.S.S. Firstly we have an apology to make. The calendars we promised have not materialised. Due to printing costs we discovered that to pass them onto you we would have to charge rather a large amount and decided we couldn't risk losing a huge amount of money, especially as we are helping to fund the new playground. We hope that many of you took up the opportunity to have your photos taken in November and that you will be pleased with the results. Tempest has been taking photos of the village children for years and has a very good reputation among young families. The members of F.O.S.S. have decided to go carol singing in support of the Children's Society, which as you will see in the school report is their charity for Christmas. Hopefully this will take place on a Monday early in December. Please give us your support and give generously. After all, it's not often you hear the voices of angels, is it? At the time of writing, Jenny is doing her annual Christmas Quiz, so keep an eye out for that one, come back to the school hall after "Christingle" for refreshments and a go the raffle; and, last fund raiser for this time...WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON FEBRUARY 15th? Yes, we are looking forward to Valentine's Day (well, the day after). It's time we did something for the adults, so get out your sparkly trousers and tank tops , we're having a Seventies and Eighties Disco. No, don't try and pretend you're too young to remember, just book the date and come and have a good time. The
Staff, the children and the FOSS members would like to wish everyone a
Our next meeting will be a Christmas Party on Monday 9th December in Somersham Village Hall at 7.30pm. Please bring a plate of food either sweet or savoury and a wrapped gift for one person. We will have a collection tin for the children's hospice and hope that members will contribute to this. Members may wish to renew their £5 subscription for next year at the Christmas Party. This will help our secretary considerably. Looking well ahead, we will be holding a plant sale at Somersham Pavilion next 17th May so please think of that when you are taking cuttings, sewing seeds or dividing plants. Proceeds from this will help pay for speakers at our meetings and will help to keep the membership subscription at the current £5. Our first meeting in 2003 will be on Monday 13th January in Somersham Village Hall at 7.30pm.
The 2002 season is now over and Somersham can be proud of their achievements. The club's reputation has been further enhanced, while on track results have steadily improved. We have tried to put on a professional show wherever we have ridden and, unlike some clubs, fulfilled all our commitments to the fixture list. We've even had interest from 2 riders of other clubs so must be doing something right! Stars finished one place from bottom in both the South East Division 1 and Norfolk & Suffolk Leagues. Injuries didn't help and it could have been higher with just one more win. The season ended with 3 very different events. Firstly we hosted the final East Anglian Grand Prix round where 40 riders battled for supremacy of their age groups. The healthy refreshment sales and pleasant weather were most welcome. However, the next day it was raining in Colchester as Somersham competed in the East Anglian Fours. Only Gary Brown seemed to enjoy the conditions but we pipped Eaton for third -particularly pleasing after their attempts to bend the rules! Unfortunately the eagerly anticipated Handicap Club Championship was almost farcical thanks to the gale force winds. Conventional starts could not be employed, while our youngsters could hardly move down the home straight. After qualifying it all came down to the final and it was Luke Hodgkinson who made the most of his front grid start to win from Barry Copping and Brown, who just pipped Andy Mittell on the line. Pete Williamson was an early challenger but was blown off his bike! For Hodgkinson it was a fairy tale ending to his debut season in the sport. Copy deadlines prevent a report on the Indoor championships but some secret practice sessions suggest we might have caused a few surprises.… you can contact us
via (01473) 831474, e-mail ovalking@yahoo.com
or take a look at the
A sea of hungry children in the Calcutta slum surrounded Mother Teresa. The journalist overwhelmed by the children's need and her apparently insignificant resources asked 'How do you feed all those children?' 'One at a time' was Mother Teresa's reply. Often we are faced with events beyond our resources; we can identify with the journalist. Insurmountable human problems are the norm, even for God. A closer look at the Christmas Story will demonstrate that even God is taxed when it comes to people. Christmas is the story of God getting involved in people problems, it took a personal visit. The journey of human life for God began in a manger and ended on a cross. A life that was given for people. People problems are multiple, but all share the same root, sin; in-built rebellion and resistance to God and his will. Even for God the only way to deal with the root cause was to enter human history, as a child. To live a complete and perfect life, so providing a perfect transferable character reference, then to die as a sacrifice to bear the guilt and punishment of all who would follow him. Unlike God we can only help one person at a time, but do take onboard his model of doing good, meeting the people where the problem is, and giving all to help. This was Mother Teresa's model for ministry. May this Christmas serve as a catalyst for change and service in the New Year. Do join us for our Christmas Eve Carol Service 6.30pm Tuesday 24th December.
*
Junior Church 10.00AM Every Sunday for School Years 1-6. Web site www.somersham.com
CHURCH
SERVICES in our 8 linked parishes December 1st Advent Sunday
Monday
December 2nd December 8th Second Sunday of Advent
December 15th Third Sunday of Advent
December
24th Christmas Eve December 25th Christmas Day
December 29th First Sunday of Christmas
January 5th Second Sunday of Christmas
January 12th The Baptism of Christ/First Sunday of Epiphany
January 19th Second Sunday of Epiphany Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
January
26th Third Sunday of Epiphany
February 2nd Presentation of Christ in the Temple - Possible services:
We
wish you all very |
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