Bergholt Heath YFC - 22nd February

Under 10
Bergholt Heath 7 - 1 Boxford
A Sabini 2, A Marley 2, L Bloomfield, M James, OG

Under 13
Bergholt Heath 0 - 19 Colchester Athletic

Under 14
Stanway Villa 7 - 0 Bergholt Heath

Under 15
Bergholt Heath 1 - 5 Woodbridge Town
D Bennell

Women's Institute - February Report

Vice - president Barbara Buckley welcomed everyone.The committee still needs volunteers to run Members Meeting in March. Speaker John Morgan has been booked to talk about Town Watch in Colchester.

Members are reminded to bring the requested toiletries to the March meeting. They will be taken to the County Annual Meeting at Towerlands Equestrian Centre for George Mills to transport to the orphanage at Chernigov. The county resolution to abolish hospital car park charges was carried and the delegate will vote on our behalf at Towerlands.

The treasurer reported 38 paid up members so far but poor weather had lowered attendance for the first two months. The committee decided to organise a coffee morning later in the year instead of the usual afternoon tea party.

Blue Peter's Mission Nutrition Appeal

A Bring and Buy is being held on Friday 13 February in St Mary's Church Hall from 3pm to 5pm  in support of Blue Peter's Mission Nutrition which aims to be the world's biggest bring and buy sale by coordinating sales country-wide with one at Lakeside.

Mission Nutrition wants to help children both within the UK and around the world to eat well and grow their own food by getting two million meals to hungry children, and helping them to grow healthy food for themselves!  

Toys, games, CDs ,DvDs and videos can be brought to the hall between 8.15am and 9.30am.  Tea and cakes will be available throughout the sale.

Gardeners Association Update

The Gardeners' Association resume their meetings on Monday 16 February in the Orpen Memorial Hall Lexden Road at 7.30pm. Speaker Andrew Tokeley's talk is entitled What to Grow - new for 2009.

(Pictured right is Rose - Star of Britain, a stunning bold, crimson floribunda in honour of Skandia Team GBR’s sailors Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson, who compete in the Star Class.) 

Bergholt Heath YFC - 8th February

All matches this weekend were cancelled due to weather.  A full programme is in place for next weekend weather permitting.

Community Policing

Recent months have seen change in the way the police interact with the community. The changes are described in full on our website here but, in summary, we now have 3 groups interacting to ensure policing is delivered in response to local needs:

• the Neighbourhood Support Team (NST) comprise 3 officers dedicated to the area around West Bergholt and other nearby villages,
• the Neighbourhood Action Panel (NAP) is a local volunteer-lead group who are fulfiling the objectives of a government-initiated plan to set policing priorities locally, and
• the Neighbourhood Watch (NW) who are crucial to ensuring local eyes and ears are deployed in seeking out local problems and issues.

These bodies work together and complement each other well but although the NST, NAP and NW already in place we are still looking for somebody to act as a local NW Area Co-ordinator.  If you feel you could help the NW please contact them on 241716.

Bergholt Youth Group now ready for action

The Bergholt Youth Group (BYG) is now formally established and looking forward to running Club evenings every two weeks on a Friday from 6.30 to 8.30 at the John Lampon Hall starting on Friday 13th February.  The Club is open to all village residents between 11 and 16 (Years 6 to 11) and a variety of events and activities will be available with the aim of trying to provide something new for each session (at least initially).  

The Club will be staffed by volunteers and more are needed.  If you are able to help please contact Eddie Cote on 242258 or Harry Stone on 241026.

Read more on the village website here.

Allotments Update

Supply & Demand

Demand for allotments continues to grow and there is now a waiting list of about sixteen. We are hopeful of meeting this demand before the new growing season starts as several lettings are not being renewed, fully or in part, when rents are paid in February. One such plot holder is Stan Rideout, well known to many of us in the village, who has had a fall and is in hospital. We wish him a speedy recovery.

As plots do become available they will only be let in 5 rod lots which should help increase supply. Also those from outside the village will be given low priority until the list is cleared.

Bonfires

We hope residents, especially those near the site, will appreciate that we will do our best to minimise any nuisance caused by smoke and as such continue to reinforce the guidelines we give to plot holders. The dates for the coming year have been agreed and are as follows:

• 2nd March (16:00 – 19:00)
  
• 6th April, 5th May (Tues), 1st June, 6th July, 3rd August, 7th September,
  
• 5th October
  
• 2nd November (16:00 – 19:00)
  

All are on a Monday evening and from 17:00 to 20:00 unless stated otherwise.  These time intervals are for plot holders to add material to a fire but it must be appreciated that the bonfires will in fact take longer than this to burn out.

Allotment Committee

Local group caring for you...

The West Bergholt Care Network is thriving and now that more volunteers have been recruited it is confident it can respond to most requests for help with transport.   The group is there to help any residents of the village, whatever their age, to get to appointments if transport is needed and other means are not possible or available.  Most journeys are to the Doctors’ Surgeries or the Hospitals but other local appointments can be considered.  

Telephone a day in advance using the numbers given below for the day on which you make the call.   If there is no reply please try any other number but do not leave answer phone messages as we are unable to respond to these.

• Monday 241103
  
• Tuesday 242185
  
• Wednesday 242319
  
• Thursday 247074
  
• Saturday/Sunday 242075
  

The Care Newtwork is holding its Annual General Meeting in the Methodist Hall in Chapel Lane on Tuesday 21st April at 7.30pm.  Any residents are welcome to attend, especially if they are prepared to become volunteers.

Harry Stone (Chairman)

Help us get lottery funding...

The Big Lottery is currently holding a consultation exercise called ‘Big Thinking’ to decide the focus and aims of the Big Lottery funding in the period 2009-2015. Your views and the views of rural communities could make a difference to the way in which Big Lottery grants are distributed and awarded and we are being urged to consider submitting a response.

Any groups and organisations in our community are encouraged to make a response to the Big Lottery Consultation; the deadline is the end of February 2009.

You can find out more at the BLF website here.

Stuck on you...

As part of their awareness campaign the West Bergholt Community First responder team have used some of the money they have raised in donations to acquire car stickers for their supporters. If you would like to help promote this team and would like a car sticker please contact the Group Organiser, Annie Neish, at 50 New Church Road, Tel 240469.

Yoga Classes

Elle Cox is running two Yoga classes (Dru Yoga style) in the village on Monday evenings between 8 - 9:30pm at the John Lampon Hall and Friday mornings between 9:30 - 11am at the Methodist Hall. To find out more you are invited toeither check the local community webpage here or by contacting Elle directly either by calling her on 07887 511412 or by email at elle.cox@btinternet.com.   

Dates and times of all classes are shown on the village events calendar.

BHYFC Results - 1st February

The under-10's are still on their mid-season break, the other teams played with the under-15's doing particularly well against the unbeaten league leaders, Silver End.

Under 13
Bergholt Heath 0 - 12 Lexden Saints

Under 14
Halstead 2 - 3 Bergholt Heath
C Drage, G Wheeler, T Hodder

Under 15
Bergholt Heath 0 - 1 Silver End

Success at Christmas Coffee Morning

A coffee morning will be held in the Methodist Church Hall Chapel Lane on Wednesday 11 February between 10am and 11.30am. Stalls include cakes, bric a brac and greetings cards. The Christmas coffee morning raised £157.50 bringing the annual total for 2008 to £472.85. Grateful thanks to all who supported this event.