Reminder - Learn About Brunel

The WEA series of talks on 'Brunel: an Engineer's Life' starts on Tuesday 19th January 2010. More details are here.

Find out more about the WEA at http://www.westbergholt.net/wea.htm.

Broadband Update

Following recent coverage in the Village Bulletin and website, over 30 people have registered interest in helping boost the village's presence on Britain's Broadband map. Chris Stephenson, Chair of the West Bergholt Parish Plan Steering Group thanked everyone for responding to the appeal and said that "This is certainly sufficient to move to the next stage of the exercise. Our options for a faster connection speed are somewhat limited, and the best bet appears to be to pursue a 'wireless' means of obtaining an improved signal to the village. To move forward needs support not only from those who have already registered interest but as many more as we can get ."

As well as expressing your interest in better broadband for the village (for which please click this link http://www.westbergholt.net/pp_enquiry.htm) it would also help if you were to add your personal broadband statistics on a speed test website by clicking the following link http://www.top10-broadband.co.uk/speedtest/ (the picture above comes from this site).

The project team will be setting up a meeting during January to help plan next steps, if you would like to be involved please express your interest using the enquiry link above, in the meantime you may be interested in some of the hot topics already raised:

FAQS

Question/Comment	Project Team Thoughts
Reasonable cost required	Pricing will be an issue especially at the moment and a cost under £20 per month would be the aim I suspect.
Fed up with slow speeds – many posting this complaint	Intensive usage eg BBC i-player downloads show how much of an issue this will be in the future for younger generations, and those moving to the village in the future could well be put off locating in a “not spot”!
Broadband required to work from home	Can be virtually impossible if you need to download or upload large files as part of your work especially at peak periods. There are many small one-person businesses operating in the village so this is a real problem.
What range would a new provider cover	Whole village could be covered with 4-6 access points.
Why not canvass via school	Good idea if handled collaboratively with the school.
Initial charge for setting up in peoples’ homes may deter some	Possibly, there could be a trade off between this and an increased monthly cost or a lost leader promotion for first 200 households joining?
3G service improving all the time	True, still poor where I am and is an individual service rather than one for the whole household. Still this may be the best bet for single households or where there is only one user etc.
County Broadband signal picked up in village recently	This is true, but is just an example of how it can be done for an individual not a community.
BT issues on very slow speeds have resulted in numerous visits to some households specially concerning highly contended virtual paths	I guess we all have stories to tell like this. In our household the broadband service used to stop if it was raining, or if somebody had left a message on the answer-phone!
Speeds vary, download speeds of 135kb/sec up to 1.5mb/sec for download reported	We could do with a collective view on this because everyone will quote a different speed when asked!
Are we tied to a choice of just one provider?	Not in theory; we could gauge interest and put out a community tender, but in reality we know that there are only 2 companies in Essex that have developed this market.

2nd Class Broadband?

West Bergholt is not alone in having a poor quality broadband service. Recognising that many rural (and not so rural), communities are supplied with a broadband service that falls far below the minimum target (2Mbs) set by Government, the East of England Development Agency EEDA is undertaking a needs survey. The purpose of the survey is to record those communities where service provision is below standard or in some cases non-existent. EEDA is interested in the hearing from consumers and businesses alike and their survey takes into account these two broadband user groups.

There is the potential for funding sources to be made available in 2010 through EU sources aimed at improving rural broadband services. To capture demand and rural opinion, a short questionnaire is available on the EEDA web site link shown below. By registering you will be helping residents and local businesses alike. The registration process is expected to be withdrawn at the end of January 2010.

Our Parish Plan group continue to receive support for its broadband initiative to use wireless delivery to users in the village. By encouraging everyone you know to register on the web site below, we will be able to evidence local demand which will help the Parish Council when it applies for specific funding for an alternative service to that currently received via BT etc. EEDA are asking those with a business to register both the business and home needs separately using the same links.

The web site link is at http://erebusonline.org.uk/index.html

Bylaw causes closure

The Lorkin Daniell field will be closed all day on Christmas Day because of a bylaw.

Bergholt Heath YFC - Results Sunday 13th December

Only one team played today and what a result!

Under 11
Bergholt Heath 7 - 0 Holland*
(M James 3, J Holden 2, G Sabini, R Gallagher)

(* not the national team of course!)

Carol Services

20th December brings two Carol Services to ensure the Christmas feeling gets off to a good start:

St Mary the Virgin Church

On Sunday 20 December the choir will be singing at the carol service in the Old Church at 2.30pm.

On Christmas Eve the Crib Service in St Mary's takes place at 3pm with a carol service at 6.30pm.
On Christmas Day there will be a family service at 9.30am.

Sunday 27 December 9.30am communion.

Methodist Church
In place of the normal morning service on 20th December, there will be a Candlelight Carol Service taking place at 6:30pm followed by mince pies and coffee in the hall.

The Christmas Day service is at Lexden church at 9.45am or 10am at Eight Ash Green.

Women's Institute - December Report

The re-elected president, Pat Moran, welcomed members to the Christmas meeting. New officers are Bea Girkin, ,vice-president and Rachel Colley, secretary. Marie Fitz-John remains as minute secretary. A plant was presented to retiring secretary Clarice Chittenden in appreciation of all her hard work.

The subscriptions for 2010, payable on 6 January, will be £29.50 of which £3 pays for members' copy of Essex News and the W I Life magazine.

A coach will be provided for the Birthday lunch on 9 February leaving the Orpen Memorial Hall at 11.45am.

Invitations have been sent to other W I's to join our March meeting which is a Fashion Show.

Following the Christmas meal, Touch and Go entertained and a big thanks were given to the committee for providing such delicious food.