Village Hall Committee Mon 14th 8pm Village Hall Friendship Club Tues 15th 2.30pm 2 Anson Close Library Mons 7th & 28th Telephone Box Pilates Tuesdays 6.15pm Village Hall Yoga Wednesdays 6pm Village Hall Tai Chi Weds 7.30pm & Suns 1.30pm Village Hall Cake & Crafting Circle 2nd & 4th Suns 5pm St Giles' Church
Gaydon Calendar
Souper Saturday Sat 2nd Feb 12 noon Village Hall Parish Council Mon 4th Feb 7.30pm Village Hall
Sunday 6th
9.00 Holy Communion BCP Northend
10.30 Morning Prayer Farnborough
10.30 Holy Communion Gaydon
Sunday 13th
9.00 Holy Communion BCP Farnborough
10.30 Morning prayer Gaydon
10.30 Morning Prayer Northend
6.00pm Evening Prayer Northend
Sunday 20th
9.00 Holy Communion BCP Gaydon
10.30 Joint Service Methodists Fenny Compton
10.30 Holy Communion Northend
6.00pm Evensong Farnborough
Sunday 27th
9.00 Holy Communion BCP Fenny Compton
10.30 Holy Communion Farnborough
10.30 Prayer and Praise Gaydon
10.30 Morning Prayer Northend
Words Fail
Corinne Hill has served as Parish Clerk for a good length of time and has an almost infinite knowledge which has always kept the Council on the right track - she has been an invaluable member of the team. Numerous Councillors/Chairs have come and gone during her tenure and each has benefited from her advice, always the person who enabled others. Words fail to express adequately the gratitude due to her as she stands down after what has been a very difficult and trying year. Corinne will stay on for a time as our RFO to assist us with next year's budget and final accounts.
We welcome Jo Wain from Southam as our temporary Cover Clerk.
Councillors
At our last meeting Mirrin Lewis and Mathew Bourne were co-opted to the Parish Council and we wish them both well.
Defibrillator
A very successful training day was held, courtesy of Avon Valley Community First Responder Scheme, and 15 residents attended, with teas provided by the Millennium Group. There will be another training day in January.
Travellers
We still are waiting for WCC to provide an adequate barrier system on the old Warwick Road, and our latest news is that new design and fitting may be accomplished by the end of January. In the meantime we still push for a temporary measure.
Play Area
After a further review on the Annual Inspection, a site visit and consultation with SDC, we will be looking to action some ground maintenance to lower the risk and enable this area to stay open. However, it will require a further official inspection to satisfy our insurance requirement and ensure the health and safety of its users. This may mean that the area will be closed for a short time prior to a satisfactory inspection.
Parish/Neighbourhood Plan
This was discussed at the last meeting and further research into cost will take place. Initially, we are looking at a new Parish Plan which is a basic demographic survey to update our records. If and when this takes place we would ask all households to return the questionnaires so that we can serve you better.
Vacancy for Parish Clerk
Those who wish to express an interest in this position should contact the Chair, Cllr Davies. You do not have to be resident within the parish.
Next meeting
The next meeting will be on Monday 4 February at 7.30pm in the Village Hall.
Lastly, the Members of the Parish Council wish you all a very Happy New Year!
Dear Friends,
A new year, a new start. I wonder whether you have made any New Year resolutions this January? And what they relate to, in your life?
Christmas is a very special season, tinged with nostalgia, when everything seems heightened in our hearts and minds as we try to live up to this season of goodwill and bonhomie to all! Not always easy. For some, the period between Christmas and New Year will come as a welcome relief from the business of everyday life; yet for others it can take on a rather gloomy aspect as the year draws to a close. I don't know whether it's that the days are short and there is more darkness, with the weather generally colder as winter beds itself in: I wonder if it would be different if we lived on the other side of the world and it was summer?!
With January comes the welcoming of a new year, albeit with a lot of uncertainty in our world: the implications of Brexit, the uncertainty in the United States due to Donald Trump, Middle East in ferment and the refugees from troubled parts of the world still needing care and welcome - but what is clear is that everything is in flux. There is a lot of anxiety around because the future seems uncertain. But we Christians remind ourselves that our stability is not in this world. We know that our stability rests on God's promises. There will be trials and tribulations in this life but in this Christmas season (yes, it is still Christmastide for us until the beginning of February!) we hold on to the promises of God in the birth of Jesus. In the words of St John's Gospel: 'The Word was made flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory'.
In the coming of Jesus we are reminded that God can bring good out of evil, light out of darkness and hope in the midst of fear. All we need to do is to remain faithful, pray, and not give up that hope.
Let us each make one New Year's resolution: to be the light that shines in the darkness for others around us - through our thoughts, words and actions. If we all do this, just think what a difference it will make! Let us together be the light that defeats the darkness and brings light and hope to this coming year. Happy New Year! Reverend Nicki Chatterton
Grateful thanks to Ellis Machinery for the delicious boxes of chocolates that they donated to the village.
A Big Thank You to my customers and a Happy New Year to all, from the Paper Boy, Andy Thomas.
It's that time of year again, resolutions to be made and new adventures to be started! Why not make one of your promises to be that you will support the shop by buying a few items each week? You can also join the membership scheme for 2019. For a contribution of just £12 you will be entered into our regular prize draws, with the opportunity to receive great vouchers for food, gifts and events. We hope that you had a splendid Christmas and wish you health and happiness in the coming year!
The Library will visit the Telephone Box at Gaydon from 1.35-2.05pm on Mondays 7th and 28th January 2019.
The first meeting of the new year will be on Tuesday 15 January at 2.30pm at the home of Josie Liddington, 2 Anson Close, Wellesbourne.
We have now liaised with other village groups and have a timetable of events for 2019. Our group will hold four events during the year. We have recently bought two plug-in ceramic hobs to use in the hall kitchen and these will be available for other groups to use.
Our first event of 2019 will be on Saturday 2nd February which we are calling 'Midwinter Souper Saturday'. Join us in the Village Hall at lunch time to enjoy a bowl of homemade soup and meet up with other residents. Board games will be laid out for good old fashioned fun!
We are hoping to pay for the new hobs with the money raised; a committee member has funded them in the short term.
We are planning a small Village Fête in June but only if other groups join in.
We are well on the way to having our own bank account which is a complicated procedure when there are several signatures all needing identity checks.
Watch out for more information about Souper Saturday on the Village Facebook page and in the shop. Debbie Price
The next meeting of the Village Hall Committee will take place on Monday, 14 January, at 8pm in the hall.
Once more it's time to find out how much loose change village box-holders have squirrelled away over the past year in aid of The Children's Society. This charity raises well over a million pounds a year from Collection Boxes to help children whose lives are difficult in various ways. I shall be coming round to collect the boxes during January but if you would like to drop them into the Old Bakehouse, please do. Julie Rickman
Avon Valley Way
You may have noticed that there is a new road junction between the two Jaguar Land Rover roundabouts on the B4100. This short new road will take you to Avon Valley Indoor Bowls Club, a facility that has been somewhat hidden behind the fencing since 1979.
To celebrate opening the new road, Avon Valley Indoor Bowls Club welcomes you to visit on Saturday 19th January at any time from 11am to 5pm. You can just have a look around or you can have a go at playing bowls - you do not need any equipment or any bowls experience.
During the day there will also be a 12 hour bowlathon being contested by a team from Avon Valley IBC against a team from Visually Impaired Bowls England. The visually impaired bowlers are quite amazing and a real inspiration, well worth seeing.
Bowls is a great sport for families and people of all ages and physical abilities. With the new easy access to the club, Avon Valley IBC is hoping to attract a lot more local people to the sport, especially in the run-up to the 2022 Commonwealth Games, when the bowls events will be hosted in Leamington.
The Bowls Club can be contacted at any time on 01926 640831 or avonvalleyibc@hotmail.co.uk Gregg Woodall
There is no coffee morning in the Village Hall this month but we start again on Saturday 9 February.
Christmas has been unseasonably mild in Gaydon although, as expected, we have a number of migrant flocks of Goldfinches and Siskins around our gardens to take advantage of bird feeders that have Niger seed containers.
If you embark on filling feeders you need to persevere - the peanuts soon started emptying last week, with very disappointed Blue tits tapping the sides in vain. The reason was soon clear: just after daylight broke a Great Spotted Woodpecker arrived and quickly emptied them but I never saw this secretive diner in the daytime.
I'm amazed at the variety of bird food available now. The packs of dried insects are best kept back until the weather gets colder to benefit Robins and Dunnocks when live prey is scarce. Fat balls seem to have a general appeal to sparrows and chaffinches. Jackdaws, ever-resourceful, are digging the last windfalls and walnuts from my lawn whilst Blackbirds are stabbing at any available fruit left on the trees.
The Warwickshire mud and the dull leaden skies are a feature of a country walk; there is little leaf cover now but the coloured lichens are exposed on branches and a few hardy mushrooms and bracket fungi give some colour to bark and fallen wood. Moss is an intense green now and a few early exploratory green shoots of Arums are peeping through. The wood hellebores flower at this time too, a wild relation of the Christmas Rose in our gardens, pollinated by Hardy Midges and Gnats.
The main mammal life in the village is still the ever-present mice and rats that seem attracted to houses at this time of year. I have long since rejected the idea of humane traps for these, I'm afraid, and I'm certainly not keen on poison either as it goes right through the food chain. Rabbits are very scarce at present. The verges were once full of them as I drove home at dusk but now there is scarcely one to be seen. The increased numbers of Buzzards and Ravens may have some connection, though perhaps not the principle cause. There are a few wild polecats around too.
Certainly, my dogs were delighted to see the bleak version of Watership Down over Christmas - they were glued a few inches from the TV screen! I was not bothered to watch as it was so poor; the earlier film was so much better than this ghastly 'Hollywood' version which was unsuitable for children and, with its trite cliché-ridden dialogue, toe-curling for adults. My Dogs liked the visuals though and were unconcerned by the dull scenarios, so I left them to it!
Whilst I was clearing the hedge on the field a Great-crested Newt was discovered. They often turn up on the allotments too. We are indeed fortunate to still retain a good population of these keynote species in that area.
A Happy New Year to all my readers and if the threatened cold spell begins, predicted for the second half of this month, do please keep up the water and food for the wildlife! Bernard Price
run by the Warwickshire Association of Local Councils - WALC Thursday 7 February 6.30pm-8.30pm at The Grange Hall Coventry Road, Southam CV47 1QA Monday 11 February 6.30pm-8.30pm at Stratford District Council Chambers, Elizabeth House, Church Street, Stratford upon Avon, CV37 6HX Attend the meeting to find out what being a parish councillor entails; or find out if you are qualified and whether you can spare the time to do the job. Further details on walc.org.uk/be-a-councillor
After eighteen years of loyal service as Parish Clerk to Gaydon Parish Council Corinne Hill has left the post. The last year has been especially difficult for Corinne but her strong sense of service meant that she stayed in post long after her notice ran out. Her replacement has now declined the position but Corinne could no longer continue as she is already committed: her legal, financial and planning expertise has been second to none and has been snapped up elsewhere! We have lost a Parish Clerk with depth and breadth of knowledge and she will be sorely missed. She regularly worked over her paid time in support of Gaydon and the Parish Councillors; Gaydon is poorer for this. On behalf of so many, including past councillors, we thank you Corinne. Annette Conway and John Brine
Sadie Grimsley, 23 August 1933-2 December 2018
The funeral of Sadie Grimsley was conducted at the Church of St Giles, Gaydon, on 20 December by the Reverend Nicki Chatterton. The service was followed by a private burial at Gaydon cemetery and refreshments at Avon Valley Bowls Club. Donations to Myton Hospice may be given in her memory. Our condolences are extended to her family and friends.
Trevor Lightowler
It is with great sadness that we announce the sudden death of Trevor Lightowler, formerly of Gaydon, on 25 December 2018, peacefully at his home in Lutterworth after a short illness. He will be greatly missed by his family and friends.
I would like to thank everyone who helps the Gaydon with Chadshunt Parish Magazine to get through people's doors each month, even a door as far away as Australia. We have a capable team: hardy deliverers who turn out in all weathers; an ingenious print technician and a shrewd sub-editor-cum-business manager. In addition, we are reliant on our generous advertisers and the Parish Council who between them help to pay for the ink and paper that turn computer files into hard copies for all to read. Finally, I would like to thank our contributors without whom there would be nothing to publish! Ed.