Gaydon Parish Magazine December 2024
index of magazines
We wish all our Online Readers a very Merry Christmas!
Gaydon Gazette for December
Parish Council Tues 3rd at 7.30pm Village Hall
Over-65s Lunch Sun 8th at 12.45pm Village Hall
Mobile Library Fri 20th at 2.40pm Phone Box
Carols & Mince Pies Mon 23rd at 7pm Village Hall
Crib & Cake Service Tues 24th at 6pm St Giles' Church
Christmas Day Service 25th at 9.30am St Giles' Church
December Church Services
Advent Sunday
1st 9.00am Holy Communion Gaydon
8th 9.30am Morning Prayer Gaydon
15th 9.30am Agapë Service Gaydon
22nd 3.30pm Carol Service Burton Dassett
23rd 7.00pm Carols and Mince Pies in Village Hall
Christmas Eve
24th 6.00pm Crib Service and Cake Gaydon
Christmas Day
25th 9.30am Holy Communion Gaydon
29th 10.30am Group Service Gaydon
Roman Catholic Church of St Francis, Kineton, Sunday Mass 11am
Carols by Candlelight
Our traditional Dassett Magna Group Carol Service will be held at All Saints' Church, Burton Dassett, on Sunday 22 December at 3.30pm.
Village Hall Carols and Mince Pies
Monday 23 December at 7pm. You are warmly invited to an informal sing-along evening round the portable piano, with carols of your choice and seasonal refreshments.
Crib Service
On Christmas Eve at 6pm we sing carols, listen to the Bible story of the Nativity and share the cake the church has made to celebrate the Birth of Christ. Please come and join in the festivities!
Christmas Orders at the Shop
The Festive Season will soon be upon us and the Shop is taking orders for all your Christmas Meats and Pies from our local suppliers.
Cockerel, turkey, duck, goose,
Devils on horseback, pigs in blankets,
mini sausage rolls, gammon joints, cooked hams,
sausage meat and stuffing...
Pop into the store for details and order as soon as possible!
Swan Singers Concert
St Peter's Church, Kineton, Sunday 8 December at 3pm. Get into the Christmas spirit with Swan Singers' Christmas Concert! The programme features a wide variety of carols and songs. As usual, the concert is free, with refreshments and a retiring collection. Further details from admin@swansingers.uk
British Motor Museum Events in December
Jaguar Breakfast Meet Saturday 7th
Mini Motorists Mondays 16th
Winter Access Day Friday 20th
Gearing up for Christmas 20th-23rd
Activities for all the Family 28th-30th
Information and tickets at www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk
Carers4Carers
Kineton Village Hall 10:30am to 12 noon. Come along and meet fellow local carers over coffee, tea, and biscuits.
Join us for the Carers4Carers December meeting on Friday 13th! Meet fellow local carers at our meeting over refreshments, a mince pie (or two) and festive music.
Anita will be offering a relaxing hand massage. Feel free to bring your loved ones along - they can join our Companionship Group while we meet. We look forward to welcoming you there!
For further details about our carer support group or help with transport arrangements, please contact Gillian on 07947 893504; or send an email to kcarers4carers@gmail.com;
or explore our website www.carers4carersonthefosse.org.uk.
Mobile Library
The Mobile Library will call at the Telephone Box at 2.25pm for half an hour on Friday 20 December.
Christmas at Compton Verney
Gift Fair: Weekend 6-8th December
Festive Afternoon Teas: Wednesday and Thursday afternoons
Walk in the Park - Winter Wonders: 5th, 12th and 17th Dec.
Candlelit Concerts: 13th and 14th December
Kate's Storytree: Weekend 20-22nd December
Christmas Eve: Spot Santa at Compton Verney
Visit our website www.comptonverney.org.uk
Nature Notes for November
Quite a surprise to wake up to snow a few days ago* and quite a drop in temperature too! There were a few predictable signs though: I noticed many Two-spot Ladybirds gathering in sheltered corners of my garden a few days before. A Comma butterfly came into my house and settled by the window. This species is a hibernator, though it is unusual for them to enter houses, a habit more frequently seen with Peacocks and Small Tortoishells; both of these familiar nymphalidae were very scarce this year due possibly to the cold cloudy season.
The first migrant birds have arrived in small numbers; I've seen a couple of Redwings. The Blackbirds considered native may well be from Europe too. There are certainly plenty of berries on the Hedgerows which are vital nutrition in hard weather.
I read on various sites that there is concern for the number of Pheasants hit by cars on the Banbury Road. The shooting season starts around now, when poults are leaving release pens. They are not wild birds and like to pick gravel from roads, oblivious to traffic dangers. We often get a few in my garden and around fhe village where they are safe from shoot days. These are semi-tame birds which do not become truly wild for months.
I am starting to fill my bird feeders and have been rewarded with Blue Tits, Robins, Dunnocks and numerous Sparrows, already regulars! Now it is getting colder there will be more.
The local Jackdaws have been pulling out the thatch from my neighbour's roof for no obvious reason. I heard recently that crows can remember incidents for many years; our local Ravens often play spectacular aerial games - so maybe this is another example! Bernard Price
*See our front cover: St Giles in the snow 19.11.24
Parish Council News
Report of the meeting of Gaydon Parish Council held on 5 November at the Village Hall at 7.30pm.
Present : Parish Councillors Adrian Claxton, Chair, Mark Ashton, Stuart Richardson, Karen Ward and Sean Combrink (following co-option item 5); Stratford District Councillor (SDC) Alan Scorer, Warwickshire County Councillor (WCC) Chris Mills; Angela Clarke (Parish Clerk).
There was one member of the public in attendance.
Ditch: Letters were sent regarding ditch clearance as agreed at the October parish meeting. The Clerk is to arrange a site meeting between the landowner and Cllrs Richardson and Ward.
Whatsapp Group: Parish Council whatsapp group has been set up for councillors and clerk. This is not to be used to conduct parish business, only as a mechanism to prompt reminders.
Bench at St Marks: This is not owned by Orbit but by Warwickshire County Council (WCC). Its condition was reported to WCC 16.10.24.
Phone box: It has reached capacity for books and so Cllr Ashton is to remove some and give to a charity.
Neighbourhood Planning: Cllr Ward is to share contact with Clerk.
Website: Cllr Richardson reported that the new “ .gov” website will be changing soon.
Cemetery gate: Cllr Davies reported before the meeting that the wooden gate in to the cemetery has been smashed completely, by suspected vandalism. Cllr Claxton will replace it with a wooden gate and submit appropriate invoice for costs.
Hedges blocking footpath: Cllr Claxton reported complaints from residents about hedges overhanging the footpath on Church Road. The Clerk is to write to home owners.
Death of The Monarch council procedures: Following review of the Clerk’s report, council agreed to have the flag, proclamation day and 'No agendas to be published' in the period of mourning as the Parish Council procedure.
Annual Parish Assembly meeting: Clerk to get a poster for printing and publication advertising the meeting, to include that refreshments will be supplied. Local businesses are asked to contact the clerk to update/present on their business.
Neighbourhood plan: Cllr Ward to provide update at next meeting.
Planning applications: None to discuss
Next Parish Council meeting: The next meeting will be on Tuesday 3rd December at 7.30pm in the Village Hall.
Gaydon Development December Update
Silly of me to tempt fate in November by referencing the Ancient Chinese curse 'May you live in interesting times'! This November may qualify as such a cursed situation - but enough of international politics! At the beginning of the month, more relevant to our immediate situation, were the grim scenes from flood-devastated Valencia where yet another part of the globe was referred to with a phrase that is now being regularly applied to such climate-change induced severe storms, flooding and droughts: 'extreme weather event'.
As November closes, the UK has been affected by serious flooding and, almost routinely now, spokespeople have commented on the woeful lack of preventative measures and follow-up operations owing to neglect and the chronic lack of funding from previous governments. According to the UKGOV. Health Security Agency (HECC) 2023 report (p.15) calculation, by 2050 there will be a 61% increase in the number of people at greater risk of flooding in areas of the UK owing to climate change. And that figure only relates to the existing elevation, structures and buildings not to the negative effect of future develop-ment, such as that proposed in Gaydon, which would increase the possibility of flooding exponentially in an already vulnerable area.
There is a new 'determination date' (as no re-submission by 22nd November) which will be the end of March 2025. Also, CEG (Malta) Ltd will now be liaising with SDC Head of Planning John Careford directly, to explore the issues raised by the application and our multiple, cogent reasons for opposing it.
Purely speculative on my part, but I do wonder whether CEG (Malta) Ltd. are having (extreme?) difficulty in responding to the comprehen-sive, forensic issues and objections summarised in the SDC Planning Department's letter (under: Correspondence 23/01054/OUT) of 23rd October 2023. We certainly hope so! Tony Hughes
New Priest-in-Charge for Gaydon
The Reverend Barry Jackson was licensed as Priest-in-Charge of the Dassett Magna Group by the Archdeacon Missioner on 11 November at a service in The Chapel of Ease, Northend.
The position of Associate Minister will be advertised in early New Year. This will make a priest available to be shared by the four parishes of Gaydon, Northend, Fenny Compton and Burton Dassett in 2025.
Christmas Letter
In the build-up to Christmas, the shops are starting to fill with decorations and gift ideas. For several months we’ve been planning the various Christmas and carol services, and I am looking forward to getting together with people from around the area at many festive events over this season.
For our family, Christmas will be a bit different this year as our eldest has moved to Australia. When I get back from midnight communion, we’ll be calling her to wish her Happy Christmas, as it will be past 10am in the morning for her.
But for many people, Christmas will be more than different, it will be difficult, if not impossible. Wars continue to escalate around the world, and the impact of climate change is bringing huge suffering. On top of that, the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury over the findings in the Makin report reminds us of the great suffering that can occur when we fail to safeguard the most vulnerable among us.
It was not that different when Jesus was born. There was a military occupation, there was the killing of children, and Jesus’ family were displaced as refugees fleeing to Egypt for safety. In that dark time, fanfares of angels announced the coming of the prince of peace, the saviour who would bring light and hope to the world.
Sending a baby might seem an odd way for God to bring hope to the world, but God isn’t looking for a quick fix (there isn’t one), but something more profound. The heart of the problems we face is in the way that humanity treats one another. My years leading strategic change management in industry, and now in the church, taught me that you can never force lasting change on anyone.
God knows that too, so he doesn’t force change, but through Jesus sets in motion a long-term strategic plan to show humanity a different way to live. Jesus comes not in force, but humbly and vulnerably. He grows up and starts a movement, a community founded on love and compassion with a mandate to change the world through sharing that love.
Over the centuries there have been many times the church has got things badly wrong, and it still does. But God has continued to work with anyone (whether they are part of the church or not) who wants to be part of that long-term strategic plan to heal our world.
I feel very fortunate to have witnessed many times when lives have been transformed by acts of love and compassion. Not only through things like the foodbank and the many community events that bring people together, but also in the many everyday ways that people in our communities go the extra mile to help others. And these same sorts of acts of kindness go on all over the world.
As we gather at Christmas, we remember the birth of the child who started this peaceful revolution; we share hope and love to encourage one another, re-committing to do our part wherever we are; to join in with God’s long-term plan and transform the world through the love he offers.
Merry Christmas! Rev. Barry Jackson, Priest-in-Charge
December Memorial Book
2005 3rd Rex White
2022 9th Betty Margaret Leah Bennett
2004 10th Trevor Taylor
2004 19th Jean Welch
2018 25th Trevor Lightowler
2000 27th Evelyn Olds
1999 30th John Barker
If there is a special entry that you would like to see, let me know and I will try to make sure that the Book is open on that day. Julie Rickman
Obituary
It is with sadness that we record the death of Ray Carr on 12 November 2024. We offer our condolences to Maria and family.
November Flag Days
10th & 11th: Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day.
12th: In loving memory of Ray Carr.
14th: Birthday of HM The King - long may he reign!
If you have something to celebrate or commemorate, ring Siobhan on 07780 689582, and she will raise the flag for you, in return for a £5 contribution to Church funds.
The Resignation of Archbishop Justin Welby
Reverend Barry Jackson wrote on 19 November:
Dear Friends, I'm sure that all of you will have heard about the Archbishop of Canterbury's resignation following the publication of the Makin report.
Profound and repeated physical abuse is among the worst things that can happen to anyone. The Archbishop commissioned Keith Makin to investigate whether there was anything the church could have done to prevent these terrible crimes. After five years the Makin Report suggested that the Archbishop of Canterbury, along with others, could have acted differently, so that many could have been saved from an unspeakable experience of harm. This has led to his resignation.
Archbishop Justin said,
“When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed, wrongly, that an appropriate resolution would follow. It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024… I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church. As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse.”
Over the last ten years, the church has made significant progress in improving its approach to safeguarding. Much of this good work has been done at the parish level: I thank you for all you are doing. However, there is still more to do as we work to embed a positive culture towards safeguarding, and we all have a part to play in that.
These are very sad and dificult matters and we pray for those who have suffered. If these events have stirred up memories that are painful, please do get in touch. Any of our clergy team would be happy to meet you, to listen and pray, and offer any support we can. God Bless, Barry