Etchingham

A booking form can be downloaded from www.etchinghammusicfestival.co.uk where you will find more information about the concerts and the festival. More information by email [email protected] or phone 01580 819384.

The Friends of Burwash Surgery will be holding their AGM on Wednesday July 9, 7pm, in the Church room at Christ the King Catholic Church, Burwash. The Friends are actively seeking at least one new committee member, anyone interested in filling this position should contact Frank Smith on 01580 819326 or email [email protected]

As part of their 70th anniversary celebrations Sedlescombe & District Garden Society are holding a Gardener’s Question Time in Sedlescombe village hall on Friday June 20, 7pm for a 7.30 start. The celebrity panel will include Helen Yemm, gardening agony aunt for the Daily Telegraph; Edward Flint, Head Gardener at Tidebrook Manor, Wadhurst and Barry Newman, Chairman of the National Vegetable Society. Tickets which include refreshments are £5 for SDGS members and £7.50 for non-members, available from the secretary, Sue Parsons 01580 831996 [email protected] , advance booking would be appreciated in order to establish final numbers. It promises to be a most educational and entertaining evening and is open to everyone from neighbouring villages.

The Etchingham Singers present a programme of songs from the Great War in Etchingham Church on Sunday June 29, 3pm. The concert will lasdt just over an hour and will include some poems from the same period. There is no entrance fee, and a typical Etchingham Afternoon Tea will be served after the concert, but there will be a retiring collection in aid of the Royal British Legion.

The Parish Walk will be on Sunday June 22, leaving from the Church at around 12.15, heading off southwards, with a stop to eat sandwiches etc., and loop round to end with a cup of tea at an address back in the High Street. Dogs and children very welcome.

The Flower and Dog Show this year will be on Saturday September 13, so start nurturing your plants to get the best exhibits for the show. Get busy making your handicraft items, and photographers get snapping the photography classes this year are ‘Frozen in time’, ‘Yellow’, ‘Portrait of Etchingham’ and ‘Victory’.

Community Speedwatch; The Speedwatch group continues to operate sessions in most weeks, but in the summer months demand on the equipment from other groups in the area increases, so we do have a couple of weeks when we cannot operate because the equipment was already booked by another group. You can keep up to date with the weekly activity of the Etchingham Community Speedwatch group on the Facebook page www.facebook.com/etchinghamspeedwatch ‘Like’ the page and get news as it is added to the page.

We currently have only six trained and active operators, we need more volunteer operators if we are to continue with the same frequency or we will have to reduce the frequency to avoid overloading the few volunteers we have.

If you, or you know in the village, feels inclined to get involved, please get in touch with me. Volunteers need to be trained in the use of the equipment and the safety issues involved before they can go out on Speed checks, the training is not difficult and takes just a couple of hours at Battle Police Station. Once trained, volunteer operators can take part in as many or few sessions as they want. Anyone interested in helping can get more information on the village websitewww.etchinghamvillage.co.uk or atwww.communityspeedwatch.co.uk, updates of the group’s activities are on Facebook www.facebook.com/etchinghamspeedwatch If you have any questions - please ask. Colin Boylett, Speedwatch Co-ordinator 01580 819532 [email protected]

If you might be interested in helping, but would like to find out more before putting your name down, you are welcome to join the group on a session, as an observer, to see how Speedwatch works. A maximum of two observers on a session, so if interested please [email protected] to arrange a session date and time that suits you.

A Midsummers Party at Burgham Farm, Sheepstreet Lane on Saturday June 21, 7.30pm till Midnihgt, in support of Scotty’s Little Soldiers. Live Band, International Burger Bar, Auction of Promises and Raffle. Tickets are £10 per adult, children free, available from the Etchingham Shop & Deli and the Bistro, or email Beth at [email protected] Scotty’s Little Soldiers is a Charity dedicated to supporting the children of men and women killed whilst serving in the British Armed Forces.

In July the Village Summer Fete will be held in Queen’s Garden. I will be putting on a display of old photographs, postcards and documents in the Church, depicting much of the village history, and a lot of interesting items from neighbouring villages.

The display will be based around my collection of old photos and postcards, along with a lot of items which are forming the basis of a village archive, I also have access to a lot of photos and historic material relating to Etchingham Women’s Institute which will be on display, if you any suitable photos or items I can borrow get in touch with the details. Also as this will be the last year in the old school building, if you have any photos, school books or items that you made at school, or items relating to your parents or grandparents time at the school, I am keen to borrow for the display. You might have photos, books, documents, press cuttings or other items from your school days, or perhaps from parents or grandparents.

If you have photos or small documents I can either borrow the originals for the display or make copies so that you can have the original items back straight away. If you have books or larger items I will need to see what you have as soon as possible so that I know how much space is required and pick the items up a couple of days before the display.

The display will be in the area around and on the Choir Stalls and the Chancel in the Church. I will need a couple of extra tables to display the extra items on, all the tables from the old village hall will be in use for the Fete, so no spares available, I would like to be able to borrow a table if you have one available, a wallpaper paste table will be suitable if it is one of the more sturdy type, it will be used to display a number of books. If you have a table that might be suitable please get in touch.

If you have given me details of your event to put in this column, please remember to send me some details after the event so I can let your supporters know how successful the event was, how much you raised, interesting facts etc. Your supporters will be interested to know how you did.

Get information for this column to me as soon as possible, if you have a diary of events planned for the year let me have the dates and I will put in a list of village events for the year so that people can put the dates in their diaries. There are several ways to get your info to me, but email is preferred because there is less chance of errors during copying. I need information by 10pm on Monday to be sure it will be in time for inclusion, I can sometimes add extra items on Tuesday morning, but this cannot be guaranteed. Just a little reminder, I get plenty of information about events that are taking place, but I get very little follow up information, after your event try and remember to send me brief account of how successful your event was, it can be as simple as a thank you to those that attended and how much money was raised etc. You can deliver to 2 Park Farm Close, telephone 01580 819532 or 07941 786244 or email [email protected] .

Colin Boylett

2 Park Farm Close