Hughenden Valley Residents Association

Author: hvrawebmaster

  • Valley Friends Report March

    From Joan Steele

    ” The Fantastic Farnes”

    Heather opened the meeting with announcements and introduced Chris Ward, our speaker who showed us the Farne Islands on a map. They are 3 to 4 miles off the Northumbrian coast, with Berwick on Tweed being the nearest town.The Islands belong to the Nanional Trust and can be reached by boat. Trips sail from the picturesque harbour at the little village of Seahouses. It is only possible to land on two of the islands, the others are seen well from the boat. The hermit St Cuthbert lived on the Farnes for many years. Nothumberland has over 70 castles, Banburgh and Dunstanburgh are on the very impressive coastline where there are miles of sand dunes. The county flower is the Bloody Cranesbill seen along with orhers eg wild orchids, and poppie. Visitors to the islands are able to go into Longstone Lighthouse, made famous in 1838 by Grace Darling who spotted a shipwreck on a very stormy night and with her father rowed out to resue 9 sailers.

    The islands are inhabited by thousands of sea birds, which have no predators. They come close to visitors who are easily able to photograph them, hence Clive had very impressive slides to illustrate his talk. The inner Farne has 22 thousand water birds nesting there the most common being Guillimots that nest on the top of the cliffs, and Razorbills that nest on the cliff face. Kittiwakes are seen but most of the year are out at sea. There are Shags which are black like Cormorants, they fish around the islands but live on the coast. They breed at various stages in the year. Puffins are the favourites, and commonest with 39,000 pairs at the last count. They nest in burrows on top of the cliffs and carry up to 62 sand eels in their beaks at a time to feed their pufflings. They are long lived, many for 18 years and oldest recorded 30 years. All the birds plus gulls, are seen on all the islands, except the Arctic Tern which lives only on the Inner Farne. June or July is nesting time when they are quite vicious and attack visitors who must wear hard hats or carry something over head eg umbrella to avoid injury. They nest on the ground and have tiny chicks. The Arctic Terns are stunning birds that fly all over the world from the Arctic to the Antarctic a distance of 56,000 miles per year and they live over 20 years, equivalent of flying to the moon and back! Many Eider ducks and ducklings live around the harbours and islands. They make nests lined with their own feathers. In Iceland an eider duck quilt could cost up to 5,000. The Eider Drake is lazy and takes no part in rearing the ducklings.

    Chris answered questions about National Trust full time and seasonal volenteers on the islands and boats etc. and was thanked by Heather for a most interesting evening.

    Our next meeting is on April 4th when Annette Abraminko’s subject is “Coping with MS”. All Welcome.

  • Printer inks free to good home

    From Angus Idle, HVRA Co-Chair

    I have got some HP Ink cartridges left over after my printer had to be replaced.  They are:

    • HP46 Black (x2)
    • HP58 Photo black
    • HP 56 Black
    • HP22XL  Three colour inks

    If anyone is able to use them please feel free to email or call me (contact details on the Contacts page.

    Angus

  • HAGA Programme 2016

    From Joanna Hughes

    Here’s the 2016 HAGA Programme of Events.  HAGA is the Hughenden Allotment and Gardening Association.  Monthly meetings are the last Friday of the month at 8pm in the Hughenden Valley Small Village Hall.  See the programme for details of these and of full-day outings and the summer short break. All welcome.

  • Tombola Appeal

    santa

    The Village Hall Christmas Bazaar is on Saturday 28th November in the large Hall from 2.00pm. The Residents Association is organizing two tombolas, one for adults and one for children.

    We need plenty of donations of bottles, unwanted new gifts, toiletries, tins or chocolates (please check the ‘best before’ date), toys, games, jigsaws, books and sweets, suitable for adults or children.

    Please give generously to ensure fun for all. You may forward items through your Road Rep if they have left you a flyer or you may bring items to the Village Hall on the morning of Saturday 28th from 9.30am. If you have a large amount to donate and cannot make other arrangements, please email tombola@hughendenresidents.org.

    Thank you for your generosity and we look forward to seeing you at the Christmas Bazaar when Santa Claus may also be in attendance!

  • Valley Friends October Notes

    from Joan Steel

    Jill welcomed everyone to our AGM and 49th Birthday Party and read the apologies. In her report she recalled the highlights of the years varied programme of excellent talks and enjoyable activities. Among them was an evening making a Christmas table flower arrangement, a talk entitled “Grandma flew Spitfires, the Fernie Field Four – a group of excellent lady saxophonists, an evening ramble in the late spring, and a talk about the Linden Gate charity. Our most recent event was a dinner followed with entertainment by the Lamp House Ladies Choir. The evening was very successful and completed our year on a high note.

    The members of the committee gave their reports and along with Jill, were all re-elected. The proposal to increase the membership fee was accepted and is now £27 (because speaker’s fees have increased); a visitors’ fee is to remain at £3 per evening. We look forward to having more new members to enjoy the really interesting programme we have for the coming year. We are continuing to support the South Bucks Hospice and High Wycombe MS with our fund raising raffle and hospice book etc. stall.

    Jill thanked the committee for their work during the year and expressed our regrets that Josie needs more time to recover before returning to the committee. Norma was congratulated for completing the course to qualify her in the use the Village Hall defibrillator. Doreen presented a plant to Jill to thank her on behalf of us all for her friendship, dedication and enthusiasm over many years as leader, which has kept the group active and thriving. Jill quoted our motto “Friendship is the Golden Chain by which Society is Joined Together “. Business having been concluded we commenced supper and birthday cake all prepared by Doreen; very many thanks”.

    During the evening we had a Quiz which involved place names of local villages and the team with the highest score were given a prize. We have a team entering the Potter quiz on October 17th.

    Our next meeting is on November 6th “The Early Life of Norman Wisdom”. All Welcome.

  • Neighbourhood Watch Advice

    The Wycombe District Neighbourhood Watch Association (WDNHWA) have been in touch with some security advice, and an offer to help launch or relaunch local groups. If you are interested, get in touch with your local group or with WDNHWA; their website is at www.neighbourhoodwatchwycombe.org, and you can email them at publicitywdnhwa@hotmail.co.uk. Here’s their useful security advice:

    Street signs and window stickers:
    These are free of charge for NHW members, email us if you need more. Burglars are put off by the presence of NHW street signs and No Doorstep Selling Zone street signs on lamp-posts or BT poles. So, if you don’t have them for your scheme, or if yours have been damaged, do get in touch with us and we will supply them free of charge. We can also supply NHW stickers, No Cold Callers stickers, and ‘101’ reminder cards.

    WDNHWA Committee:
    New committee members are always welcome and we would be pleased to hear from you, even if you are just interested in helping in your area. We meet to discuss events and activities with the aim of increasing our already flourishing NHW coverage in the area. We are particularly keen to recruit additional Area Co-ordinators within High Wycombe.

    Tell the scam man to “scram”:
    Pensioners are becoming increasingly easy targets for fraud and are warned to be alert for the “get-rich-quick” con man. The advice comes following a 25% jump in fraud cases over the past year. Accountancy group KPMG revealed that UK courts dealt with the third consecutive annual increase in fraud cases. It said fraudsters were increasingly using positions of authority to prey on “gullible” investors, especially pensioners who were freed from the requirements to buy an annuity and were desperately looking for places to invest.

    Your bank will NEVER ask – but a fraudster will:
    – Call or email you to ask for your full PIN or any online banking passwords.
    – Send someone to your home to collect cash, bank cards, or anything else.
    – Ask you to authorise the transfer of funds to a new account or hand over cash.
    – Ask you to carry out a “test transaction” online.
    – Send an email with a link to a website that asks you to enter your online banking details.
    – Ask you to email or text personal or banking information.
    – Provide banking services through any mobile apps other than the bank’s official apps.
    – Call to advise you to buy diamonds, land, or other commodities.

    WDNHWA is keen to develop more local schemes and to help enhance existing ones wherever possible. If you are at least receiving and distributing the Alert crime information messages to your neighbours, that’s fine, but we would urge you to keep in mind these key points re NHW:
    – To look out for yourselves and your neighbours.
    – To report crimes and importantly, the suspicions of crime to the police and to feel assured that the police do want to hear from you even for suspicions.
    – To keep an eye out for anyone in your communtiy who appears o be vulnerable, particulary to those calling door-to-door.
    – To take care over anyone in your community who may have a fear of crime. Knowing the true situation may comfort them.

    Fortunately, the crime figures for the Wycombe District are showing a constant decline in acquisitive crimes and we are confident that the strong presence of NHW in the district has contributed to this decline. However, we need to keep on being vigilant. Unfortunately, there seems to be an increase in the very many types of cons and scams. Furthermore, so many of these crimes or attempted crimes affect the elderly and infirm and so many of them go unreported. Consequently, WDNHWA wishes to make its presence felt where needed in these areas. We already have NHW schemes based on about 40 different sheltered, retirement or care homes, but more would be welcome. We also wish to emphasise the need to report crimes and attempted crimes.

    Reporting fraud, or attempted fraud:
    Contact Action Fraud, which is a police body specifically dealing with fraud:
    – phone: 0300.123.2040
    – http://www.actionfraud.police.uk
    You can report fraud and attempted fraud via this website.

    A couple of unusual tips:
    – Pickpockets often hang around near “Beware of Pickpockets” signs and then watch people instinctively tap their pockets to pinpoint their valuables.
    – Don’t keep your driving licence with your credit cards. Losing your cards is bad enough without giving the thief your address, full name, and date of birth.

    WDNHWA website:
    Do visit our website (see above). It contains lots of useful advice and many links to other organisations that are involved in helping to prevent crime or ones that are compatible with our interests. Do also take note of the discount arrangements that are available for NHW members on the page called “Security products for sale”.

    Call the police:
    The “999” emergency number remains in use nationwide. It is for crimes that are taking place. For all other matters, the phone number for the police is “101” and this also operates nationwide. You don’t need to try to find the phone number of your local police station, just call “101”.

  • Valley Friends September Notes

    Lindengate, a local charity based near Wendover was the subject of a talk at our July meeting. The aim of this organisation is to work with nature to help to improve and regain mental health by providing gardening activities in a tranquil and rural setting, enabling you to regain your mental strength and start to flourish. Everyone over the age of eighteen years is welcome.

    Lindengate contacts are Sian Chattle (sianchattle@lindengate.org.uk) and Charlie Powell (charliepowell@lindengate.org.uk). A GP or health care professional may refer you to Lindengate or you can apply yourself using the form on the web site at www.lindengate.org.uk.

    In August our Pot Luck Supper was most enjoyable and a great social evening.

  • Website refresh

    If you’re reading this post then you are seeing the refreshed Hughenden Valley Residents Association website. The old one was starting to look a little tired, and there was some unnecessary technical complexity behind the scenes. The refreshed site has a clean, fresh new look and feel that I hope you like; all of the existing content is here (except for some older material which has been tidied away), and there are some (hopefully) useful new features.

    All the News from the Association and some other village organisations is on the News page as before, and now includes any items related to Planning and HS2, which used to have their own pages. Remember that you can search for News, or access the archives by Category or Month. Remember too, that you can sign up to receive all News by email, so that you don’t miss anything. A new feature is that you can now share News stories with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ – just click on the buttons. If you have a News item that you would like to contribute, please send it to the Secretary or Webmaster.

    The Calendar is now a fully functioning Google Calendar embedded in the website, so you can change between weekly, monthly and list views. If you have an event that you would like included in this Calendar, please send details to the Secretary. The next five upcoming events are also listed on the Home page.

    The Links page is unchanged; if you have a new link that you think would be useful, or an update to an existing one, please email details to the Webmaster.

    The official documents of the Association are now on a Documents page, including the Constitution, AGM minutes, and Executive Committee meeting minutes.

    Behind the scenes, the site is now hosted at WordPress.com, which means that technical things like security, backups, keeping the underlying software up to date etc. are all taken care of by one of the largest and best companies for website of this kind. It’s also easier to use for editors, and we get better usage statistics.

    All comments and suggestions to the Webmaster welcome.

  • Potter Cup Quiz Saturday 17th October

    Annual Potter Cup quiz & buffet in Hughenden Vilage Hall at 7pm for a prompt start at 7.30.

    THEME: Merry England (& Scotland, Wales & N. Ireland)
    COST: Still held at only £10 per head, which will include a good quality buffet
    TEAM SIZE: Optimum size 8 please, but a little bit of leeway is allowed
    TEAM NAME: Your choice
    FANCY DRESS (Linked to the Theme): Optional
    DRINKS: Bring your own drinks & glasses

    For further details and to reserve your team table, contact Al Bowyer on albert.bowyer@btinternet.com or 01494 562862.

  • Parish Council to meet in Hughenden Valley 8th September

    The Parish Council are holding some of their regular monthly meetings at various locations throughout the parish in the hope that more parishioners will attend. On Tuesday 8th September the Parish Council comes to Hughenden Valley Village Hall (Small Hall). This meeting will start at 7.30pm with the presentation of awards for the Annual Parish Allotment Competition, followed by a short talk by the new Station Commander of RAF High Wycombe at Walter’s Ash, and then the September Full Council Meeting.  Details of agenda will be available on the Parish Council website.