Etchingham

Saturday November 9, put the date in your diary, this is the date of the annual Bonfire and Fireworks. As you will be aware, the site that has been used for a number of years is now the site of the new school and village hall, so the event will be at a new location this year. The location this year is 300 yards down Oxenbridge Lane, by kind permission of Sheila Parker, please park in the village and walk down. All the usual activities bonfire, fireworks, beer tent, hot dogs, soup, mulled wine. A prize for the best guy, take your guy to the Etchingham Shop and Deli by 2pm on the day, judging will be at 3pm. The barbecue will start at 6pm with the fireworks at 7pm.

Community Speed Watch, we have been approached by PCSO Tina Grevett to ask if a Speed Watch Campaign can be organised in Etchingham, schemes have already been started in Robertsbridge and Hurst Green. Full equipment and all the necessary training will be given. If we can get a reasonable number of volunteers, then no one will have to do it very often. We understand that it would be only for a couple of hours on specific days during the week. If you want to find out more about how Speed watch works go to the village website www.etchinghamvillage.co.uk, follow the Speed Watch link on the left, or visit the Sussex Police website www.sussex.police.uk and put Speed Watch into the search box. If you are willing to be included in such a useful and necessary scheme please ring Jill Copland on 01580 819321, Colin Boylett on 01580 819532 or email etchinghamvillagewebsite@gmail .com .

The annual Royal British Legion Poppy appeal is approaching fast, door to door collections will be made between November 2 and November 9, we do however have some areas of the village without a collector. If you can help by collecting in Fontridge Lane, Borders Lane, Burgh Hill, Fysie Lane or the Straight Mile, if you can help with any of these locations please contact Shaun or Eleanor Knowles on 01580 819117.

The Remembrance Day service will be on Sunday November 10, gather at the War Memorial at the Church for the service which will start at 10.45am.

Etchingham School Bazaar will be held on Saturday November 23 at the school from 12 noon to 3pm. Father Christmas will be in attendance, there will be lots of stalls to buy Christmas gifts, a BBQ and café will provide refreshments including mulled wine and mince pies. Attractions such as tombola, guess the weight of the cake and face painting will be going on during the afternoon. Raffle tickets will be on sale soon and will also be available on the day. All very welcome with fun for all the family.

The Annual General Meeting of the Etchingham Trust for Sports and Recreation (ETSR) was held on Monday October 14, in the village hall. A small group of parishioners attended. Chairman, John Barnes, gave a report on the very busy year which has resulted in building work on the new school and village hall due to start end of October or beginning of November, with occupation of the new buildings expected by the end of next year. A large part of the funding required for the community element of the project is already in place, from the sale of the existing village hall site and a generous contribution from the landowner, A further fairly large sum needs to be raised over the next year, several applications have been made to various grant funding bodies, it is hoped a large portion of the funding will come from these sources, but a lot will still need to be raised from local events, if you have any ideas for fund raising contact ETSR, all contact details are on the ETSR pages of the village website www.etchinghamvillage.co.uk

ETSR and the Parish Council have also taken up the option to re-instate the field to the east of the new development, which up until 1939 was the village cricket field, as a village sports field. This will require fund raising for fencing the area, draining and leveling the field and laying a cricket square, it is hoped that a large part of this funding will come from grant sources.

The existing Trustees were unanimously elected to serve for another year, details of all the Trustees and Patrons of ETSR can be found on this page of the village website http://www.etchinghamvillage.co.uk/etsr/trustees-and-patrons/

As the project moves forward regular updates on progress will be posted on the village website www.etchinghamvillage.co.uk

For maximum publicity of all your Christmas events in this column, get the details to me as soon as possible, also, if you are planning fund raising events for Children in need get the details to me as soon as possible.

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]