Icklesham

Sunday 1 September 10.30 in All Saints Parish Eucharist

Sunday 1 September Queen’s Head Live Music 4-6

August winners in the New Pavilion Lottery were £30 Dave Harding,£15 Frances Read,£10 Sandra Stunt,£5 Robin Shearer, and £5 Kim Holland. The prize money is rising as there are now 134 shares. If you want to join Icklesham’s own flutter there is always an application form in the Parish Magazine.

Monday 12 August a 38 year old man was saved from drowning at Winchelsea Beach. Two young men from Icklesham Callum Martin (14) and Mason Gooch(15) saw he was in trouble and didn’t panic. Mason phoned 999 and Rother Responders and the Sussex Air Ambulance completed the rescue. So always have your mobile with you and keep calm.

September is a busy month.

Saturday 7 September Craft Fair 10am - 3pm in the Memorial Hall. This popular monthly event is returning after a summer break with lots of great items for the Autumn. There are a few new craft stalls this month ,with some unusual gift ideas for birthdays and Christmas.As always there will be refreshments available and all proceeds from the refreshments will be donated to the Macmillan coffee mornings 2013.

If you are able to donate a cake or cakes that could be sold in aid of this worthwhile charity they will be gratefully received on the morning of the Fair. Everyone is welcome. There is plenty of free parking and an excellent children’s play area on the edge of the car park.

Icklesham Players’ next production is a double bill of two one act plays. ”Café Society” centres on three old ladies who meet regularly in a local café. Funny, poignant it is a good comedy in which you laugh h one moment and cry the next. The award winning director Josie Martin and the old dears being played by three of the best actresses in the Players - Josie Body,Janet Kates and Nicky Harris - make for real entertainment. The second play””Last Tango in Little Grimley” is hilarious. It is set in a village hall where the local drama group are holding their A.G.M. They are worried about falling audience numbers and decide that they need to do a play with sex in it to boost ticket sales. What follows will have you rolling in the aisles. There are just four members of the cast, Del Smith,Greg Slaughter, Debbie McLean and Charlotte Easties and each one is brilliantly cast. Nicky Harris is the director. The Plays open on Thursday 26 September at 7.30 and run until Saturday 28th. Tickets are available from the Village Store or by calling Nicky on 01424 812996

Wednesday 11 September 6.30 Rye Community Primary School. Rye Medical Centre and Ferry Road Patient Participation Groups present “Changes to your local Health Services”. This is your chance to find out how recent changes in the NHS and developments at the Rye,Winchelsea & District Memorial Hospital affect you. All are welcome, Refreshments provided. Car parking via school entrance in Love Lane.

Saturday 14 September the Sussex Historic Churches Sponsored Cycle Ride. Hugh and Annabelle will be taking part. Please sign the Sponsor Form at the back of the church if you would like to support them.

Saturday 21 September 11-2 the last Church Market of 2013

Saturday 21 September 7.30 the Memorial Hall and the first Quiz Night of the Autumn. This will raise funds for the Hall itself. There will be 6 more Quiz nights. Each will raise funds for a village organisation. Entry is £2.50 per person with teams of up to 6.

Fracking and Icklesham. Balcombe has been in the headlines as exploratory drilling has taken place to see if there are sufficient reserves of oil and gas to be economically worth extracting. If there was then the fracking process would be used. Icklesham and Balcombe are about the same size and have similar geology. The Weald, which both villages are sited in, is an area with many sandstones which were originally the sediments at the bottom of large sea over 100 million years ago. The plentiful life in those seas was microscopic and when each minute creature died its body decomposed into oil and gas. These eventual fossil fuels soaked into the sandstones and shales. So if the economic and geological factors were favourable a potential for a bonanza could exist. At present the immense wealth of Alberta and therefore Canada is based on oil shales. There has always been oil and gas in the Weald rarely used but in the days of steam railways Heathfield station was well lit entirely by using local gas which was much cheaper than buying gas from the town gas works which burnt coal and coke. Watch this space!

We do not want to be in the press like Balcombe. Yet on Friday 23 August the “Guardian” newspaper had a centre page double spread of photographs all taken in a part of Icklesham village. The headline was “Eyewitness Rye East Sussex”. The photos were all taken in the reed beds of a private nature reserve. Ornithologists were netting, recording, weighing, ringing and releasing migrating birds in the Pannel Sewer Valley,Icklesham. Sand Martins, Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers and Grasshopper Warblers were shown and even an Italian student in training to be a qualified bird ringer.

Once a year during the Rye Festival a small group has a guided tour. But it is not easy. I have applied for the last two years as soon as the booking office was open to be told it was fully booked already.