May 2001
At the Annual Parish Meeting held on 9 April residents voted unanimously to support the proposal made by the Parish Council that the funds in the Village Chest should in future be administered by Dacorum Voluntary Trust.
The Dacorum Voluntary Trust is a registered charity and was the first major community trust to be set up in the UK. Based in Hemel Hempstead, it has a board of respected local Trustees and the Administrator, Margaret Kingston, lives in Chipperfield. Larger grants are made quarterly but The Trust can also respond more quickly, providing individual small grants to meet immediate needs. Application for grants can be made by organisations and by individuals, who may apply personally or application may be made on their behalf by a doctor, social worker, member of their church, relative or friend.
The Village Chest will be known in future as the Chipperfield Community Fund and will only be available to residents of Chipperfield. Information about the total number of grants given, and their value, will be published regularly in Chipperfield News. The Dacorum Voluntary Trust publishes an annual report which gives details of all the organisations which receive grants and the number of grants made to individuals. The Parish Council and the Trust will be meeting shortly to work out the details of its administration (for example, the maximum amount of any one grant) and their decisions will be published in Chipperfield News.
THE POST OFFICE STORES
From Wednesday 18 April the Post Office Stores has been under new management.
Pat, Tim and Jane wish Mr. and Mrs. Bipin Pathak all the best and would like to thank all their customers and the many friends which they have made in Chipperfield for their support over the last five years.
The Parish Council would like to thank Pat, Tim and Jane for their generous donation of profits from their sales of “Chipperifeld Within Living Memory” to the Chipperfield Community Fund.
WALKERS ON THE PATH
Now that our footpath is closed due to Foot and Mouth restrictions, it is easier to see who or what has been using it during the night. Badgers have a regular route that crosses it but now we can see that they use its whole length. Some very clear tracks have been left in the soft mud, all the badger’s five toes being clearly visible. The sow badgers will have given birth to their cubs at the beginning of February and won’t go far from the set to forage for food. But the boar badgers will be keen to scent mark the boundaries of their territory as the females will be ready to mate again soon after the arrival of the cubs and they won’t want any interlopers nipping in after their wives. All the wet weather we have had has made digging easier for the badgers but I imagine it must be a job for them to find fresh bedding just now. Unlike foxes’ earths, which can be smelly, dirty places, badgers are much more house-proud, bringing their bedding above ground to air on dry days and using a regular latrine a short distance away from the set.
The badgers’ main food is earth worms but they also enjoy the grubs and beetles that live in dead wood and they have been busy scratching an old fallen apple tree trunk in the garden. Our son John used to use it as a seat when he and his friends had campfire picnics but now it’s the badger’s turn to dine. They have also enjoyed a fair few peanuts lately as a wicked squirrel has recently nibbled the bottom of the bird feeder and let all the nuts out. There may be half a pound on the ground at dusk but they are all gone by morning!
We are most grateful that people have respected the Foot and Mouth restrictions, although we have only six sheep and one goat and don’t rely on them for a living, they are just as precious to us as dogs are to their owners, (in fact one or two of them seem to think that they are dogs!) and we are anxious to reduce the risk of infection to them as much as we can. These are worrying times for all keepers of cloven-hoofed animals.
Wendy Bathurst
NEW BUS SERVICE
Red Rose Travel are now operating a revised bus service from The Two Brewers. The route for services R8 and R9 begins at The Two Brewers and goes to Kings Langley (High Street and station), Abbots Langley and North Watford, stopping at Sainsbury’ s and terminating at Asda. To travel on to Watford Junction and Watford Town Centre, alight from R9 at Asda and change to R8. Service R19 from The Two Brewers stops at Kings Langley station on its route to and from Abbots Langley and Garston. A revised timetable is displayed at The Two Brewers bus stop.
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY
Although the Vernal Equinox, which occurred on 20 March, was the official start of spring, for me the first day of spring was ten days later. Friday 30 March was such a glorious day with one of those lovely evenings which had me in the garden until well after dusk listening to a blackbird singing his heart out. Mind you, that was just about all I could do as the ground was still too wet to work on. Later on the same evening I went up to the Village Hall to set up the tables for our Spring Show the following day. And what a successful show it was too! 41 exhibitors altogether and a steady stream of visitors who seemed to enjoy the event despite a temporary lack of toilet facilities.
If you havn’t already done so, now is a good time to prune those Forsythia bushes. They flower on new wood, so just trim back this year’s faded flower stems. Strawberry beds will benefit from a good weeding and mulch with plastic or straw to protect the fruits which will be forming at the end of the month and it will soon be time to sow tender vegetables such as French Beans directly into the garden but do watch out for those unexpected late frosts.
John Hopkins
ANY OLD PHONE!
Do you have any unused and out-dated mobile phones lurking in your home? Mobile phones contain potentially dangerous substances and most end up in landfill sites, doing nobody any good. A business called Cellular Reclamation collects old phones and batteries and regenerates them for second-hand users, mainly in the developing world. The materials in those that cannot be repaired are re-cycled.
Depending on their condition, phones can be worth between £5 and £30 each and - here’s a way of making them earn their living twice over - you could choose to donate the money earned to Water Aid, so helping to provide the world’s poorest people with commodities we take for granted in Britain, safe domestic water, sanitation and hygiene.
All you need to do is put your old phone in a jiffy bag, with a note of your name and address and a request that the money raised should be sent to Water Aid. Send it to:
Rob James, Water Aid Account, Cellular Reclamation Ltd., Unit One, Hardwood Court, Whitestone, Hereford, HR1 3NE.
In return you will receive a note of the value of your donation and Water Aid will receive the funds. If more than 10 old phones can be collected, for example from within a company, Cellular Reclaimation will come and pick them up. For further information phone Emily Boyd-Carpenter on 020 7793 4535.
AFRICAN MEDICAL MISSION
News from the Transkei
At the Bedford Orthopaedic Centre work has started on a 60-bed spinal unit, renovations to the nurses home and another doctor’s residence. A new, young, Transkeian orthopaedic doctor started work in January and Sister Tandi and her team won the prize for the best run, best kept ward in the Umtata Hospital system for the second year running.
The Itipini Community Project was devastated by the sudden and unexpected death of Victoria Sindiswa, a much loved clinical assistant, last October. The AIDS awareness programme is struggling to continue following her loss. A new vehicle recently donated has proved invaluable for collecting and distributing weekly rations to the elderly and ill and transporting patients to the hospital and a grant from the First Rand Foundation has enabled a brand new orthopaedic drill to be purchased.
FAMILY PERISH IN HORROR BLAZE
CHILDREN DIE IN HOUSE FIRE
COMMUNITY DEVASTATED BY TRAGIC LOSS
These are genuine newspaper headlines taken from national newspapers. These are the headlines that we don’t want to see in our local papers. But the fact is, fire can strike at any time at any place, your house, my house, your neighbour’s house, anywhere.
Over the Christmas period three lives were lost to house fires in Hertfordshire, in addition to that there were thirteen near misses. A near miss is when the occupants of the dwelling were alerted to the fire by the cries of the family pet. In all of these cases it was found that there was either no smoke alarm fitted, or that the smoke alarms had the batteries removed. These fires all happened at night whilst the families were asleep in bed. In all the cases the houses were severely damaged by fire smoke & heat.
A fire that is detected early can be dealt with early, without injury or loss to life. A house fire in the community brings home to us the need to be a little more safety conscious. A house fire that causes a death is traumatic for the neighbours and the surrounding community, and believe it or not it has a traumatic effect on the fire and ambulance crews involved in the rescues. But for the family of the deceased there is no measure to describe the pain, anguish, and devastation caused by such a sad and tragic loss.
Sad, tragic and in 90% of cases, unnecessary and totally avoidable. We can not prepare ourselves for the devastation that losing a loved one brings, but we can prepare for an emergency if it should happen.
What can we do to protect ourselves?
1. Fit a smoke alarm.
These inexpensive warning devices will detect smoke from a potentially lethal fire almost as it starts and will give you those precious few minutes that you will need to make your escape. If you have already got a detector, check that it operates correctly by depressing the test button. (In the time it has taken you to read this you could have tested all your smoke detectors.)
2. Plan your escape route and inform all your family of the plan. Practice your escape so that in the event of a fire starting in your home you can be confident that all your family will get out in time.
3. Make sure that all members of your household know how to call the fire service (999)
We would like to think that not having a working smoke detector is not an option in the area that surrounds Bovingdon Fire Station. If you haven’t got one and you would like some advice on where to fix one or you would like us to fit one for you, please call or fax us on 01442 832261. As the station is not manned all the time, you will need to leave a message on the answerphone. Simply leave your name, phone number, address and the nature of the enquiry and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Jamie Fyfe, Station Commander, Bovingdon Fire Station