Thame.net

Author: Sonja Francis

  • Thame Councillors Elected To SODC Committees

    DISTRICT Councillors for Thame have been allocated memberships of the various committees of South Oxfordshire District Councillor.
    Cllr Mike Welply (Con) will sit on Corporate Improvement Scrutiny and Licensing & General Purposes, and sit as a substistute on Customer & Community Scrutiny, Planning and the Community Investment Panel.
    Cllr David Dodds (Con), becomes a member of the Cabinet, as well as a substitute on Planning.
    Cllr Dorothy Brown (Con) also becomes a Cabinet member, as well as a substitute on Planning.
    Cllr Anne Midwinter (Ind) will sit on Planning, the Corporate Improvement Scrutiny committee and the Standards committee, as well as substituting on the Community Investment Panel, Licensing & General Purposes and Customer & Community Scrutiny.
    Cllr David Bretherton (Lib Dem) becomes a substitute on Corporate Improvement Scrutiny, Planning, the NNDR (Nationalal Non Domestic Rates) Panel and the Community Investment Panel.

  • Money For Tiddington & Gt Milton?

    THE District Council is to consider applications for grant aid from both Tiddington and Great Milton.
    Tiddington Cricket Club want

  • Thame Volunteers Honoured

    VOLUNTEER helpers and drivers at the Thame and District Day Centre, have been nominated for the Nationwide Awards for Voluntary Endeavour.
    They were recommended by the Centre’s manager, Jane Everist, who with her deputy, Wanda Pilgrim, held a party to celebrate their nomination.
    “Wanda and I could not run this Centre without you,” Jane told them.
    Copies of the certificate celebrating their nomination were handed out by the chairman of the trustees, Brenda Prosser, who said: “What we give is that precious thing, time. We just say thank you.”

  • More Bad News for Red Kite Nest Watch

    THE eagerly awaited red kite CCTV nest watch project has been stuck another blow of bad luck this week.
    The project, which shows live images of red kites rearing their chicks in a nest in Stokenchurch was delayed due to members of the public disturbing the nest site. A new nest was located, and the live link was re-established last Friday (May 20), revealing three chicks aged about 10 days to 2 weeks.

    Yesterday, regretfully, the smallest of the three chicks died.
    ?Red kite parents will always feed the biggest and strongest chicks first,? says Cathy Rose, of the Chilterns Conservation Board, who manages the Nest Watch project. ?Added to that, sibling rivalry is intense and the bigger chicks are often very aggressive towards their smaller siblings. Although this news may be upsetting for some people, the positive result is that the parents should find it easier to rear the remaining two chicks successfully.?

    The live CCTV footage from the nest can be viewed in the Coffee Shop of the Charwood Garden Centre on the A40 between Stokenchurch and West Wycombe. Call Cathy Rose on 01844 355 506 for more details.

  • Baby Born In Thame Car Park

    FIRE officers from Thame and an ambulance crew helped deliver a baby after a woman went into the final stages of labour whilst out shopping.
    The baby, a girl, was born on Monday, in the car park behind the Co-op store in Thame High Street, from where mother and baby were then taken to the JR hospital in Oxford.
    Fire crew are becoming more and more involved in first response calls since the Joint Responder scheme began two months ago. Under the pilot scheme, fire crew trained in First Aid and with specialist resuscitation equipment, respond to emergency calls if they are nearer than an ambulance to an incident.

    Oxfordshire Ambulance NHS Hospital Trust were unable to give anymore information today (Wednesday) because, they said, they did not have permission from the patient herself to do so.

  • Cycle Champ Inspires Pupils

    LORD Bill’s pupils welcomed a National Champion sportswoman yesterday, as part of Sport England’s new ‘Sporting Champions’ scheme aimed at inspiring more young people to get fit and play sport.
    Londoner Jenny Copnall rides for Gary Fisher in Britain and at International level.
    She was the 2003 National MTB Champion & NPS (National Points Series)winner in 2003, both of which she says she intends to win back.
    Jenny’s visit was part of the Oxfordshire Top Link Festival, which involved Lord Williams’s feeder primary schools.
    Throughout the day, she visited and participated in all the activities and spoke in turn to 15 groups about her life as a professional sportswoman and showed her medals.
    Events include Pop Lacrosse, Water polo, Orienteering, Handball, flag making, Athletics, Drama and Rythmic Gym.
    All the prizes were donated by local businesses, including Woolworths and The Pied Pedaller, and pupil Mitch Meredith, whose father runs PG Trophies, made 15 of the trophies himself.
    The event was organised by the school’s own Junior Sports Leaders, overseen by PE teachers, Penny Lowe and Darren Oxley.
    Anyone interested in having a go at mountain biking or who may like to join a local club, can visit www.bcf.uk.com, which lists Downhill and Cross-Country clubs by area.

  • Help Support Court Witnesses (contributed)

    POTENTIALLY one of the most crucial ways in which you may become involved with the court system is as a witness.
    If you see or hear a crime happening then you could be called upon to give evidence in court about it.
    Many people feel frightened by the thought of this. Often people find the courtroom a bewildering and intimidating place, and feel terrified at the thought of taking the stand and facing cross-examination.

    However the Witness Service exists to smooth the process and make it less of an ordeal. Trained volunteers will provide information about the procedure of the court, offer emotional support to the witness and even accompany them into the courtroom. All these services are free. We do not, however, discuss the evidence or give legal advice.

    The Witness Service is there not just to help and reassure witnesses of crime, but also to offer support to victims of crime and their friends and family who are attending court. The Witness Service supports all prosecution and defense witnesses, but not defendants in their particular case.

    Witness Service and is currently looking for more volunteers to develop and strengthen the service in Oxfordshire Magistrates Courts. Volunteers can be young or old and from all backgrounds. You don?t need any prior experience of the criminal justice system as this will be covered in the comprehensive training that all volunteers must undertake. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer please ring Lucy Humpris on 01993 708 147 or email witness-service.oxford@uk.uumail.com

  • Vote For Best Bobby

    THAMES Valley Police are once again running a competition to find the best Community Police Office, and we at ThameNews.Net think that the town’s very own, PC Russell Hounslow, deserves to be nominated.
    All officers who have made a significant contribution to the communities which they police are eligible and the overall winner will go forward to a national competition.

    Residents, community organisations and businesses can all put nominations forward but they must be in by Friday 17 June.

    Being the modest chap that he is, Russell is slightly embarrassed at all the fuss but we think he deserves your vote and so does his boss, Inspector Stuart Dunbar, who described Russell as “my eyes and ears around Thame” and an invaluable member of the team.”

    PC Hounslow has lived in Thame since 1988 and worked at Thame Police station since 1995, becoming the community officer in 2000.

    As well as his duties as Community Officer, he is currently one of Thames Valley Police?s wildlife crime officers, having completed the National Police Wildlife Crime Officers course with the Ministry of Defence Police, during September 2004. He has also completed Birds of Prey awareness and handling courses over the last couple of months and will be participating in a further animal handling course to at Heathrow Airport in July. In this role, Russell undertakes wildlife crime enquiries for Thame and Southern Oxfordshire and has taken part in a joint operation with RSPCA, vets and Customs and Excise officers with regards to the illegal importation of endangered species. He has also undertaken several enquiries together with officials from DEFRA (Dept for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs).

    Russell is currently working together with PC Paul Gregory (community officer for Wheatley) and Lesley Nesbitt (Crime Prevention Officer at Thame) to put on a ?Bogus Caller? production aimed at vulnerable members of the community. The event will bring together different sections of Thame?s community to draw attention to distraction burglaries. Drama students from year eight at Lord Williams?s School, Thame, will act out different scenarios and it is hoped that children from Barley Hill School will provide musical entertainment, and that local companies will provide transport to and from the venue (Thame Leisure Centre) and refreshments. The event takes place during the morning of Wednesday, June 22. This is a similar event to that staged two years ago.

    Russell recently took part in the recent fun day at Barley Hill School, taking fingerprints of the children, and has previously visited to give talks to the pupils on citizenship and honesty. He also occasionally has a school lunch there, sitting and talking to the children. I have also given talks to pupils at St. Joseph?s School and the nursery in Windmill Road.

    He regularly attends the senior citizen coffee mornings held at Thame Masonic Hall on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and tries to do as much town centre foot patrol as possible. He is also in the process of tutoring a new recruit after successfully tutoring a trainee police officer last summer/autumn.

    Part of Russell’s duties include taking part in Thame Community Safety Group meetings and he was instrumental in helping to set up the Thame town centre ?drinking ban? together with contributing to the setting up and re-vmping of the Thame pub watch sceme.

    The Thames Valley Community Beat Officer of the Year competition, sponsored by West Oxfordshire Motor Auctions, is now in its fourth year and aims to highlight the important role of community officers. Nominees will be judged on initiatives they have introduced to reduce crime and disorder and the relationships that they have built with local communities. The more public nominations they receive, the more likely they are to succeed.

    Five officers ? one from each of the Force?s basic command units ? will be short-listed and the overall winner will be put forward for a national community officer of the year award offering a prize of a

  • Thame Quitters Do It Again! (Contributed)

    A sponsored walk, organised by the Thame Smoking Cessation Clinic, based at Thame Community Hospital, took place on Sunday, April 24, and the princely sum of

  • Triumph For First Thame Music Concert (Contributed By Barry Gibson)

    FROM the first bars of Britten?s Simple Symphony, it was clear that the first Thame Music concert on Saturday by the Orchestra of St. Johns (OSJ) had found a tremendously exciting matching of players and place.
    Just 14 string players, cleanly underpinned by a single double-bass and two cellos, but with the eleven violins/violas standing ? and leaning enthusiastically – to give added energy, edge and shape to the phrasing.

    Here was playing of great quality and clarity, reaching out to fill all corners of the space ? and the building gave back with a warm and full acoustic, just enough to enhance the precision and chamber quality of the strings, without ever getting muddy.

    Neatly framing the programme were two stalwarts of the string-orchestra repertoire ? the Britten is a lighthearted reworking of themes invented in his childhood, played here with vigour, attack and enjoyment ? playful pizzicatos and all. And, to close, Tchaikovsky?s Serenade for Strings is by turns serious, lilting, thoughtful and rumbustuous, the highlight for me being OSJ?s quiet, lovingly lingering phrases in the Elegie.

    In between were two extracts from William Walton?s music for the 1944 Laurence Oliver movie of Shakespeare?s Henry V ? film music, yes, but excellently crafted: a Purcell-like Passacaglia (for the death of Falstaff) and the gently dancing, wistful ?Touch her soft lips and part?.

    The complete curiosity of the evening was a setting by Respighi (in Italian) of Shelley?s The Sunset (Il Tramonto), for which OSJ were joined by the mezzo Christine Cairns, who sang with great conviction and involvement. This strange, often dark work weaves a twilight stream-of-consciousness reflecting on illness and death, but with occasional atmospheric string-evocations of the night sky and faint stars ? a fine balance between depth and delicacy.

    John Lubbock conducted the whole evening with drive and energy, encouraging the ensemble along towards the peaks and holding everyone back where appropriate, to make the most of those quiet, thoughtful moments.

    Barry Gibson