The Upton Village Hall Amenity Trust (UVHAT) are organising a Mountain bike Event to raise money for the village hall. The event will be on Sunday 20^th June and take the form of a 40 mile “figure of eight”, starting and finishing in Upton.

It is hoped that some 200+ riders will participate raising some considerable funds that will result in better facilities available to the village as a whole.

To help make the day a success, we are seeking volunteers to help in many different capacities. We need marshals on the route, parking assistants, caterers, “admin staff” and drivers of 4×4’s on the day.

If you think you would like to help in any way at all please contact Bob Lott on 851222 or email bob.lott@ciinformatics.co.uk.

Come and enjoy some light hearted entertainment of words and music provided by our own local talent in the extended Village Hall on Friday 16th April at 7pm

Supper will be provided.

Tickets £10 from Peter Gardiner 850449 and Geoff Summers 850801

The Oxfordshire Theatre Company is coming to Upton Village Hall again on Saturday March 27th at 7.30 pm

^{Ticket price £8 and £6 from Jessie on 851206}

Loving April

Adapted by Giles Croft from the novel by Melvin Burgess

A moving story of love and intolerance

The touring theatre has been coming to our village hall for many years. Audiences have enjoyed, and appreciated the level of expertise, colour and exuberance they have brought with them.

The cost to our venue is £314 and the only reason they have been able to sustain this price is because of the subsidy they have received. Unfortunately, a large percentage of that subsidy is to be withdrawn. Sadly, this may be their last tour.

All future Drop-In meetings will be back in the Village Hall. The next two sessions will be held on:

18^th March and the 1^st April, 10.30 until 12.00 noon

Yvonne Collins 01235 850989

OIL SYNDICATE

The next order is scheduled to be placed on Monday 15th March. To be included, I need to have your orders by Saturday 13^th March at the latest.

My contact details are (preferably by e-mail) colin.batchelor@eggconnect.net or by telephone 01491 671253 (after 7.00pm).

Colin Batchelor

The Parish Council is looking for volunteers to join the grass cutting team. You will be required to use our mowers to cut the Recreation Ground and the Children’s Play Area three, or possibly four times during the next 8 months. The job takes about 3 hours working in pairs. A schedule will be produced giving you the approximate date that it will be your turn but the actual time and day can be anytime agreed with your working partner

Safety training and any other help you may need will be provided. If you can help us out please give me a call.

Mike Brown 850135

This years Litter Pick is being arranged for Saturday 20^th March. If you can spare us an hour or two, please come along to the Village Hall at about 9.30 where there will be a cup of tea and biscuits awaiting you before setting out to help clean up our parish.

Mike Brown 850135

50’s CLUB WINNERS

December 2009

£20            Mr Donoghue        14

£20            Mrs Miller               6

£10            Mrs Hammond       22

£7              Mr Lightfoot           48

£5              Mrs S Dawson      83

£4              Ms Powel             98

January 2010

£10            Mrs Summers       49

£7              Mr J Abbott          168

£5              Mrs Morris            64

£4              Ms Shaw             129

The project is still well ahead of schedule but it will not be complete until near to the end of February as time will be needed to dry out the building before some of the finishing work can be completed.

Meanwhile here are a couple of photos so that you can see the progress to date.

The Vale of White Horse District Council today announced that waste and recycling collections in District will return to normal non-holiday collection days from Monday (11 January), subject to the weather not getting worse.

Residents are therefore asked to put waste and recycling out for collection on the days they would normally have scheduled collections on in non-holiday periods.

The decision to return to standard collection dates was taken after prolonged adverse weather caused a significant backlog, meaning that it was no longer possible to run waste and recycling collections to the planned holiday schedule.

It is hoped that collections run as smoothly as possible next week, however in view of the weather forecast for next week problems may still occur with collections in particular areas where access is difficult because of road surface conditions, either because of the risk of damage to property by sliding vehicles or where the health and safety of residents and collection staff may be compromised.

Vale waste contractors Veolia will be sending large waste collection vehicles to clear main roads backed up by smaller street cleaning trucks which should be able to address the less accessible areas.

Householders who live in side roads and less accessible areas are asked to try to get their waste to the nearest clear road on their collection day.

Volumes of waste will be high and resources will be stretched. Priority will be given to waste collections, however green box recycling and brown bin crews will attempt to complete their rounds as best they can. Similarly, the clinical waste collection crew will do their utmost to get round all on their list on the appointed day.

Matt Prosser, Strategic Director for the Vale of White Horse District Council, said: “As a result of the adverse weather the last few weeks have obviously been quite a difficult period in terms of waste collections, not just in the Vale but throughout the country and we would like to express our thanks to our residents for their patience throughout this time.

“Hopefully the conditions will get better over the next few days so that we can begin to collect waste and recycling as normal. By going back to non-holiday collection days, rather than trying to catch up on the original schedule, we should be able to carry out as many collections as possible rather than having to make detours to areas that have had missed collections.”

Residents who are unsure of their standard collection days should see the Vale’s website www.whitehorsedc.gov. or look under Calendar in this website.