Upton Village

South Oxfordshire

Last orders for Council’s Insulation Offer

Thanks to a Council insulation grant, residents who own their home or rent privately in the Vale of White Horse district can get an extra £50 each off the price of professionally installed loft and cavity wall insulation. However, the funds are being allocated fast and look likely to be exhausted by Christmas.

You can apply for the Vale of White Horse District Council’s Insulation Grant online at www.cocoonyourhome.co.uk/whitehorse or call 0800 8048 777 between 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.

The grant is being managed exclusively by Cocoon and is offered on a first come, first served basis. Insulation is the most cost-effective way to keep the heat you pay for where you want it – in your home – making it an excellent investment.

Sheepdogs rule the roost at fete

The annual St Mary’s Church Fete took place in Upton on Saturday (3 September).

This ever-popular event retains the character of a traditional village fete, with features such as skittles and tug of war between the Parish Council and the parishioners, as well as the usual sale of homemade cakes, preserves and plants. The Blewbury Brass Band provided the background music next to those enjoying teas outside the village hall.

The main attractions in the arena included the Kineton Quackers, a demonstration of sheepdogs herding ducks, and an Argentine Gaucho. Carlos Adriazola, originally from the Andes, is an extremely skilled lassoist, and he showed off his lasso technique by capturing volunteers from the crowd.

Thank you to everyone who helped make the fete so successful. It seemed to go like clockwork, although we are all aware that a huge amount of hard work is done by everyone involved from setting up in the morning, right through to dismantling in the afternoon.  The result was great, both in terms  the enjoyment of the event and its financial reward – over £2300 was raised for St Mary’s Church and village causes.

Photos from the day can be seen in the photo gallery.

St Mary’s Fete 2011 – Receipts

Stall Stall Holders
Books The Whitmells & Robertsons £291.06
White Elephant Mimi Eighteen & friends £399.95
Preserves Jessie West £293.50
Plants Simon Powell, Austin & Edwin £249.05
Children’s games Fletcher family £14.70
Toys Rhiannon, Emily & Katie £43.04
Cakes Giulia & Brian Rippon £152.10
Fair Trade Maranda St J Nicholl £7.50
Teas Rosemary de Wilde, Liz Hardy & families £312.95
Tombola Clare Lightfoot & friends £148.30
Raffle Sarah Sayers, Mary Wiley, Irene Timblick, Olive & Harry Prior £189.50
Children’s tombola Karen Fenn £29.37
Face Painting Hattie Burrow £69.60
Penalty Shootout Fletcher family £11.00
Skittles Richard Burrow £38.54
Bear’s birthday Eleanor Lightfoot £10.50
Lucky programmes Elisabeth, Malcolm & Judith Wright £179.30
Playground Tombola £41.10
Donations £123.00
Total £2604.06

There are ~£300 expenses to be deducted.

Village Play Area – Great News!

The team working on the development of the village play area (that’s David Mason, Katharine Langley, Ros Caffyn and William Betts) are delighted to have received a grant allocation from WREN of over £47,000. Along with over £3,000 raised by Uptonogood earlier in the summer; £5,000 contributed by the Parish Council and about £300 given by UVHAT, we have now raised enough money to make a significant improvement to the village play area. We’ve done a lot of work since October last year, when we started this project by asking all village residents what they wanted from the play area. With this grant, we’re now really looking forward to making the improvements that you requested.

Brownies keep their promise

On Wednesday 6 July 2011 the 1st Upton & Blewbury Brownies spent their evening picking up litter from around the village. Using equipment borrowed from South and Vale district councils, the brownies divided into groups with leaders and adult helpers and scoured the village for litter.

The Brownies had recently been doing various activities based on the Brownie promise, and litter picking seemed an ideal task to cover the element ‘to serve my Queen and my Country’. The Brownies also understood how untidy litter looks and how dangerous it can be sometimes.

The Brownies were pleased they didn’t find too much litter and consider Upton to be quite a tidy village, but still found enough to fill a few bin bags. They did actually enjoy picking up litter, and are keen to do it again some time in the future.

IMG_3563

Keys Found

A set of keys have been found on the track between Frog Alley and the Hagbourne Road.

They look like house keys, together with another small key. The keyring bears a motorbike together with an insurance logo.

To claim them, contact Rosemary or Graham de Wilde on 01235 850345.

Theo Gordon’s bequests

Theo, a longstanding Upton resident, was a loved and respected member of the community. She was always ready to support local events and even when she was too ill to attend displayed a keen interest in what was happening.

Over the years she was a generous supporter of the Village Hall and St Mary’s Church, a place close to her heart.

Under the terms of her will £5,000 has been given to the Village Hall and £5,000 to St. Mary’s.

The PCC and the Village Hall trustees are very grateful for these donations and plan to use them to help improve facilities at both buildings.

Howden Jones in Concert

Friday 7 October, 7 for 7.30pm, Village Hall

Kate Howden and Paul Jones are singer-songwriters, based in The North West of England, who have that special magic that captivates the audience in a unique, intimate atmosphere. Their show is a family friendly mixture of songs, tunes and stories, that has the audience joining in, singing along, and laughing as they share their travelling experiences through their music and northern-tinged banter.

With powerful harmony, skilled musicianship and beautiful arrangements, they write all their own material and between them play, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo and bodhran. For more information and to hear samples of their music visit www.howdenjones.co.uk. Tickets available from Jessie West tel: 851206 £12, £10 concession, £6 Children includes buffet supper.

Also coming to the Village Hall, The Oxford Theatre Company – Wednesday 14 December "The Jungle Book" by Neil Duffield, inspired by the Rudyard Kipling stories, and on 27 February 2012, "Some Like it Hotter".

Sing with St Birinus School Choir

Calling all singers…

Didcot Festival Chorus is recruiting singers for its annual autumn concert with the St Birinus School Choir. St Birinus School is 75 years old this year and to celebrate, they are going to perform Carl Orff’’s Carmina Burana. The other works in the concert will follow a Last Night of the Proms theme. As usual, the singers will be accompanied by the Oxford Symphony Orchestra.

The performance is on Saturday 19th November at 7.30pm in Didcot Leisure Centre. There are eight rehearsals for the concert on Wednesday evenings in the Performing Arts Centre at St Birinus School from 8.00 to 9.30 pm, starting on September 7th. If anyone has sung the piece before with the choir they may attend fewer rehearsals if the number of rehearsals dates is a deciding factor. Everyone must attend the rehearsal on the Saturday afternoon of the concert.

Further details are available from Mr A W Walker, St Birinus School, Mereland Road, Didcot OX11 8AZ. Phone 01235 814444 or email: aww@st-birinus.oxon.sch.uk

Uptonogood? raises £3000 for Play Area

Thanks to all the hard work of Bob Lott, Mike Tibbetts and their team, the recent Uptonogood mountain biking day has raised the magnificent sum of £3000 for Upton’s Play Area Project!

A huge “Thank You” to everyone from Upton, surrounding villages and further afield, who helped with registrations, refreshments and marshalling. It was also very rewarding to see so many people take an interest in the plans for the play area, which we presented in the village hall.

We really are tremendously grateful for all the support that has been shown for this worthwhile cause, and we are now turn our attention to the next planned event at the Upton Village Fete on Saturday 3rd September. There will be games for our younger visitors, along with the chance to contribute your views and design ideas for the new play area. Please drop by and “play your part” in creating an exciting new play facility for our village.

William Betts
Upton Play Area Development Team

Play area plans

Play area plans