Upton Village

South Oxfordshire

Blewbury Festival 11th – 26th June 2011

Please put these dates in your diary and on your calendars! 

Family Day will launch the Festival on Saturday 11th June at 12 noon with a fanfare from the Brass Band;  There will be a bar and a tea tent plus a pig roast and barbecue and lots of stalls and attractions for all age groups. We will have a dog show, tug of war and children’s races. Too much to mention now.

The Summer Dance will be on Saturday 18th June and a Father’s Day curry lunch on 19th. 

A full list of events will be available next month but keep your eye on the Blewbury Bulletin website for all details.

Methodist Church Council Meeting

A reminder to church members that the next meeting of the Spring Line Methodist Church Council will take place on Wednesday 16th February 2011 at 7.30 pm at the Upton Centre. Anyone interested in the running of the chapel is invited to attend.

What’s on in the Churn Benefice for February

Churn Youth Group

Sunday 20th February at 7pm in the Benefice Centre

All young people of secondary school age are welcome to come along.

We meet on the third Sunday of the month from 7pm to 8.30pm at the Benefice Centre or other venue depending on what activity we decide to do.

Also – 6th February at 7pm, in the Benefice Centre, Discussion Group

The CHURN Branch of the MU

The next Pram Service will be on Wednesday 2nd February at 12.15pm in the Vale Room, Blewbury Village Hall. ALL AGES ARE WELCOME.

A sandwich lunch is provided by the Mothers Union after the service. This is a short Eucharist service ideal for pre-school children to bring parents, grandparents, carers to.

Also…..

Mothers’ Union AGM, Sunday 27th February – 3pm – Benefice Centre

We shall review the past year, make plans for the future and enjoy worship and fellowship together. Members and anyone interested in the work of the Mothers’ Union are invited to attend. The meeting will conclude with refreshments

New Bishop of Reading

The new Bishop of Reading is to be the Rt Revd Andrew Proud. The new Bishop replaces the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell who became Bishop of Chelmsford in 2010.

Bishop Andrew, who is 56, is currently Area Bishop of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. He will be installed as Bishop of Reading at Reading Minster on Saturday 16th April.

Licensing – The Revd Geoffrey Borrowdale will be licensed to the Churn Benefice by Archdeacon Norman Russell on Sunday 30th January at 10.30am in St. Andrew’s Hagbourne. All are welcome to attend.

The Big Sing!

An opportunity to come together to sing some favourite Hymns.

Sunday 13th February – 4pm in St. Andrew’s Hagbourne.

Followed by refreshments. All Welcome. There will be a retiring collection to support the work of the Hagbourne Action Group.

Christian Fellowship Group

– for Mums with young children who meet together to grow in faith and take something of what they experience to their families. The next meeting will be on Tuesday 8th February, 8pm at Torpids, High Street, Upton.

Theme: “Growing in Spirit with our Children”

Contact for information or transport: Justine 510864; Revd Louise 851011

“Christ in Quiet”

Monthly contemplative prayer services; reflecting on bible passages, listening to Christian music and gently moving into silent prayer, these last about 30 minutes.

Held in the churches across the benefice on the last Saturday morning of each month at 9am. Next services – 29th January at St. Michael’s Blewbury and 26th February at St. Andrew’s Hagbourne.

Telephone scammers target computer users

Oxfordshire County Council’s Trading Standards team is warning people about conmen who are cold calling residents and claiming that their computers are infected with viruses which they can fix.

The number of complaints received by Trading Standards has risen in the last month with 23 people reporting the scam since the beginning of December.

These conmen often say they work for Microsoft or Windows, although many different names are used. They will know the victim’s name and address and will suggest that their computer is at serious risk from the viruses or “malware” with which it is “infected”.

Stealing information

They may ask the consumer to shut down and re-start the computer or direct them straight to a program called “Windows Event Viewer”. This will list errors, some of which will be labelled “critical”. In fact, there is nothing wrong with the computer and the program is simply being used to con the victim into thinking they have a problem.

If the consumer falls for the scam, they will then be directed to a website to download a program which will allow the caller to control the computer to “fix” it. All that is actually happening is that the conmen are being given access to all the data stored on the computer, which could include personal, banking and identity information.

The caller will then demand payment for the so-called service provided. The victim will be asked for a direct debit or credit card payment and may also be asked to sign up to a direct debit payment scheme for ongoing “protection”. If they refuse to pay, the criminal on the other end of the phone may threaten to crash their computer. Trading Standards has received reports of up to £240 being demanded as a one off payment.

Tip of the iceberg

In July 2010, the Metropolitan Police closed down 19 websites being used by such fraudsters, but the problem appears to be on the increase again, certainly in Oxfordshire.

Lists of names, telephone numbers and addresses are marketed internationally and call centres, particularly in India, make thousands of these calls, preying on unsuspecting computer users. Trading Standards has also received reports in the past where these scam callers have contacted people who do not own a Windows computer or who don’t even own a computer at all.

Richard Webb, Deputy Head of Oxfordshire County Council’s Trading Standards, said: “If you do receive a telephone call like this, we advise you to hang up straight away. If you have noted the caller’s telephone number or have been given a trader name or website address before you hang up, please report the call to Trading Standards at 0845 051 0845 or trading.standards@oxfordshire.gov.uk.”

Faster Broadband destined for Upton

A VERY BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE

We made it! So a very big thank you to everyone who made this result possible. Apart from a very few properties including those standing empty, almost every single household in Upton voted, an amazing record. The result is that we became one of the six exchanges that will be fibre optic enabled in early 2012.

My thanks to everyone for their support and special thanks to all the people who knocked on doors, spoke to people and generally cajoled everyone into voting. One of the many things about this campaign that was really gratifying was the number of people who don’t have broadband, or even in some cases a computer, who wanted to vote anyway and we were able to vote for them by proxy. They realized the importance of high speed Internet and saw this as a benefit to the village and its community.

Over the past few years Upton has become a much enabled community, and when the campaign started in October many of the early voters for the Blewbury exchange were from our village. The remarkably high percentage of parishioners on email is a powerful tool for the dissemination of information, and in a case such as this has proved to be very effective.

There were a couple of major wobbles in the very closing stages of the campaign – first with a big vote audit among the leaders (which we survived unscathed) and second with the emergence of six exchanges, all with 100% of their votes, vying for the advertised 5 prizes. To make matters worse, Blewbury (for reasons no one quite understands) was ranked 6th at the moment the competition closed on 31st December 2010. So we spent the weekend in a slightly nervous “will-they-won’t-they” state of mind, wondering whether BT would do the decent thing and just award the main prize to all six 100-per-cent-ers.

And they did! It was confirmed at 8 am on Monday 3rd January 2011 – a nice present for the New Year – so we’re definitely on for fibre optic broadband in early 2012.

Our final score was 1234 out of 1236 lines, a total of 99.8% and an extraordinary achievement over the four villages.

The other five successful exchanges were:

Whitchurch, Hampshire (104%)
Caxton, Cambridgeshire (103%)
Madingley, Cambridgeshire (102%)
Innerleithen, Scottish Borders (101%)
Baschurch, Shropshire (95%)

What next?

Well over the coming months and as the results of the BT survey become apparent, things hopefully will become clearer. We think it will be helpful to villagers to publish information about FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) and VDSL2+ (Very High Speed DSL) plus an explanation of all the jargon as well! We hope to do this on both the website and in the Upton News. So keep an eye open in both places.

In the meantime thank you again to everyone who made this possible.

Graham de Wilde

Anyone for Tennis?

Many assume that playing tennis equates to warm Summer weather but you would be wrong! Tennis enthusiasts braved the elements on Bank Holiday Monday to welcome in the New Year.

27 people of all ages and abilities gathered at Blewbury Tennis Club and enjoyed getting out into the fresh air, catching up with friends and of course playing tennis! Mulled cider and mince pies sustained our reserves and those of spectators too who enjoyed watching their children racing about the courts.

This social event is one that the club hopes to run regularly now that all 4 courts have been upgraded. We will soon have a courtside “hut” to shelter in or make tea, which will improve the facilities even more.

The club welcomes new members at any time throughout the year and membership rates are extremely good value – especially for families. For 2011 we are delighted to be able to host Attack Tennis – all year round coaching for children of all ages and abilities, so book in early and get playing! All details can be found on www.attacktennis.co.uk. The classes are also open to non-members in the first term, so come along and give it a try!

Membership enquiries can be made to rosemary.dewilde@mac.com or www.blewburytennis.co.uk.

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Carol Singing

Thank you so much to everyone who came carol singing on the perishingly cold night of 22nd of December and above all, thanks to the many Upton residents who so kindly filled our collecting boxes. We raised a grand total of £177.13 for Simon House, a local charity supporting the homeless in Oxfordshire. Well done to everyone involved.

Sarah Tenant-Flowers

Wonderland in the Village Hall

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Yet another wonderful production, "Alice in Wonderland" from Oxford Theatre Company, brought to our village hall, at the beginning of December.

You will be well aware of the cuts being imposed on the arts at this difficult financial time. The cost to the company of bringing the show to us is £1,200. In the past, being heavily subsidised, we paid the company just £314 for a show but for "Alice" we needed to find £600.  It meant an increase in ticket prices to enable us to cover the cost, and we did it!

Thanks to the amazing support we get from our village, an audience numbering 84. So along with the sale of refreshments (apologies for charging so much for a choc ice!), our income was £651.

It is quite brilliant how a village hall is transformed into this magical space of theatre. Part of the enjoyment too is sharing the experience with others especially the children.

Without exception, every show we have had, and remember they are different actors each time, have all said what a marvellous audience we are.

The company will not know until March/April 2011 about their fate regarding further cuts.

Jessie West