The next formal meeting of the council is on 13 August. There are no surgeries during August and the next opportunity thereafter to meet the council as a group will be on 12 September at 7 pm. Should there be matters of concern between these dates please contact the parish clerk or councillors.
Draft minutes of all meetings appear on the website two weeks after the meeting.
Copies of this report are also circulated via Tackley Notices emails.
New Councillor
Andrew Lines has been co-opted to fill the vacancy in the council, and we welcome him to our deliberations.
Footpath Fortnight
Thank you to those residents who joined councillors to walk Tackley’s footpaths. A report has been compiled by Neil Wilson and an electronic copy may be obtained from the parish clerk.
Bus Shelter at the Village Hall Entrance
The erection of the new bus shelter and improvements to the traffic arrangements at the village hall entrance will take place during August. Residents should be alert to any work affecting passage along Medcroft Road and access to the shop and village hall. Disturbance will be kept to a minimum but cannot be entirely avoided.
Developers’ Lorries and Other Building Site Issues
The developers working on the building sites at Balliol Farm and Street Farm have been given instructions about the proper routes for lorries entering and leaving the village. They should be coming into Tackley down Church Hill and leaving via Rousham Road. Residents seeing any infractions should first take up the matter with the relevant site management representative or, should that not resolve the issue, with the Oxfordshire County Council Highways team.
The issue of on-site noise, particularly from the use of generators, is being investigated. Inevitably there will be some ongoing noise until building work is complete.
Speed Monitors
The provision of portable speed monitors on the main roads into and out of the village is under active consideration.
Path to St Nicholas’ Church
A request having been received for the path up Church Hill to be lengthened and improved, your council is investigating options for doing this.
New Dog Waste Bin
Following requests by residents, a new dog waste bin will shortly be fitted in the area of the Jubilee Garden. This will fill a hole in the provision of such bins in the village which is otherwise reasonably good.
Excavations at Street Farm
Residents will know that substantial Roman remains have been uncovered on the Street Farm building site. The parish council has formed a subcommittee with Tackley Local History Group to investigate the best options for storage, restoration and possible exhibition of recovered material. It is intended that part of a wall should be re-erected, possibly in a corner of the recreation ground. Councillors Andy Lines and Katy Layton-Jones are our representatives on this committee.
Email Notices
Mary McIntyre
As you will no doubt be aware, regulations came into effect recently that mean it is now illegal to send emails to people on a mailing list without their explicit consent.
Prior to this change, we contacted everybody on the Tackley Email Notices list several times to give instructions on what they needed to do to remain on the list, and explained that failure to act would mean they were removed. About 60 people failed to act and were thus removed on 23 May.
The regulations mean I can no longer add people back onto the list myself. Instead, if you would like to resume getting emails, please visit tackleyvillage.co.uk and click ‘join our mailing list’ at the bottom of the list on the right side.
Roman Mosaic
John Perkins
The mosaic floor that has been uncovered during the excavations at Street Farm is going to be donated to the village so that it can be put on public display and not left in a museum store.
A subcommittee of the parish council, made up of members of the council and the local history group, has been set up to take the project forward. Our first job is to carry out a feasibility study: what are the benefits of having the mosaic in the village; where would it best be located; how should it be conserved and protected; how much will it cost and how can the money be raised (from the Heritage Lottery Fund and charities)?
There is currently only one Roman mosaic on display in situ in Oxfordshire: at the villa in North Leigh.
As the excavations at Street Farm have proceeded, the size and importance of our villa complex have been revealed. It now seems that the buildings probably extended beyond St John’s Road, under the school and possibly beneath the playing field. The excavation is now drawing to a close and has just uncovered the remains of a bath house in the corner of the site between St John’s Road and the school. The mosaic, which measures about four metres square, has now been lifted and taken away for temporary storage. It is hoped that it will come to the village in about a year and a half when the analysis of all the finds and writing-up of the results are complete. This gives us plenty of time to organise the project.
If you would like more information or would like to join the project please contact Jan Read or John Perkins.
Tea and Cakes
Sue & Alan Lygo
Rett Syndrome is a rare neurological disorder, and the most common cause of severe disability in females, but not many people know about it — did you? October is Rett Syndrome Awareness Month. Our daughter, Michelle, had Rett Syndrome and would be 40 years old this October. She loved cake, so what better way to celebrate her short life and raise funds for Rett UK than afternoon tea and cakes on Saturday, 27 October. More information to follow nearer the time.
Christian Aid
Roy Carrington
Thanks again for your generosity in giving to this cause to help others less fortunate than ourselves, especially after the excellent British Red Cross collection the week before.
This year’s house-to-house collection totalled £713, of which £295 was Gift-Aided (increasing it by £73). Christian Aid will now receive £786 to put towards helping partners around the world help those suffering from natural disasters.
Our collectors were members of the Methodist and parish churches. My sincere thanks to all of them for the time they give.
Scouts
Rosie Hawes
1st Tackley and Heyford Scout Group have had a very successful year. Young people in all sections have developed new skills and built on existing ones. In May, eight of our Beavers received their Chief Scout Bronze Award, and two Cubs received their Chief Scout Silver Awards. In July, another six Beavers completed their Chief Scout Bronze Award, and were presented with their award by Alec, our district commissioner. Alec also presented a special necker to Ben, who has completed every single activity badge during his time at Beavers.
At Christmas, Cubs and Beavers had a sleepover in the village hall, and earlier this summer the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts enjoyed a very warm weekend camping at Horley. Activities included axe throwing, rifle shooting and archery. For many children, these camps were their first time staying away from home, and despite some wobbles everybody had a wonderful time.
We continue to make use of the wonderful area around Tackley, and spend many of our summer sessions up at the heath. All sections have enjoyed playing games, making shelters and cooking on campfires. We also make use of the playing field on a regular basis. You may have seen Beavers taking part in bootcamp, Cubs cycling and Scouts zorbing. We have also undertaken several litter picks over the year to help keep our village tidy.
At our AGM in June we said goodbye to several members of the executive committee, who work behind the scenes to ensure the group is able to run. We are extremely grateful to Cassie and Pierre, who have chaired the committee for the last few years. Our thanks go also to Vanessa and Kevin, who also stepped down. We welcome Andrew and Rachel as our new chair and vice chair. Sadly our Explorer section will be closing at the end of term. Our thanks go to Martin for all his work with Explorers.
Beavers, Cubs and Scouts are run entirely by volunteers. Massive thanks go to all section leaders who work so hard to provide a varied and fun programme for our young people. We are also extremely grateful to all the parents who volunteer to help with specific badge work, or simply by being there each week as an extra pair of hands.
We are always grateful for offers of help, so if you have a skill you could share, or some time to spare, please do get in touch! If you have an idea of a project that would benefit the village, we would love to hear it. Please email [email address removed from archive copy]. You can see what we get up to through the year at tackleyscouts.com.
Primary School
Mrs L. J. Murrey, Headteacher
We have had a fantastic summer term at school with many exciting events that have sparked the children’s interest and enthusiasm for learning.
The children enjoyed a visit from poet James Carter, who entertained with his performance poetry and worked with each class to inspire them to write their own poems. One Year 4 pupil said “James Carter was really funny, he kept playing his guitar”. We are all really grateful to the school PTA for funding this visit.
This was closely followed by our whole-school dance day. This has become a regular and much-anticipated feature of our school calendar. At the end of the day, parents joined us for our showcase performance of each class’s dance. It was great to see so many talented movers and shakers! Most importantly, all of the children really enjoyed the experience.
Our final event of the school year has been our Key Stage 2 performance of Olivia! The children made us very proud with the extent of their talents, and the hard work and effort they put into their performance. There was fantastic acting, solos, duets and some great comedy moments.
We are very proud of all that our children have achieved this year. We look forward to a new start in September, and seeing what fresh challenges await us. Thank you to all parents and members of the community who continue to support us — we really appreciate it. I hope you all enjoy a peaceful and restful summer break; we are all certainly looking forward to it!
Primary School PTA
Roz Hicks
Another academic year has now finished, and what a busy few months the PTA has had! Our Right Royal Spring Fling was a huge hit and a fun night was had by all.
We had another successful collaboration with St Nicholas’ Church to put on a wonderful fete in July. This was brilliantly supported by the community, and it was great to see lots of traditional activities taking place, culminating in a closely-hopped teachers’ sack race. The screening of the England semi-final football match was an added bonus, and thanks must go to Martin from the Gardiner Arms for supporting this and opening the Pop-Up Pub for the duration. £2,000 was raised.
We also held our annual ‘sausage sizzle’ before the children’s summer concert performance, and we were hugely grateful to Richard from Eadles butchers over in Beckley for gifting us the sausages, and to The Lunch Company for donating the rolls.
Our final event of the year was an end-of-term family disco and BBQ run alongside Pop-Up Pub. This was really well attended and a lovely way to end the school year. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wider community for all the support they have given the PTA throughout the year — the funds we have raised really do make a difference.
St Nicholas’ Church
Rev Marcus Green
I need to start with an enormous thank-you to the Fete Committee and all who worked so hard from across the church and the PTA for putting on such a great occasion at the start of July. When we found the England quarter final was going to happen at exactly the same time, the can-do attitude that had made everything so positive kicked in again, and showing the game in the village hall was a great success. And what weather! Wonderful to have it — next year it might be a bit cooler, and if it is, we’ll have the dog show back in the running order! Well done to everyone for a terrific day, and thank you for all your hard work and for putting on such a great village event where we could all come together.
One of the things that I love about being Rector here is the way that we do come together. We have different stories; different backgrounds; many of us come from different places — yet we all now belong here. That’s village life. It’s also the Church: Jesus prays for unity, not uniformity: we’re supposed to be different, not all the same, and yet being different we’re called to value each other and belong together. That’s occasionally a bumpy ride… but always worth it!
In September I have a book coming out about that bumpy ride. The Possibility of Difference looks at how the Church has sometimes not valued gay people at all, although the Bible is really very clear that God loves absolutely everyone. In my book, I take a good look at all sorts of things in the Bible on this issue, and suggest that – while we will always find some people never quite see eye to eye – the scriptural story is simple. People are people. Any attempt to make anyone feel less human or more sinful because of their sexuality (or actually for any reason at all) fails every test of understanding who God reveals himself to be – and who God calls his followers to be – on every page of the Bible. I’m delighted that wonderful people, from former Archbishop Rowan Williams and former Bishop of Oxford John Pritchard to campaigner and author Jayne Ozanne have given their support, and we’ll be having launch events in Oxford and here in the benefice on 21 and 22 September. There will soon be details in church, but if you want to come along, do please let me know. An email to [email address removed from archive] should always find me.
The Church is here to share faith in Jesus for everyone, and to do as much good as we can along the way in practical acts of kindness and love. I hope my book might offer a little kindness and love. I am so grateful for the kindness and love I receive day by day from so many folk here.
Kindness, love and generosity need to be marked and remembered. I am delighted to be able to announce that the new cottages being built at 54 Nethercote Road have officially been named as 1, 2 and 3 Clow Cottages in memory of Bob Clow. Bob’s generosity to our community will now always be a part of our story; I hope everyone agrees that this is a fantastic thing!
30 September sees the church harvest festival service and our amazing harvest auction after the service. If you haven’t been to the auction in a while (or ever!) you are missing a treat. Come prepared to bid, and go home with something amazing! Our charity this year is again HoverAid, reaching the unreachable with aid and with medicine and with love in Madagascar and in other places. In addition, it looks like I may be taking part in a remarkable fundraising event for HoverAid in early October… watch this space and please do support us!
Methodist Church
Tim Bailey
Messy Church
Messy Church is taking a break during August but will be back on 1 September at the usual time of 2:30 pm. All are welcome.
New Minister
We are looking forward to welcoming our new minister, the Rev Paul Carter, who with his wife Carol and son Thomas will take up residence at the Manse in Kidlington on Thursday, 16 August. Paul will be the new Methodist minister for the churches at Bladon, Kidlington, Tackley, and Woodstock and will be taking services starting in September.
A service of welcome for Paul and another new minister, Rev Stephen Maunder (Lime Walk, Rose Hill and Kennington) will be held at Lime Walk on Saturday, 1 September at 3 pm led by Chair of District Rev Helen Cameron.
Harvest
Paul Carter will take the harvest service at Tackley on 23 September with the supper at 7 pm on 24 September.
Kitchen Refurbishment and Repairs to Stonework
Following generous donations from the parish council and Tackley Horse Show we are now in a position to proceed with the long-awaited refurbishment of the kitchen, which is planned for the end of August. We hope that there will be minimal disruption to normal church activities around this time.
Also during August the north and east walls of the church will be rendered to repair the damage caused by age and weathering.
It’s a Goal!
Jan Grimwood
“What is this life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.” (William Henry Davies)
Well, the past two months have certainly been eventful! Football supporter or not, it would have been extremely difficult to avoid all the hype surrounding the matches. What England’s participation in the World Cup did provide was the opportunity to, if not ‘stand and stare’, then ‘sit and watch’. Whether it was in the privacy and quiet of your own home, or absorbing the atmosphere in front of a large screen, it was really difficult not to become part of it. I have to admit to yelling at the top of my voice when England scored, and groaning when it didn’t go as we all hoped it would. And, yes, I did disappear into the village hall to watch TV and find out what was happening during the heat of the day while the fete was taking place! Much as a great number of us enjoyed it, appreciating the talents of a young team, and the leadership of the manager, when it really comes down to it, the most important part of all was scoring goals.
Research shows that one thing that makes people happy is working together towards goals they value. That comment set me thinking after I returned from a recent walk. One of the pleasures of owning a dog is walking it along the paths bordering the fields, especially when the temperature is just right. With the intense heat of the past few weeks, that has meant early morning or late evening; some days not at all. While out with Bear what I enjoy is just standing and staring across the fields, giving thanks to God for the beauty of his creation; counting my blessings that I’m able to live in such a wonderful place.
A few days ago, while waiting for Bear to catch up, I picked an ear of wheat from the field. As I gently squeezed it between my fingers, most of it crumbled away to dust — dried out because of the lack of rain. This year’s prolonged spell of dry weather causes real concern for our farming communities, not just locally, but nationally too.
Tiny seeds were sown
into the rich, fertile soil.
With the rain
the grain
flourished and grew.
The now parched earth
stands forlorn.
Anxious eyes scanned the sky
in vain
for the rain that never came
to swell the crops.
Opinions differ as to the reason for the extreme heat we’ve been experiencing; is it climate change, global warming or just freak conditions? We’ll all have our own views on that. But, this is a timely reminder, if we need one, of the fragility of God’s created world and our place in it. A shared goal to care for, and protect the environment so that we leave it flourishing for future generations to live in and enjoy, to stand and stare at, surely has to be the best way forward.
God in his love for us lent us this planet,
Gave it a purpose in time and in space;
Small as a spark from the fire of creation,
Cradle of life and the home of our race.
Earth is the Lord’s; it is ours to enjoy it,
Ours, as his stewards, to farm and defend
From its pollution, misuse and destruction,
Good Lord, deliver us, world without end.
(F. Pratt Green)
Editor’s note:
BBC News writes: ‘Climate change made the current Europe-wide heatwave more than twice as likely to occur […] [Researchers] found that in this summer’s heat the “signal of climate change is unambiguous.”’
The Guardian quotes Prof Myles Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford: ‘There’s no question human influence on climate is playing a huge role in this heatwave.’
Dark Days Ahead
John Newton
Apart from the advantage of alliteration, we chose second Sunday at seven to screen Features films to more closely align with the timing of this newsletter. Meaning as you read the newsletter, our next screening is likely to be showing that Sunday.
From a musical last month, we return to the 1940s and the award-winning The Darkest Hour featuring one of the finest actors of his generation, Gary Ollman. This thrilling and inspiring true story begins within days of Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister. Should he negotiate or stand firm to fight for the ideals, liberty and freedom of a nation? Join us to see whether Churchill can withstand his darkest hour, rally a nation, and change the course of world history. This screening will support Oxfordshire Association for the Blind.
Our September screening is likely to be Molly’s Game, an intriguing look into a secret world and a great central performance.
We are also looking to screen the wonderful Paddington Bear 2 shortly as part of a fund- and awareness-raiser for Messy Church.
Walking Group
Linda Birch
Meet at Tackley Village Hall at the time shown to arrange car sharing; please contact the walk leader if you would rather meet at the start of the walk. Some walks conclude with lunch at a local pub or cafe; please contact the leader if you will be joining us for lunch. Most walks are circular. Walking is at your own risk.
11 August at 10 am: North Leigh, Wilcote. 5 miles, led by Linda. Including a pub.
8 September at 10 am: Shipton-on-Cherwell, Hampton Gay, Thrupp. 4 miles, led by Penny. Including Annie’s (tea rooms) at Thrupp.
13 October at 10 am: Adelstrop, Daylesford. 5 miles, led by Jeremy.
Gardening Club
Mary Lee
With summer still hot and dry, the gardens are suffering, but we hope that there will be enough good things for the flower show in August.
On 18 September we’ll be welcoming Chris Day from Buckingham Garden Centre. It will be a gardeners’ question time, so feel free to bring along any problem plants. The competitions are flower of the month and an item found on a beach. As usual, guests are welcome at £2 each.
Flower Show
Sue Pitts & Gill Laurence
Schedules have been delivered around the village for this year’s gardening club flower show on Saturday, 18 August. If you have never exhibited before, give it a go! If you are not sure how things work, give us a call. We are a friendly lot and welcome new exhibitors. If you haven’t received a schedule, need an extra one, or just want to find out more, please call one of us.
