Page 21 - Demo

PAGE 21Remembrance - November 9th. Ceremony at the War Memorial at 10.45. There will be a house-to-house collection for The Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal in the preceding two weeks.Saturday November 29th. Christmas Coffee morning in aid of St. Lawrence%u2019s Church in the Village Hall.On the Last Night of the Proms this year one of the pieces was a new composition by Rachel Portman based on a poem written by Nick Drake called The Gathering Tree. I thought it was a lovely piece of music, if you were also listening you may or may not agree. We all have different tastes and music is no exception. My understanding is that the composition is based on the concept of people joining together, perhaps today that might be described as %u201ccommunity%u201d which of course could be the village that you live in, although it could be viewed much more broadly than that. A child at school may consider its class, its year or the whole school as a community; perhaps our various societies, clubs, teams or any regular get together in SCAN Parish including the parish itself may be considered communities, I wonder what others think about this. This is of course leading somewhere so please read on. I have been fortunate enough to live in Chicheley all my life. It is a small village and, whilst much has changed in it, those changes have not been as significant as for most of SCAN Parish. One similarity is that all the villages have a meeting place, either a church or a village hall or both. There are occasions when their presence is essential, and they all need looking after. You will have seen in the events section that the annual general meeting of Chicheley Village Hall will be held which will include the election of the management committee which is a grand title to describe those who look after the hall and organise many of the events that take place in it. Help is needed to do this so if you live in Chicheley and would like to take part please come along to the AGM and volunteer to join us. The task is not onerous, can be fun and is rewarding in the sense that you will be helping not just today%u2019s community but those of the future as well. I suspect that those in the other villages who have similar involvements would also welcome new volunteers. I read in last month%u2019s magazine details of some of the ridiculous speeds of vehicles being driven through Astwood, unfortunately this also applies on occasions to Chicheley on the A422 although at the moment we are not able to monitor the traffic speeds. My thoughts about this are perhaps a bit too controversial to include in the magazine but one consideration is, as a pedestrian, crossing the road can be both difficult and hazardous at times, perhaps the highway authorities could be asked to consider providing a light controlled pedestrian crossing in the village? I think you have now heard sufficient from me this month.David