WELCOME TO NORDELPH -- NOVEMBER 2006

If you have found this page from a search engine, and cannot see an index frame to the left and a pictorial header above, click on www.nordelph.org to load the page correctly.
To print any of the content on this site, select 'Printer Version' from the adjacent menu. Contact us on info@nordelph.org

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We hope that these buttons will improve navigation around the site. For newcomers to our site, pressing the 'Quick Tour' button repeatedly (it appears on other pages as well) will take you through some ten pages that give you a sense of what is in the website. You don't have to click the button -- if some other link on the page, or in the index, takes your fancy you can explore freely. This mini-taster of the website ends when you arrive at our 'Contact Us' page.

The other

 

button, 'New Items' is for regular visitors in a hurry. Each month, provided we manage to keep our head around the data management problems this causes, repeated clicking of this button will take you through the pages that are substantially new -- a quick way of visiting all the new content on the site, without using the 'back' button on your browser over and over again. As with the Quick Tour button, you can stop using this whenever or wherever you wish. The last stop on the 'New Items' tour is the Church Services page, after which you'll be returned here to the home page.

This month, first port-of-call on both the quick tour and the new items tour is a new page called 'About Nordelph'. Over the last few months, our visitor statistics have repeatedly shown us the error of assuming that anyone browsing to these pages knows enough about us and our community. The new page is the simple facts -- where we are, what we do -- and links to pages that tell our story.

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Parish Matters

New this month is our report of the 25th October council meeting and the minutes of the July 18th meeting (which we were unable to field a reporter for). But as many residents will know, a meeting on the future of Holy Trinity church was held on October 30th, and we have a report of this meeting as well. Although not strictly accurate, this page is also accessible through the Parish Council master page.

The annual Remembrance Day Service will take place at the Village War Memorial at 10.45 a.m. on Sunday November 12th.

Hospital Service

The Red Cross has written to the Parish, seeking volunteers for their 'Home from Hospital' service which offers support and assistance to those recently 'released' from hospital. Expenses are paid, but what you give is an hour or two of your time for the first three or four weeks after a patient comes home. Fuller details are available, by clicking.

SAM

R

emember SAM -- Speed Awareness Monitoring? That was the portable speed check display that appeared on three occasions on the Wisbech Road in May and June this year.

The County Council have advised us of the 'results'. We are underwhelmed! The only information we have been given is that the average speed on entry to the village was 41.9 (we assume that this is miles/hour, although the letter doesn't actually say this) and on exit 31.5. You don't have to be much of a mathematician to recognise that these averages obscure the point. You can tell very little from these measures. One possible (although impossibly unlikely) scenario is that every single driver entered at precisely 41.9 mph and slowed progressively to 31.5. But the same figures also support the scenario of a large number of 10 mph drivers outweighed by a few speed merchants tearing along the road at speed close to 100 mph. You just can't tell. We've contacted the Planning & Transportation Department for amplification, but are advised that the man dealing with our case is away until mid-November. We'll keep you posted.

The Nordelph Village Group

The Group has been busy since the Fun Day. All paperwork and grant monies connected with the event have now been finalised. They have sent a cheque to the value of £100.00 to the Quidenham Children's Hospice and out bank balance is looking reasonably healthy.

We now feel we can move on, so after speaking to various people in the village it has been decided that A GALLA BINGO NIGHT is the way to go. This will take place on 24th November in the village Hall - eyes down at 7.30.

We are hoping to give the whole affair an distinctly Christmassy feel so look forward to seeing all ages there - even if you are not normally a bingo person.

Newspapers in Nordelph

Sorry that we're so repetitive, but of course there aren't any -- at least not unless you drive around 4 miles to pick one up, either from Downham or from Outwell. However, the Eastern Daily Press is pro-active in encouraging home delivery, and they're working with Outwell Village Stores (10945 772211) to assess whether or not deliveries would be viable in Nordelph. Although the EDP is involved, this isn't just about daily delivery of that paper -- the full newsagents' range of daily, weekly or monthly titles would be available. The cost would be 20p/day per household -- whether you had a single paper or several. Of course, this depends on a viable number of households requiring the service. If you'd like to register an interest, you should contact Matthew Lindsay, manager of the Outwell Village Stores. This website announcement is likely to be backed up by a leafleting exercise around the village, and if you'd like to see a preview of the leaflet (or at least the front page!) click above.

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The Rewards of being your webmaster

 

It has been an especially rewarding month during which to be running this website. Three delightful events occurred close together.

 

You may recall that David Bowers asked a couple of months back for assistance in contacting Tib Pepper. We had a response from Les Dixon, nee Pepper.
"Would it be possible for you to pass on this e-mail to David so that he can contact me and I will
pass on everything to Dad?
Many years ago I knew David and his Mother (Muriel) and father (Matt) and in fact I introduced him to his wife, Jill Kent, who lived with her family at Trundle's pumping engine on the old
Pophams Eau"
We were

delighted to help, and we've been promised a full update on what took place.
We are sometimes asked why we didn't simply publish Dave Bowers' e-mail address and let anyone with relevant information get in touch directly. We're not trying to be a control freak -- it's just that any e-mail address 'published' clearly on a website eventually attracts an unwelcome degree of 'spam' -- unsolicited, often fraudulent, e-mails. This morning, the address 'info@nordelph.org, which we use for all website correspondence, received 68 e-mails (by no means a record) flagged as junk by our spam filter and promptly deleted. Be grateful that we try to keep your personal details secure!

There's also the on-going research into the Tuck Family (home pages passim). Anne Morse and Jeremy Caddy e-mailed to say:
"The memorial to those members of the Tuck Family instrumental in its founding and building remains in the Chapel. When we acquired it Dave and Daphne said they had offered to return the stone to the family but no one accepted the offer. We will gladly take a photograph and send it to Doug Walker who, living in Washington State, is our neighbour to the south; as we are in Vancouver, British Columbia"

But the final delight still resonates. We thought it was time to add to our collection of 'Fen Drink' by profiling another local brewery. We contacted Bull Box Brewery, whose products we had discovered with delight at the Foldgate Arms in Stradsett -- and our delight was even further enhanced when we learned that this was truly a local brewery, and that this beer had travelled barely 400 yards to get to the pumps.
We contacted Bull Box to ask for their cooperation, and were greeted with a very warm welcome. "Why not come round and visit us?" was the immediate response, as a result of which we spent a very entertaining morning at the brewery, learning about their (very short) history, their plans for the future -- and of course sampling the wares. It's a difficult job being webmaster, but someone has to do it!

Click on either of the logos, or the link above the pictures, to see the results of our visit.

Or -- just as a final reminder -- use the 'New Items' button: