Sept/October 2022

A warm welcome to everyone

11TH SEP MRS MARION RASHLEIGH

18TH SEP MR STEVE IRISH COMMUNION SERVICE

25TH SEP REV C KING

2ND OCT MRS K RAWLINS

9TH OCT MR JAMES KYTE TRADITIONAL HARVEST FESTIVAL @ 6PM

16TH OCT MR GORDON LEWIS

23RD OCT MR LEE PHILLIPSON (SASRA)

30TH OCT UNITED SERVICE AT THE CHAPEL WITH ST LEONARDS

6TH NOV LOCAL ARRANGEMENT

There will be a prayer meeting for the Wellow and Sherfield English areas, on the following Wednesdays Commencing at 6.30pm

Followed by light refreshment 9TH & 23RD OCTOBER

September 22 Newsletter

4th September – Holy Communion (Revd James Pitkin)

11th September – Morning Prayer (Clare Durham)

18th September – Family Harvest Festival (Julia Noble)

25th September – Morning Prayer (Julia Noble)

Were it not for the current water shortage, I would be writing this with my

feet firmly in a cold bucket of water, trying to counteract the heat of the

sun. I hope by the time you read this the temperatures will have cooled a

bit and hopefully we will have seen some rain. The church is a lovely place

to be in summer as the thick walls give it a welcome coolness, while the

churchyard positively sings with a chorus of crickets and grasshoppers.

Following the recent laying of a path around the church there is now a long

bench at the front, which will hopefully provide a place for rest and

contemplation. We are extremely grateful for the support of Councillor Nick

Adams-King that has enabled the bench to be sited. As ever, the older

parts of the churchyard have been left unmown to encourage the wildlife so

please do feel free to visit and stop to watch the world go by.

On the last Sunday of July we were pleased to welcome our friends from

Wellow Wood Chapel for a joint morning service. Traditionally we meet

together whenever there is a fifth Sunday in the month (we hope to join

their service on 30th October), and it is always a pleasure to share our

worship.

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to our former lay reader, Colin Bell, whose

funeral was on 10th August. Colin and his wife, Monica, left the village for

North Baddesley in 2005 but came back to visit several times in the

intervening years. Those who knew him will recall his keen sense of humour

and his love of music, both of which were much missed when he moved

away. Our next coffee morning is on Saturday 3rd September in the church

from 10.30 a.m. Please do come along for coffee, cake and a chat. At that

time I will hopefully be four hours into a 26-mile trek in aid of the

Alzheimer’s Society, so please save me a cake and I’ll see you at the next

one!

Clare Durham, St Leonard’s Churchwarden

April 2022 Better Broadband Update

Lockerley4 – Newtown Square Area. Infrastructure on this scheme is underway but not yet complete. If you are part of this scheme you should be getting updates from your scheme co-ordinator Kevin. As of mid February Openreach were estimating the scheme should be up and running by the end of April 2022.

Lockerley4 – The Prophets/Newtown road area. We had a quote for FTTP BUT cannot manage to get Openreach to progress it forwards. I am just crossing my fingers that as this area is between two existing schemes Openreach might have built in capacity to serve this area too – will have to wait and see when Newtown Square scheme goes live.

WW3 – The Frenches and perhaps other areas – another volunteer has stepped forwards to request a new quote for ww3 properties who get by far the worst speeds in our locality. We are still waiting for the new quote to come back….

WW5 (Mill Lane) – this scheme has stalled due to scale and costs, happy to support anyone who would like to step up and lead the project for this area.

Other options – for those with good mobile 4G coverage than it is now affordable to have a 4G hub that gives MUCH better speeds than some properties are able to get with a standard broadband connection

LANDLINES & VOIP – the government is trying to get all properties that still use a landline to move to a digital fibre landline telephone service that is provided via their broadband connection and thereby remove the copper telephone line system, by 2025. I have raised some concerns about this with our provider as mobile signal is poor/non-existent within some village properties and power cuts are not that infrequent, which means that in an emergency householders are unable to make emergency service calls. Unlike the copper telephone service a VOIP service requires a working broadband connection. Many properties on Lockerley 4 exchange that have FTTP will have or will about to be moved over to the VOIP service.

Even if you do not currently have a broadband connection at some point soon you will have your landline telephone service changed to VOIP – details are unclear at the moment but you are welcome to contact me for advice if needed. I note other villages have raised similar concerns.

Ursula, broadband@sherfieldenglish.org.uk