Whepstead Community Centre 2024-2025

 It’s been a strange first year for me as Chair of WCA. Taking over from our fabulous Chair Sue Perkins has been a challenge. The income from events held this year has totalled over £9,000. The hall hire also totals over £9,000. We’ve has many more children's parties this year and we have a new booking, starting in June for an Art School to run classes.

The bottle banks have created nearly £560 in revenue alone, I’m not sure what that says about our village!!! Advertisements in the Newsletter have provided and income of £1,270 for the WCA. Mant thanks to the Parish Council for supporting us with the newsletter. The Parish Council have also helped with a grant from the local council to supply Wi-Fi to the centre and this seems to very much appreciated buy those who are booking the hall. We are awaiting solar panels for the roof of the community centre. This should help with ongoing and increasing fuel costs.

The WCA are working on installing much improved lighting in the carpark. Some areas get very dark in the late nights. Thank you to Garry Corcoran, Dereck King and Kevin eMayes for supporting us with this. We have sold the unused carpet bowls and installed a new large projector screen which is already up and in use. We have also purchased a new microphone and BBQ. It's our hope to update the committee room this year.

Many thanks to Sylvie & Mark Haly who have supplied us with some fabulous, preloved furniture to fit it out. Thanks also To Di, Rebecca & my poor son Jacob, who did the road trip to collect from Stevenage whilst i drove a massive Luton Van for the first time ever! We had some great help too loading and unloading. We are very grateful.

The play area has been updated and fixed recently at a cost of £3,053.52 but the play inspector is happy with the work done. Finally, just some thanks for those who we just couldn't run the community centre without your ongoing help and support.

Dereck King our electrical saviour. He is absolutely the best and we really appreciate him! The doughnut boys are another saving grace...thank you all and I'm sorry Di nags you so much. Thanks to Ian Lambert who supports our accounting and to Lee & Hana at The White Horse for all they have done over the years. How are we going to survive without our on-tap beer and Lee’s amazing, caramelised onions!!

Finally, that you to the WCA committee, without out you, it would be a very quiet village. So many, many thanks to Di, who has become my left-hand woman and has guided me through this new challenge, Wendy, Julie, Rebecca, Garry, Gillian and Richard. If anyone would like to joing the comittee they are very welcome!!!

Whepstead CSW 2025

CSW has been out and about this year with the help of our new volunteers Ian Kitson and Baber and of course Vicki. The speed gun issued to us last year is much more efficient in its operation and more comfortable to use.  

Last year the prospect of some traffic calming measures was muted and the possible erection of white gates being situated at the four village access roads. Some costs were looked into but apparently deemed too expensive and would not fully serve or benefit the whole community.  It is hoped this will be looked at again with more favour in the near future when/if the PC are able to secure an income from the new proposed solar panel development. 

A recent survey in March by the highways department at the Hartest end of the village has just been completed, its aim was to access if a new 40mph speed limit could be placed before the current village 30 limit in an attempt to slow the traffic sooner.

It seems however that the criteria was not met and this will no longer be an option.  They did however recommend that a request be sent to the local police speed control officer to see if they come more frequently than they currently do.  

The data they published showed an average of 1163 northbound vehicles per day passed the monitor, based over a 7 days average. Speed varied from 380 vehicles between

30-35mph and a further 130 vehicles between 35-40mph.   

Looking back at the collected data from the VAS, the volume has steadily increased

over the last 2 year from an average per day northbound count of 718 in March 2023 to 1163 vehicles in March 2025.  

VAS/SID

The VAS will continue to be used at the three locations along the B1066 with the council ANPR machine at the church end of the village, although it is not known how long this council initiative will be running for as it was originally set up for a trial period.

POLICE SPEED CONTROL

The Police speed control officer has now been operating at the bottom of the hill near owl cottage, the frequency of visits is not known, but they are very much appreciated and welcome anytime.

If anyone can spare the odd hour or two to support the CSW team that would be great, please give it some thought, the evenings are getting lighter and the weather is really favourable, any day is possible even weekends if that works better.  Please contact PC for details

Thank you and drive safely

The CSW team

Whepstead Ladies’ Social Group report for 2024/25 

We have had a good range of topics covered by our Speakers including Hawk Honey aiming to convince us that ‘Wasps are our Friends,’  Derek Wilding reminiscing about his career as a ‘Suffolk Bobby’ and also his role, while in the Police Force, dealing with people living with Alzheimer’s Disease.  On retirement this experience prompted him to become a volunteer with the Alzheimer’s Society.

One of our regular Speakers, Carole Pook, gave a fascinating talk about the ‘Witches of Pendle’.  And, Jenny Gibbs, who, with husband Mustafa, spends the winters in Mustafa’s home village in the Turkish mountains and the summer months in their Suffolk home, never fails to entertain us with tales of her experiences living a traditional Turkish way of life which she enthusiastically embraced 30+ years ago. 

On a perfect summer afternoon, we had a lovely and informative guided walk in Lavenham with Stephen Moody.   Stephen is also a Bury Tour Guide who has conducted many walks for us over the last ten years.

Once again, we donated an impressive number of items to the Gatehouse and Bury Free Press Christmas Appeal.

Our end of year meal at Whepstead White Horse was, as usual, delicious and a very enjoyable evening was had by all.

We recently changed our Meeting time to 2pm as quite a number of us now dislike turning out in the evening and hopefully this will attract a few more women to our group.

This month’s talk on Tuesday 22nd April at 2pm is open to anyone in the village, male or female, who might like to hear about the work of the charity ‘Medical Detection Dogs’.  Please contact me for further details.

Other Speakers have been booked covering topics such as Beekeeping, The History of Toys and an American’s experience of living in Suffolk.  We hope to have a further guided walk and possibly a coach outing during the summer, destination yet to be decided.

Anne Robertson    01284 735848                 annerobertson208@gmail.com

Whepstead Baptist Church

Since the last report, we have had our 180th Anniversary Weekend which was in June 2024. We had a day of crafts, fun and fellowship alongside food and drink on the Saturday, which then finished with a Songs of Praise service on the Sunday afternoon. We were delighted to see some of the villagers attend, and are always pleased to see anyone who would like to come and see us on a Sunday service at 11am.

Our building has undergone some renovation this past year, after trouble with subsidence caused by tree roots. We are very fortunate to have had those problems fixed, and our schoolroom and kitchen were repaired and decorated in July and August. alongside a new septic tank system being installed and a remedied path in the churchyard. We praise God for this! Our annual trip to the coast at Walton-on-the-Naze was again well attended and thoroughly enjoyed by all our regulars, with a few new faces added. The weather was very kind to us and we were able to set up camp on the beach to enjoy a fish and chip lunch and a variety of cakes for tea. We invite any one who would like to join with us to get in touch. This year it is on Saturday 12th July, leaving the church at 9am to return about 7pm. The cost is £20 per adult and children go free. At the fete we had a stall to advertise the Baptist Church and it was good to meet and speak with people. I hope the weather will be better than it was last year for this!

Our churchyard is maintained throughout the year, and we have plans to adjust parts for an additional memorial garden, and hope to re-stone the car park after weeding it out. There is always plenty to do! Our Harvest weekend is similarly supported with a supper on the Friday and the Service on the third Sunday in September. We are blessed to be able to support funds for the work of Tools with a Mission and Operation Agri, as well as distributing hampers of food within the village. Again, all are welcome to attend. Easter is approaching and we have a Maundy Thursday service, which comprises of a simple supper of soup and fruit before we partake in the communion together.

This is always a time of real blessing. Come and join us. We are always pleased to attend the Christmas Fayre at the Community Centre and this provides a lot of our funding for the summer outing. It is good to meet with familiar friendly faces on the stalls, and to meet new people as they mingle and purchase the goods on offer. Such a lovely day! We wish the villagers well as the Community Centre Committee seek to plan ahead and organise good events. As someone who was born in the village, I like to maintain my links with Whepstead. and it is always lovely to be in the building which has such a lot of happy memories for me.

Thank you

Sharon Steven