Would you like to contribute your
thoughts to how the village is run? If so, there is an opportunity to become a
Parish Councillor – details below.
In this issue:
- Parish Council Vacancies
- Elections for Parish and District Councillors
- Church News
- Bystander Archives on the Village Website
-------------------------------------------------------
1. Parish Council
Vacancies
Ian Yates
writes:
There are seven members on Birlingham Parish Council. The recent
members have been Stuart Allen, Ken Fitch, Marion New, Paula Aston, Steven
Byrne, Terry Griffin and Ian Yates. Members are required to stand for
re-election every four-year term and it is common that after having served one
or more terms, some members decide to stand down rather than nominate themselves
for re-election.
As previously reported we are going through a
re-election process and the closing date for nominations to the Parish Council
was Wednesday 3rd April at 4:00pm. The list of candidates was published by
Wychavon District Council on Thursday 4th April and this showed the election
will be uncontested due to an insufficient number of candidates. This is
actually good news as it saves your Parish Council the considerable cost of
running an election. As a result those who were nominated, Paula Aston, Terry
Griffin and Ian Yates, have been returned unopposed. I would personally like to
thank the existing members who have decided to stand down this time for their
hard work and dedication on behalf of the village and its residents over the
last few years.
The Parish Council will therefore be looking to co-opt
members to fill the four vacancies that now exist. Serving on the Parish Council
is not always easy and can be frustrating at times due to small budgets and
large bureaucracy! However, it is an important activity which deals with issues
of concern to residents and it is an opportunity for those involved to give
something back to their community. I would therefore like to encourage anyone
who is interested in becoming involved to contact either the Parish Council
Clerk, June Hiden, or myself (contact details on the Birlingham website) and
we’d be happy to tell you more about the role. Please contact us well before the
next Parish Council meeting on Wednesday 29th May
2019.
-------------------------------------------------------
2. Elections for Parish and District
Councillors
There will be no elections
for Parish and District Councillors in Birlingham this year. The Parish Council
still has vacancies, as mentioned above, and Ron Davis has been re-elected
unopposed as our District Councillor for the Eckington ward. Our congratulations
to Ron, who always works extremely hard on behalf of Birlingham at Wychavon
District Council.
The Notice of Uncontested Election for Birlingham
Parish Council can be viewed at www.birlingham.org/pc_info/parish_elections_2019.pdf
and the notice for the Eckington ward is at www.birlingham.org/pc_info/district_elections_2019.pdf.
-------------------------------------------------------
3. Church News
The Parochial Church Council is delighted to announce the election of
Adrianne Woodward to be churchwarden from 4th June.
We are also very
grateful to Sue Hayward for volunteering to become
treasurer.
-------------------------------------------------------
4. Bystander Archives on the Village
Website
The fourth edition of the
Birlingham Bystander, published in Summer 1983, is now available on the website.
Among other articles, this edition includes a piece by Anne Porter on a Kenya
safari, a complaint about dog licences, a description of water dowsing and an
interesting article on beakers and burials on Bredon Hill. There is gardening
and fashion advice, a recipe for oakleaf wine by Virginia Cooper and one for
shortbread by Charlotte Butler. The issue also includes reports from the Cricket
Club and the Village Hall, which was suffering from a lack of volunteers.
Potholes in the roads were also a cause for concern, a perennial
problem.
Old photographs include one of the church choir from the 1950s
(which was also part of our recent Christmas quiz) and two of onion tying, with
information about the Gibbs family in the 1800s and a village journal from the
eighteenth century. There is an article on blindness and another on fascinating
funghi. Finally, there are examples of Worcestershire expressions. As always,
the Bystander contains an eclectic mix of articles.
The fourth edition of
the Bystander can be viewed at www.birlingham.org/village/bystander.
-------------------------------------------------------
This email is distributed by Birlingham Jubilee
Committee and is available to residents of Birlingham, their families and
friends. If you know anyone who would like to receive these emails, or have any
comments or items for inclusion in future emails, or wish to be removed from the
mailing list, please write to news@birlingham.org.
The email is open
to any organisation or business within the parish to promote events. Inclusion
of an event does not imply that Birlingham Jubilee Committee supports either the
event or the views of the organisation promoting it.