Copy for the next edition should be given to Mr. George Adams at "Karibu", Main Street, tel: 680286 by midnight on Tuesday,26thMayplease.
If you normally prepare your material using a computer, it would make my life easier ifyou could submit your offering in electronic form, though paper is, of course, fine. My ‘official’ e-mail address is: news-editor @ oxhill.org.uk if you wish to send me stuff that way.
This edition (414) was edited by George Adams.
Mobile Library
The library van will continue to visit Oxhill on Tuesdays, stopping at the Village Hall at 10 a.m. and staying there for 30 minutes.
In May the van will visit us on Tuesday 12th.
You can renew books between van visits by calling 01926 851031, or online at www.Warwickshire.gov.uk/wild.
Editor
Progressive Supper
The Village Hall Committee is pleased to announce the forthcoming progressive supper to be held on Saturday 16th May.
For those of you unsure of the format, revellers will meet at the Village Hall at 7.00 p.m. for aperitifs. We will then ‘progress’ in small groups of 4 to 10 to a home within the village for starters. Thereafter we progress in a different group to another home within the village for a main course. Finally we all return to the Village Hall for our desserts, cheese and biscuits and coffee.
If you would like to participate in the progressive supper please telephone Tracey Hackett on 01295 680366 or 07813 978917 or email on tracey.hackett@hboltd.co.uk to confirm whether you would prefer to host a starter or a main course and how many guests you are able to accommodate. Alternatively you may bring a selection of puddings and or a cheese plate, (minimum of 3 selections per 2 diners please).
If you are unable to host a course or contribute to the desserts, there will be a small number of tickets available at a cost of £20.00 per head.
Tracey Hackett
June Issue
Please could I have all copy for the next issue by midnight on Tuesday, 26th May?
If you normally prepare your material using a computer, it would make my life easier if you could submit your offering in electronic form, though paper is, of course, fine.
If you do use electronic form, the best format is a Word file with the page size set to A5 and Margins of 1.5cm all round. The News is currently set in Garamond 10pt, with headings in Lucida Sans Unicode 14pt bold.
My ‘official’ e-mail address isnews-editor @ oxhill.org.ukif you wish to send me stuff that way.
George Adams - 680286
Cover Picture
This splendid poster, giving us all a glimpse into what life used to be like in Oxhill, was kindly presented to the village by Tim Groves. It has now been mounted and framed and can be seen in the Village Hall. In colour, too.
Editor
Scarecrow Weekend
June 20th & 21st
Soon it will be time for all the scarecrows to come out of hibernation and get dusted down. Last year we had the best year ever, so this year we just have to do the same. Or better, of course.
We are always amazed at the wonderful ideas you come up with; you all put such a lot of work into your scarecrows.
The Scarecrow and Open Gardens weekend does seem to have become an annual event! If you can think of anything else that we could do to make it even better please let us know. We would love to hear from you.
As usual if you can help in any way please let us know.
Gaynor Fila will be organising the teas again this year. If you have helped her before she will be calling you to ask if you can do so again, providing cakes or manning the tea-rooms, but if you would be willing to join her team please give her a ring on 680472. She would be delighted to hear from you!
Many thanks.
Lilian, 680468
Chernobyl's Children
COFFEE MORNING
at
The Old Church House
Oxhill
Saturday 27th June
10 a.m. – 12 noon
Cake, Produce and Plant Stalls
Weekday Walkers
Our walk for May will be on Friday 22nd May.
This is a 6½ mile walk from Blackwell via Darlingscote to Ilmington with 300 feet of ascent. Lunch will be at “The Red Lion” Ilmington. We will leave Oxhill at 10:00 a.m.
Please contact Jim Saxton 01295 680613 or saxton@tiscali.co.uk before the Thursday prior to the walk.
Church Service Times
St. Lawrence Oxhill
All are warmly invited to our services
Sunday 3rd - Easter III
9.30 a.m. - Holy Communion (ML)
Sunday 10th - Easter IV
9.30 a.m. - Holy Communion (ML)
Sunday 17th - Easter V
9.30 a.m. - Holy Communion (ML)
Thursday 21st - Ascension Day
9.30 a.m. - Holy Communion (at Brailes)
7.45 p.m. - Deanery Eucharist at Stourton Hill Farm
(Whichford Church if wet)
Sunday 24th - Ascensiontide
9.30 a.m. - Family Service (NM)
Sunday 31st - Whitsun, Pentecost
9.30 a.m. - Holy Communion (ML)
From the Parish Registers
FUNERALS
We remember with thanksgiving
April 23rd - Mavis Allan Hedley (aged 86)
Lamb Roast and Curry Lunch
at
OXBOURNE HOUSE
(Thanks to Graeme & Posy McDonald)
Sunday May 10th
12.30
Ladies, have a non-cooking day!
Bring the family along!
Good food, good puds
Tickets £7.50 adult, £3.50 children
Please ring Lilian on 680468 or Val on 680215
If you can come along we will be pleased to see you
Proceeds to Oxhill Church Funds
Kineton Oil Consortium
The Consortium will be ordering oil again in June. Please let me have your requirements before 6 p.m. on Wednesday June 3rd.
D. Harper, 01295 680529
Shipston Deanery
Ascension Day 2009 - Holy Communion Service
Thursday 21st May, 7:45 p.m. at Stourton Hill Farm, Whichford
(If raining in Whichford Church)
Speaker: David Valente - The Christian Police Association
Refreshments will follow the Service
World Challenge Sponsorship – Southern India
Following in the steps of others from the village I will be taking part in a World Challenge project in Southern India (Kerala) during July. World Challenge is an organisation that sends young people on educational expeditions to help others in under-developed areas of the world. We will be helping orphaned and underprivileged children in small but important ways; by building a toilet block at a school, rebuilding a collapsed wall at another school and participating in their English classes.
For the building projects not only do we have to organise them when we arrive, we also have to negotiate with the locals to buy and deliver the materials we need. B&Q do not have any outlets where we are going!
To take part in this experience I have been working all year to pay for the trip – you may well have seen me working in The Peacock. I have to pay my own passage and make a contribution towards the building materials.
However, I do need some help to reach my target fund and I would like to ask if anyone would be willing to support me through sponsorship. Any contribution would be a great help not only for me but also the beneficiaries of the project. Please either make your contribution at The Peacock or at my home, Meadow View, Main Street – next door but one to the Village Hall.
Many many thanks if you do make a contribution. I will put together an article for the News telling you how the trip went and what we managed to achieve.
If you wish to find out more about World Challenge then visit
www.world-challenge.co.uk.
Ellie Beavis
Wanted
Have you any plants to spare for the Plant Stall at the Scarecrow Weekend in June?
Please bring them to Oddcot on Main Street (next to the Old Chapel) during the afternoon on Friday 19th June.
We would greatly appreciate it if you could label the pots.
Thank you – in anticipation.
J. Gardner
Nature Notes
“May brings with her the beauty and fragrance of hawthorn blossoms and the song of the nightingale. Our old poets delighted in describing her as a beautiful maiden, clothed in sunshine and scattering flowers on the earth, while she danced to the music of birds and brooks. She has given a rich greenness to the young corn, and the grass is now tall enough for the flowers to pay at high-and-seek among, as they are chased by the wind. The grass also gives a softness to the dazzling white of the daisies and the glittering gold of the buttercups”. Chambers Book of Days (1864)
As Easter approaches we always start to listen out for the first arrivals of the swallows. They have a delightful twittering song suggestive of running water and it is this you hear usually before you see them; they are the bringers of spring. They usually arrive in or around Oxhill round about Easter and sure enough on that warm Easter Monday the first two swallows I saw arrived from the wintering grounds in Africa. Let’s hope we soon see many more arriving. Another summer visitor that arrives about the same time as the swallows, and indeed will prey on them, is the hobby, one of our smallest and most beautiful falcons. It was only two days after seeing the swallows that, while driving, I followed a hobby early one morning as it hunted low and fast for about a mile along a hedgerow just outside Whatcote. We are fortunate in having, I believe, a resident pair of hobbies within the area of Whatcote. The hobby catches and often eats its prey while on the wing. Some years ago when bird watching in central Wales I watched a hobby catch a small bird in flight. Its mate then appeared and they exchanged the catch while in flight – a treat to watch. For many years the country name for a hobby was Robin or Robin Ruddock. It is interesting to note that during the seventeenth century the name Robinet was given to a one-and-a-half pounder, long-barrelled cannon. These were very manoeuvrable and were also known as culverins. Others of a different ‘poundage’ were also given names of birds of prey; there were sakers, falcons and falconets. In the sport of falconry, a male sparrowhawk is known as a Musket, which of course is the name given to an early smooth-bored type of rifle.
Whilst we are in the seventeenth century, remember May 29 – Oak Apple Day or Royal Oak Day, commemorating the restoration of Charles II to the British throne on this day in 1660, his 30th birthday. Charles had to conceal himself in an oak after the battle of Worcester in 1651. The oak was in the grounds of Boscobel, a mansion whose name was derived from the Italian bosco bello, beautiful wood. After the Restoration, the famous tree was stripped of its lower branches by souvenir hunters and had to be fenced for protection. (Incidentally, I was shot in the leg at this battle – but that’s another story).
As many of you will know from last month’s News, I have been co-opted on to the Parish Council. One of the duties I have been asked to do is to represent the Parish on a county project for local communities to become involved in a Parish Biodiversity Action Plan, or “Parish BAP”. So last week I attended a steering group meeting, and it’s exciting stuff (well, I think so). So what is biodiversity? The word comes from the words biological diversity and simply means the variety of all living things, including microbes, plants and animals. It also refers to genetic diversity within a species (essential for evolution) and the diversity of the woodlands, wetlands and other habitats which provide the food, water, and shelter for species.
All species are linked in an infinite number of ways via food-webs and the habitats they share. If one species becomes extinct, it may affect more and taken to extremes whole ecosystems can collapse, with severe consequences for the way we live. Across the world biodiversity is under threat from human activity such as over-intensive or inappropriate farming, large-scale commercial forestry, forest clearance, mineral extraction, pollution, and urban development. We need to take action now if we are to secure a healthy planet for the future, and we can be part of that even in our small parish. We should also not forget that access to nature is a popular form of relaxation that greatly enriches our lives and helps us to keep healthy.
Habitat Action Plans have already been implemented in many areas of Warwickshire involving Parish Councils, Parish Plan Groups, the WI and school groups. These groups are involved in numerous habitat projects that include; field margins, hedgerows and roadside verges, churchyards, gardens, and public spaces, derelict and neglected areas of land, woodlands, orchards and spinneys, rivers, streams and ponds.
It would be wonderful if Oxhill parish could be involved. So I would like to form a Parish Plan Group. There is lots to do. Don’t worry if you have no or little expertise – that is all available through the Biodiversity Action Plan, along with funding. All you need is three things; enthusiasm, a love of nature, and a little time (for now!!). This is not a one-man job, so if you are interested please phone or email me (01295 680664 or moore.moore@zen.co.uk). You could also look at www.warwickshire.gov.uk/biodiversity.
Grenville Moore
Garden Club News
The Garden Club would like to extend thanks to Myrtle Knight for all her hard work over the years and particularly for her time as Chairman.
Scents of curry, vanilla, cocoa, lemon, Friars Balsam and myrtle wafted around the Village Hall on April 16th. This wasn’t a food tasting but the latest offering from Janet Cropley who graphically conjured up scents of shrubs with flower-laden slides from her own garden. She had our noses twitching with ideas for great sensory experiences to be had in this aspect of the plant world. Her amazing knowledge and witty anecdotes made for good entertainment.
Dates for the diary
May 21st: Annual plant sale, 7 p.m. at the Village Hall
June 25th: Garden Party
July 23rd: Rousham Gardens
August 14th: Royal Shrewsbury Show
For further details of any of the above please contact me on 680453.
Reg Gethin
May Celebrations
May was traditionally the time of village festivities. The first holiday was of course Mayday, celebrated not on 1st May here, but on 12th May. (Oxhill plainly had never fully accepted the change to the calendar in 1751, when 11 days were “lost”.) Evelyn Colyer, nee Gilks, a child in Oxhill during the First World War, has described the preparations, when the school handbasins, filled with water from the pump outside, overflowed with may-blossom, narcissi and other spring flowers. The bigger girls helped the teachers weave into and over a large egg-shaped wire-mesh shape, fixed by a long spike to a pole about the size of a broomstick. When this was “completely hidden in a great ball of blossom, wide white ribbon was tied round the pole in a big bow, and the finished Maypole was given to the biggest boy to carry.” The children then set off in procession behind the Maypole and the May Queen to sing May songs all around the village, where “most people came to their doors to hear the singing, and to put a small coin into the hat”. After lunch, the bigger children took the Maypole round the outlying farms. The money collected paid for tea at the school, and Evelyn remembers “currant buns, bread and farm butter, home-made jam and the baker’s delicious dough cake”
Empire Day, in Evelyn’s time considered “the biggest and most important celebration of the year” was next, held on May 24th. Evelyn writes “At that time of course, the British were lords of the earth. We owned one-third of the inhabited globe, we had the biggest Navy in the world, and a very powerful Army. We children were very conscious of our privileged position, and proud to be English. We glowed with patriotism and fervour as we bawled “The British Grenadiers, “Land of Hope and Glory and “Hearts of Oak”, frightening the rooks out of the trees surrounding the playground and stopping passers-by in their tracks.”
Empire Day was first inaugurated after Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, and even then it was not celebrated annually everywhere until 1916. Evelyn’s account of national dominance may read uncomfortably now, as history can sometimes do, but she is just telling it how it was.
The third festival was May 29th, officially Royal Oak Day, but popularly known as Oak Apple Day, created to celebrate the return of the Stuarts to the throne in 1660, (the date being Charles II’s birthday and the day of his official accession). The oakleaf symbol commemorated Charles’s escape after the Battle of Worcester in September 1651, after hiding in an oak tree - already a well known tale. For two centuries the day was fully celebrated, with bonfires and bell-ringing, but its importance gradually shrank, and it was abolished as a public holiday in 1859. It continued however to be locally marked, (in one or two places it still is) and everyone was expected to wear an oak leaf. Evelyn’s memories of the day was that it was “not so pleasant! Every child was expected to wear a sprig of oak leaves….., and if you were unlucky enough to forget, you were chased by boys who stung you with nettles.” Some villages actually called it Nettle Day. Country customs are not all benign!
Ann Hale
Whatcote Bluebell Walk
‘Come for a gentle walk up to Hell Brake to see the bluebells and enjoy a cream tea in the church yard on your return’
Date: Sunday May 10th– 2.00pm to 5.00pm
Strong boots or shoes are essential
Dogs welcome if kept on a lead
The cost is £5 for adults, accompanied children free,
and this includes the tea and scones!
Plant & Produce stall - Proceeds to St Peter's Church
Free car parking will be sign posted in the village as will the start of the walk.
Contact Sue Price 01295 680007 for more details
Stour Singers
conductor Richard Emms
Haydn -The Creation
with Jenny Bacon**, soprano
Nicholas Mulroy, tenor
Aidan Smith, bass
and
The Cherwell Orchestra, leader Judy Springate
Saturday, 9thMay 2009 at 7.30pm
St.Edmund's Church, Shipston-on-Stour
Tickets £10.00 from Vic Twyman Tel 01608 664215
R.Clarke, 27 High St. Shipston and at the door (accompanied children free).
www.stoursingers.org.uk
**Jenny Bacon is supported in this concert by Making Music
Rural Police Blog
Speeding is an issue that is commonly identified as a concern by members of the public at community meetings. In order to prevent speeding on our patch our SNT, courtesy of a fundraising campaign organised by the Long Compton Neighbourhood Watch scheme, are the grateful owners of a brand new, state-of-the-art, speed gun.
The gun will be used to deter speeding motorists, in speeding hot-spots throughout our SNT’s patch and the gun will therefore be used to great effect, in an attempt to minimise the risk of road accidents.
A total of £3,300 was raised to buy the gun with donations coming from Warwickshire County Council, Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service, Warwickshire Police as well as the Long Compton Neighbourhood Watch scheme.
[You have been warned! Ed.]
The Freshest & Tastiest Fruits, Salad and Vegetables
grow your own!
Do you like good fresh food? Why not produce your own? Is it too problematic perhaps?
There are many households who would love to grow their own food but don’t have the time, can’t get an allotment, don’t want to dig up the garden or indeed don’t have a garden of their own.
If you are one of these, then don’t despair! Why not work with others to share in the production and harvesting of seasonal fresh fruit, salads and vegetables? It could be yours to eat in exchange for the time you can commit to working on the plot?
Several communities have developed ‘share to grow’ co-operatives also known as Community Supported Agriculture and many more co-operatives are being developed all over the UK. There is a classic example in Stroud and another in Marton in North Warwickshire, where there is a group growing their own livestock – The Marton Pig Club! The results are really impressive – take a look at www.makinglocalfoodwork.co.uk.
If you live in Tysoe, Oxhill or Whatcote and are interested in establishing a local food production co-operative scheme then give Graham Collier a call on 01295 680127 or e-mail him at graham@fraseruk.co.uk. He will be delighted to tell you more and how the idea might be progressed from concept to reality. There may be Lottery funding support available to start it from a £50m pot – see www.localfoodgrants.org.
Graham Collier
Shipston Home Nursing
Armscote Manor Lecture Series
The lecture series this year comprises:
Tuesday 13th October -
Tales of a garden photographer (Andrew Lawson)
Wednesday 14th October -
A love of plants & the stories they tell (Chris Brown)
Thursday 15th October -
The terracotta gardener (Jim Keeling – Whichford Pottery)
Friday 16th October -
Jane Austen & Colette; two daughters of music (Jane Streeton, Maggie Henderson & Maggie Cole)
Full details, including ticket prices and how to book, are posted on the village notice boards.
Editor
Refuse Collection
In May the collections will be:
Tuesday 5th and Tuesday 19th
Grey bins only – for landfill refuse
Tuesday 12th and Tuesday 26th
Blue Recycling and Green Composting bins
Editor
Shiptson Home Nursing
Calling those with Green Fingers!
SHN PLANT SALE
SATURDAY MAY 16th
NORGREN SOCIAL CLUB
(off Pittway Avenue)
SHIPSTON ON STOUR
10 a.m. - 12.00 noon
The Shipston Home Nursing Plant Sale is rapidly becoming a key event in the Shipston calendar and this year will take place once again at the brilliant venue of the Norgren Social Club in Shipston, with lots of parking and space for all. We are hoping once again to draw people from far and wide to buy from a huge selection of wonderful plants and maybe enjoy a cup of tea or coffee and a piece of cake.
This year we would like to invite more local people to grow/donate plants for the sale, as well as come along and buy from the fabulous array of plants generously donated by both commercial growers and private individuals, without whom the sale could not take place.
The Plant Sale is key to raising much-needed funds for Shipston Home Nursing, a very local charity which works right at the heart of the community, providing specialised nursing care at home to those with terminal illnesses.
If you feel you can grow or donate any type of plants we would be more than grateful and we will be receiving them at the Norgren Social Club from midday onwards on Friday 15th May.
And, if you would like to be involved in any other way with the Plant Sale there is always something to do and we would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact
Debbie Joss (01295 680803) or Rebeccaa (01608 674435).
So, whether you are a grower, a helper or a customer, we look forward to seeing you at the SHN Plant Sale in May.
Shipston SNT speed gun
Since taking ownership of the new speed gun, PCSOs Russell Brian and Carol Griffin from the Shipston SNT have checked the speed of a total of 130 vehicles in the villages of Barton-on-the-Heath, Long Compton, Whatcote and Shipston. It was satisfying to note that only two of the vehicles checked were travelling at a speed of more than 5mph above the legal speed limit. Further checks are planned for other 'hot-spots' on the SNT area in the very near future. Several of our local roads have recently been the subject of new speed limits. Your awareness and compliance of these could prevent a fine of £60 and penalty points on your licence.
[As I said earlier, you have been warned! Ed.]
Warwickshire Crime Mapping
Warwickshire residents can keep a check on crime levels in their communities through a new crime mapping system which has just been launched in the county.
Crime mapping is part of a Home Office initiative which will eventually be available in all 43 police forces across England and Wales giving members of the public easy access to local crime data.
By logging on to Warwickshire Police website (www.warwickshire.police.uk), the Safer Neighbourhoods website (www.safer-neighbourhoods.co.uk) or directly via warwickshire.crimemapper.co.uk members of the public can see whether crime is up or down in their community and compare with other areas within Warwickshire.
They can also see what their neighbourhood policing team is doing to cut crime and tackle local issues by following the link to their local Safer Neighbourhood site.
Crime data will be shown as high, above average, average, below average and low, based on the average for Warwickshire and will be uploaded on a monthly basis.
Members of the public can view this data at county, district/borough and ward levels and by entering their postcode it will take them directly to the ward covering the postcode entered.
Categories featured are violence, burglary, theft, robbery, vehicle crime and anti-social behaviour as well as "all crime" which covers all of these plus other criteria. Crime Rates are shown as a number per 1000 population, ie the rate is calculated by multiplying the actual number of crimes by 1000 and dividing the total by the population for that area, and actual crime numbers are also available.
Welcoming the new service, Superintendent Andy Johnson said:
"We are pleased to be able to make this crime data available to the public in this way and to show what Warwickshire Police is doing to protect communities from harm.
The information available through the crime mapping system allows members of the public to see at a glance the crime levels in their locality and how it compares with other areas.
Residents should not be alarmed if their area appears to have a high level of crime, it simply means that there are more reported crimes than the average for Warwickshire; this can be due to a police operation running in the area or a national event such as Global Gathering.
They should also be aware that a percentage increase may give the impression of a disproportionate increase in crime because of the low figures involved; by clicking the Total Crimes, members of the public will be able to view the actual numbers of crime within the chosen category for that month.
In Warwickshire last year more than 5,000 extra people were protected from harm. There were 105 fewer victims of serious violence, 471 fewer victims of burglary, 1,859 fewer victims of car crime and 1,032 fewer victims of criminal damage - and we want to increase that number in 2009."
Warwickshire Police
Tysoe Marionette Group
“JUST HOW” were we able to donate £800 to Tysoe CE Primary School PTA from five sold-out performances in February and March 2009? It is of course thanks to generous audiences and to our hard-working core group of 6 puppeteers, supported by sound & light men (rather, man and boy), who freely give up their Thursday evenings to rehearse. Thanks also to Live Vultures, Story-Teller and Stage Manager who come in nearer the show date. Neither must we forget to thank the ‘Voices’ who pre-record the script, nor the Musical Director nor the Scenery Artist. By the time you read this, hopefully we will have raised a further £200 for Shenington CE Primary School PTA. Tysoe School is reportedly going to form an orchestra and pay for a teacher and Shenington will fund the extras needed for drama classes. Due to the credit squeeze the performing arts have had their share of funds severely cut.
We are now gaining a reputation nationally and played to a full house of professional puppeteers on 1st March. Comments from the Chairman of the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild include “..the Tysoe Marionette Group are to be congratulated in recreating Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So” stories for the puppet stage, just one step perhaps towards some parents buying the book and reading them to their children at bedtime. The selected stories of the Whale’s Throat, the Camel’s Hump and the Elephant’s Nose, are all delightfully played with narrator (Margot McCleary) some excellent marionettes and a couple of hand puppet vultures … The stories are told brightly and with lots of fun.” Peter Charlton goes on to comment particularly on the first class sound quality achieved this time by sound engineer Paul Reeves, both for voices and sound effects. He finishes with “Well done Tysoe, another well accomplished and enjoyable afternoon.” This is praise indeed!
If you missed the show watch this space, we may repeat it. If you would like to join the Group (children should be at least 10 yrs old, or they will not be tall enough to operate the marionettes)
Contact: Jon and Ann Beeny on Tel: 01295 680 431
Email: JonandAnn@annbeeny.f9.co.uk
Visit: www.Warkcom.net/TysoeMarionettes
Peacock Beer, Cider and Sausage Festival
May 22nd to 25th
Real Ales and Ciders in the Barn, BBQ and Food available
Live Music Sunday and Monday night
In aid of Air Ambulance
Identity Theft - Advice from the police
Identity theft is now proving to be very lucrative for the criminal fraternity. A quick look at the facts and figures about ID fraud clearly shows that we all need to be more careful with our personal information.
Below are some of the ways that your identity can be compromised.
Personal Information Online: Anybody that uses the internet will regularly be asked to share personal information to gain access to websites and buy goods. Increasingly, people are also placing large amounts of personal information about themselves on social networking sites such as Myspace, Bebo and Facebook.
If you use the internet make sure you have the latest security patches and up-to-date anti-virus software installed. Getsafeonline.org offer advice on keeping your details private on social networks.
Bin raiding: Fraudsters pay people to go through the rubbish you throw out, looking for bank and credit card statements, pre-approved credit offers, and tax information. Everyday information that you may not think is important such as old gas, electricity and telephone bills, insurance documents, bank statements and even personal letters and envelopes they were sent in, carry valuable personal information that can be gathered together to steal an identity. Invest in a powerful shredder and make it a standard practice, whether at home or at work, to shred all documents containing personal or financial information before binning or recycling them.
Mail Forwarding: By not asking Royal Mail to redirect your mail when moving house, fraudsters can receive a wealth of information about you delivered direct to their doorstep. Visit www.royalmail.com for more information.
Unsolicited Contact: Phone calls claiming to be from banks asking you to update your personal information should be regarded with caution. Calling the switchboard of the company in question and asking to be put through to the person who called you will help ensure you are not playing into the hands of fraudsters. Similarly, fraudsters posing as market researchers may ask for personal information over the phone. Credible organisations will not mind you double checking their authenticity before providing such information.
Phishing: This term describes identity theft via email. Fraudsters will send an email claiming to be from a bank, credit card company or other organisation with which you might have a relationship, asking for urgent information. Typically the email will ask you to click on a link to enter your account details on the company’s website to protect against fraud or to avoid your account being deactivated. But if you click on the link in the email you will be taken to a website which looks genuine but has in fact been created by fraudsters to trick you into revealing your private information. The fraudsters then use the information provided to set about obtaining money from your accounts.
Theft Of Wallet Or Purse: the average purse or wallet contains bank cards, credit cards and valuable identity documents including driving licenses and membership cards. Victims realise very quickly that their wallet has been stolen but often do not realise the value of the information contained within it until it is too late.
Minimise the information and the number of cards you carry in your wallet. If you lose a card, contact the fraud division of the relevant credit card company. If you apply for a new credit card and it doesn't arrive in a reasonable time, contact the issuer.
Card skimming: This usually occurs when a shop assistant or waiter, for example, gets your information by ‘skimming’ or copying your credit card information when you make a purchase. They often then sell the information to professional criminal gangs. Like phishing, skimming can be used on its own to collect enough information on your credit card to use your card fraudulently without stealing your entire identity.
Watch cashiers when you give them your card for a purchase and make sure you can see your credit card at all times. When you receive a new card, sign it in permanent ink and activate it immediately.
Vicarage Notes
Ascension and Whit
All are invited to the special services in Oxhill and linked churches this month. The festival of Pentecost, traditionally called Whitsunday in this country from the practice of having confirmations with candidates robed in white, celebrates the birthday of the church. Do join us.
St. Lawrence’s Annual Parochial Church Meeting
This was held last month with the customary reports and elections. I would like to thank everyone who shares in the life of the Parish Church, giving time and talents to the P.C.C. and all the social and fund raising events. We look forward to the next year!
Thought for the month
I am occasionally given old Bibles and Prayer Books to dispose of or “rehome”. I am glad there’s now the opportunity to re-cycle paper as I always felt hesitant about taking loved, but worn and valueless, old books to the tip. On the front page of one I found a quote attributed to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) which is appropriate for this time of the year – and for any century:
O Lord our God, give us by thy Holy Spirit
a willing heart and a ready hand
to use all our gifts to thy praise and glory.
God bless,
Nicholas Morgan, 01608 685230
Accident and Medical Emergencies
First Call - 999
Then Call
Ambulance Responders
Mick & Barbara Shepard
07977149317 Mobile / 01295680644 Home
3, The Leys, Oxhill, Warwick, CV350QX
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Last modified:April 29, 2009