BT Openreach have now accepted that we are interested in a Community Fibre Project for the Village. I now have 15 days to enter details of interested people and properties. There is NO OBLIGATION if you express interest. There is fibre in Mill Green, but not in Stonham Aspal Village.
The plan is to get Fibre direct to every property, using your existing provider (at their standard normal cost), to give you speeds of 300 Mbps. The data is what they require, except for the Email which I will use to keep in contact with updates.
The Village Hall is now open. It has been a difficult time for everyone dealing with Covid-19 but the committee have agreed that the main hall is now available to hire for some events. There is a restriction on the number of people allowed in the hall, but this is being monitored and in line with Government Guidelines. At the moment the kitchen and committee room will be closed and not available for hire.
If you would like to hire the village hall then please contact me on the number below to discuss your requirements.
Tennis Courts
Thank you to everyone who has renewed their membership this year. Membership this year has been extremely popular, and we now only have a couple of spaces left. I hope everyone has enjoyed the summer season of Tennis and that we have some good weather during the Autumn so that everyone can continue to use the court.
Debenham Library is open with a limited number of services. Mobile libraries are operating but the home library service remains suspended. Reservations have now resumed.
There is browsing of books or use of computers, nor printing, faxing or photocopying.
All DVD and CD loans are free
You can use the Advanced Search at https://suffolk.spydus.co.uk to check which titles are available at Debenham. Under “location”, choose or tick Debenham.
When you have finished with your books, please put them in our black bin outside the library. Books borrowed before lockdown have been renewed automatically until 1st September.
Meanwhile you can still use all our online services for free audiobooks, ebooks, films and other services. Use your library card at www.suffolklibraries.co.uk for more details.
Summer Reading Challenge 2020
This year the Summer Reading Challenge, children aged 4 to 11, will be organised online. You will need to register at www.sillysquad.org.uk. Books can be borrowed from the library (see above), or you can use eBooks or audiobooks, or books from your school.
School corner, Debenham IP14 6PL (next to the Primary School). Opening hours:
Hello Ladies, I hope to be able to send an email around one day in August to say that I am hosting a ‘thing’ in the garden. I am not sure what the ‘thing’ is yet. It may not be a social distanced sit down knife and folk meal but perhaps an afternoon tea, coffee and cake, some sort of gathering where we can come together once more.
Whilst we have not been able to physically come together we have been zooming each week on a Tuesday evening. Many thanks to Helen Brookson for getting this off the ground. We have no idea how long we will keep zooming for, but whilst there is a need we shall carry on. This is open to anyone, please don’t feel that you have had to come to a Brunch to be able to join. If you are not use to zoom, you receive an invitation in the form of a email with a link to click on. The first time you use it, zoom will be downloaded on to your device, and you are ready to go. It is so very easy! Please let me know if you would like to receive an invitation to join our chats on alexjenkinson@btopenworld.com
I am very aware that the finances at our church have been affected by this pandemic, so what ever event I hold, there will be a donation pot for church funds.
Looking forward to sharing our garden with you. Alex xx
The last couple of days have seen a cloudy, showery period with just over an inch of rain. Very welcome indeed. Evidence of it, in puddles on the Cart Track, will probably been gone by Monday but the beans, in particular, will benefit from it a lot. Although the crop is short it has flowered very well and hopefully the bees from Cedar Lodge will make the most of the sunny weather to work their magic. The upper pods appear to be filling well and the lower flowers have set pods, albeit very small at the moment. Hopefully, this rain will allow them to fill as well. Beans are very weather dependant crop and it is notoriously difficult to predict what yield will result. They are far more fickle than cereals or sugar beet and are a prime example of weather being all powerful where profits are concerned, regardless of the skill of the farmer or the shininess of his expensive machinery.
Harvest is not more than 10 days away for some of our neighbours and I expect that some light land barley will be cut next week. I am glad that we have had a cools showery week which will allow the crops more time to ripen naturally rather than die off. It tends to help grain quality a bit. We should be taking delivery of a new John Deere combine any day. Same model as before but many improvements that should make harvest more efficient. It is fitted with the latest satellite guidance equipment which allows it to record yield and produces yield maps which will be recorded on our own arable management programme. The programme can instruct the fertilizer spreader to vary rates depending on historical yield data and also control seeding rates on our drill to give us more efficient use of seed and fertilizer. We have just been informed that the variable rates part of the software is not ready yet. Somewhat worrying when it will be needed in seven weeks’ time. It’s a bit like buying a new car and being told the windscreen wipers don’t work but will do at some point in the future. No repayment of purchase price has been suggested yet but the dealer will lend us a controller until ours is ready. I expect it has a virus – or its manufacturer has.
Other equipment servicing is nearly done although we are still waiting for one set of earth wearing parts to arrive. They were ordered in March as we were anticipating delays in delivery and to be fair we were given an end of June delivery date at the time. In general the machinery dealerships have done a very good job in coping with all the problems of lockdown. There are several cases of parts being incorrectly supplied but I think this is a problem which is common to automotive and truck part suppliers as well. Machines have just become so complex and specifications change so frequently that it has become impossible for suppliers to stock every part. The longer the chains of supply, the more chance there is of mistakes happening. The moral of the story seems to be do not leave any repairs or servicing to the last minute or you may be disappointed.
You can use the Advanced Search at https://suffolk.spydus.co.uk to check which titles are available at Debenham. Under “location”, choose or tick Debenham.
When you have finished with your books, please put them in our black bin outside the library. All items have been renewed automatically until August.
Meanwhile you can still use all our online services for free audiobooks, ebooks, films and other services. Use your library card at www.suffolklibraries.co.uk for more details.
Summer Reading Challenge 2020
This year the Summer Reading Challenge, children aged 4 to 11, will be organised online. You will need to register at www.sillysquad.org.uk. Books can be borrowed from the library (see above), or you can use eBooks or audiobooks.
School corner, Debenham IP14 6PL (next to the Primary School). Opening hours:
For latest service info/times please see the website.
Question Everything!
A while ago I encountered someone in Suffolk wearing a rather striking T-shirt. You’ve guessed the slogan: “Question Everything”. I have good reason to believe that the wearer was of an atheist persuasion. And I know that for many these two words mean a lot. We ought to question everything. We ought to scrutinise and check everything. Of course, we’re all busy and we rarely stick to this principle. However, throughout my life I have noticed that there is a running assumption in the UK that Christians have not questioned everything. Christians have taken a blind leap of faith. Christians have shut their eyes to plain facts. Nothing could be further from the truth! My experience is that I/we have questioned everything. I’ve asked my questions, and I’ve found answers. In fact, in finding answers I’ve found more questions as well! I would encourage everyone to ask their questions and look for answers. We’re attempting to answer some big questions through our regular short videos on YouTube. Why not take a look and post any questions you may have for us? We’d love to hear from you and respond. Let’s start a conversation…
A special note: We are working on what church looks like for us, given the new government guidelines. If you’d like to see what we’re about you’re very welcome to join us we continue our online services on our YouTube channel ‘Mickfield Evangelical Church’. They premiere at 10am Sunday morning and are still available afterwards. We also produce many other short videos that look at all sorts of ideas and questions regarding Christianity, all available there as well as on Facebook and Instagram.
For latest service info/times please see the website.
In The Public Eye
Our politicians have been very much in the public eye over these last weeks. They’ve been subject to the scrutiny that we expect in a liberal democracy. As Christian’s we believe Jesus of Nazareth ought to remain in the public eye too. His life and claims ought to be subject to public scrutiny. Christianity has long lived in the public square in this country.
The church in the UK cannot meet publicly at the moment, but the Christian message is more in the public eye than ever, and people are taking the opportunity to look into what goes on within churches through their social media accounts.
Why not take a look at some of our recent videos? We’re on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. We recently posted a 3-part series entitled ‘3 Reasons we Believe’. We first considered The Monty Python reason, taking a look at the staggering impact of Jesus on our country. We’ve explored how Christianity makes sense of our complex and messy world, in The C.S. Lewis reason. In the final instalment we’re now taking a look at The Jesus reason. Have you scrutinised the man and his message?
Here’s a link to watch “The Jesus Reason”:
If you missed “The Monty Python Reason” or “The C.S. Lewis Reason” take a look here:
You may also be interested in our latest series: ‘5 Reasons to dismiss Christianity’. Which can be found here:
If you’d like to check out our family services or some of our short thought for the day/daily devotional videos they can be found on our YouTube channel here:
The wet few days we have just had, were very welcome indeed. We have recorded just over 24mm which, combined with overcast humid conditions, will allow the rain to be absorbed by the crops before it evaporates. At the risk of being called a misery, I wish it had been twice or three times as much! The greetings of the many cart track walkers passing through the farmyard have been interesting. There have been many grimaces when folks have been caught by heavy showers. When I point out that the rain is needed for the crops to grow for food, the common reaction is, “Yes I know but I am walking the dog.” The Arabs have a saying – All sunshine makes the desert – very true.
Wheat crops are looking promising and every shower will help grain fill in the ears. The prolonged dry spell has given us very little disease to worry about so far. Keeping the flag leaf clear of fungal infection is very important. This is the final and largest leaf of the cereal plant to emerge and provides 40% of the end yield of the plant. When it is working at its hardest during the long hours of daylight at present it is truly the power house of the arable farm and is quite literally providing our bread and butter. The rain and sun are also benefitting the spring barley which has transformed itself from disastrous to bad since the rain. The jury is still out on the spring beans as they have an extra 2 or 3 weeks longer than the other crops to reach maturity. More rain and sun over the next fortnight will improve matters a lot.
With no Suffolk Show, Cereal Exhibition, crop trials or holidays to get in the way, we have been plugging on with lots of routine maintenance jobs which have been pending for quite a while. Hedge cutter and grass topper have been treated to new sets of flails and had guards repaired and a couple of leaking hydraulic rams resealed. The main elevator in the grain store has been showing its 60years of active service for a few years now so we have taken all the cups off the drive belts ready for the skilled team at Bloomfield’s, in Debenham, to replace the 48metres of belts. All we have to do then is to bolt the 384 cups back on to the belts.
On the wildlife front it has been a very enjoyable spring. Whether the lockdown has given us time to watch, or the sunny weather and warm winter has been beneficial to resident creatures, we have seen a lot. Our barn owl box has 3 chicks in it and there seems to have been plenty of food for them. In the garden we have enjoyed the antics of a family of Great Spotted Woodpeckers at the peanut feeders, and seen hedgehogs, muntjac and foxes with our camera trap and during the day. Turtle doves seem to be favouring the area close to the farm buildings and churchyard this year and butterflies and bees are making the most of the clover and vetches on our lawn ( or what we call a lawn!) there have been some glorious sunsets seen through a pint of Farmers Flagon ruby ale from St Peter’s Brewery. I look forward to being able to share these sentiments in the future.
David Tydeman
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