Flaxby Matters: social newsletter March 2012

In this issue
• Events for this year
• New members wanted for social committee
• Fund-raising successes
• Oil cooperative makes significant savings
• Website progress
• Recommended trades people update

A year of events  
Many thanks for your kind comments regarding the events the social committee has staged during the past year.

Residents will be pleased to know that the committee is keen to build on this and has drawn up a programme of events for 2012. Precise timings will be issued nearer the dates but we’d like to give you an early view of what we’ve lined up.

SPRING: the programme kicks off with a wine and cheese party with Mervin and Jacqui Straughan on Saturday 21 April. Entry is free. Just bring a bottle of something either alcoholic or non-alcoholic.

SUMMER: Darren and Caroline Greenhalgh host a garden party on Sunday 8 July. These parties, in particular, have been well attended since they became a regular event three years ago.

And it’s a case of best foot forward for villagers who enjoy a good walk. The committee is organising a walk to Knaresborough on a route through the fields, bordering the lake and taking in some less familiar parts of the town on Saturday 18 August.

Walkers will be able to do their own thing in the town at lunchtime before we head back mid afternoon.

AUTUMN: due to popular demand, we’ll be staging another village quiz night at the Tiger Inn. The date is to be confirmed but we will be looking again at a weekday during late October.

WINTER:  and we’ll be getting people in the festive mood as we hold our carol singing and Christmas auction on Sunday 16 December.The auction will be hosted by Buck and Kath White at Herons Keep.

New committee members wanted
We’d like to boost our six-strong committee to eight to bring some added inspiration and help us plan and stage our events. Please get in touch with a committee member if you’d like to get involved.

A big thank you
Our programme of events continues to prove popular with residents but it’s also benefiting charity. Since Buck and Kath White held their 2009 garden party and the social committee was formed, we’ve been able to raise an impressive £1,575 for the Martin House Children’s Hospice from the proceeds of our garden parties and Christmas events.

Oil be happy with a discount
Flaxby residents are now benefiting from their membership of the West of Ouse Oil Syndicate.    

With well over 500 members across 12 villages and communities, this provides one of the largest single orders for domestic heating oil over the North of England.    

Each of their six combined orders each year is around 70,000 litres over 80 drops and this results in worthwhile savings for members.  

Although prices fluctuate wildly, savings of 3-6 pence per litre can be made over the best any individual could obtain by ringing all suppliers.

The resulting £30 to £100 saving each year depending on usage is certainly worth having so please sign up without any charge or obligation if you have yet to do so. Simply get in touch with Dr John Fowler.

Net gains
As reported some months ago, the social committee has followed in the footsteps of villages such as
Arkendale and set up a Flaxby website to ensure that residents can access information about events, share news and make use of our growing list of recommended trades people at the click of a mouse.

But we want the site to serve the village in the best way possible so, please, get in touch with any news, gardening tips, snippets, poems or recipes or, indeed, anything you would like to share with us that you feel might interest fellow villagers.

History plea
We’re particularly keen to build up an historical appreciation of the village on the website so if you have any photos – past and present – we’d be delighted to use them.

And please get in touch with any anecdotes or historical facts about the village.

The site can be found at www.flaxbyvillage.blogspot.com.

We'd value your feedback on the site.

Historical document
Since our last newsletter, Sheilagh Fowler has kindly provided a transcript for the website of the 1669 legal document which established the Flaxby Village School. It makes fascinating reading.

Trades people list
Keep those recommendations coming. Our list of trades people is proving so handy and popular that we’ve had to move it onto the website as we can no longer accommodate the growing number of recommendations in a newsletter.

If you can recommend any other trades people that you have used, please get in touch with Buck White.