Welcome to the Cuddington Village website

Welcome to the Cuddington website. There is lots of content to explore, and the site is constantly updated by editors in the village. Never miss out on village news and events that interest you by signing up in the Your Cuddington section.

The site has been created to be a hub of village activities and news and our ambition is that, as well as keeping everyone up to date, the website will become an interesting record of village life.

We would love to hear what you think of the website and any suggestions that you have on how we might improve it. You can email us on the Contact Us page.

Street map of Cuddington Postcode of village centre: HP18 0AP

News

01/02/2012

Ten Years Ago – and This Year!

A new page has been added to the Village History & Culture section called “Ten Years Ago”. On this page, with the kind co-operation of Village Voice, we look back at the issues and stories that were making news in the village exactly ten years ago.

Note also the new section on the menu for this year’s celebrations of Her Majesty the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

30/01/2012

Fish & Chips Supper and Quiz Evening

The Bernard Hall

Saturday, 25th February 7.00 pm for 7.30 pm

This event is to raise money to help pay for our jubilee celebrations, thereby trying to keep the costs down for villagers. Please come and join us. Details in the poster – click to enlarge.

31/01/2012

Buckinghamshire Adult Learning – Courses for 2012

Adult Learning provides a wide range of part-time courses for skills development and leisure learning. Subjects include foreign languages, computer skills, creative arts, sport and fitness, basic English and maths and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) courses.

We also provide training solutions for businesses including Apprenticeships and NVQs in Accounting, Business Admin, Childcare, Customer Service, IT, Management, Supporting Teaching and Learning in Schools and Team Leading.

We are proud that 98% of our learners rate the teaching standard at Buckinghamshire Adult Learning as good or excellent, with feedback including “inspirational teaching”, “infectious enthusiasm”, “uplifting” and “fantastic tutor”. Our 79% GCSE pass rate at A*-C for 10/11, being 9% above the national rate, was particularly pleasing. This was a tribute to the commitment of our learners and the professionalism and dedication of our tutors.

For more information or to enrol on a course please telephone 0845 045 40 40 or visit www.adultlearningbcc.ac.uk

23/01/2012

Brendan Cole fills the Waterside Theatre

Local resident Brendan Cole played to a full auditorium on 22 January 2012 at the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury. Cuddington was well represented with the Cricket Club to the fore.

Brendan was joined by five other professional dancers including his brother Scott, two singers and a lively twelve piece band. The programme was called ‘Live And Unjudged’ – with tango and rumba, cha cha and salsa in the first half; and the more classical waltzes and foxtrots in the second. Brendan had the audience itself standing to dance to the salsa – your correspondent managed the right foot movements, (though not necessarily in the right order).

The energy and stamina of the performers is amazing – especially as their UK tour takes them to twenty four venues from Aberdeen to Truro, Scunthorpe to Brighton in twenty seven days. Good luck and best wishes to them for the rest of the tour until the middle of February.

17/01/2012

W.I. – Summary of Annual Report 2011

This is an account of some of the activities of Cuddington WI in 2011.

We had a membership of nineteen with a committee of seven. Everyone was involved in fund raising, etc.

There were training days to keep the officers up to scratch and interesting resolution briefing meetings to ensure that members and delegates were well informed at the AGM, which was held in Liverpool. The resolution passed and put forward for action was against the closure of libraries. As individuals we have supported our local library in Haddenham.

Some of our members avail themselves of WI outings and holidays. These included The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. Dutch bulb fields and Portsmouth.

A wall hanging which members had made was presented to the Cuddington and Dinton village school at a morning assembly. The head mistress, Mrs Price, there and then used it in a teaching project and the children joined in with enjoyment.

The programme of our monthly meetings is published in Village Voice. Speakers included in their talks such topics as work with the Samaritans, drug awareness when the talk was given by an officer from Springhill Prison and to our joy demonstrations by two dogs of drug detection, the Island of Jersey, policing the Newbury bye-pass and finally a little Zambian school, Tujatane, which is supported by a family in the village. In July we had a wonderfully tranquil boat trip on the Thames and on another occasion entertained ourselves with poetry reading.

Fundraising. The copper collection continued and enabled us to send a donation to Young Carers Bucks for the fifth year. This collection is also supported by non-members. By craft stalls we were able to donate to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Cancer Care Haematology and their scan appeal.

We take an active part in village events and look forward to being involved in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year.

Our WI warmly welcomes new members.

12/01/2012

Walks in or near Cuddington

For some ideas for walks nearby, please use the walk finder below:

Please let me have any comments you have on the walks and I will post them on the site in due course.

Also please don't forget to let us know of any footpath problems!

Happy walking in 2012

Alan and Stella Marsh

12/01/2012

OBE for Felicity Hilder

Congratulations to Felicity Hilder, who was awarded an OBE for services to charity by Her Majesty the Queen in the 2012 New Year Honours List.

More than 25 years ago Felicity, along with her late husband Tim, helped to resurrect a small organisation called the Hodgkin’s Disease Association, running a helpline for the charity from their home in Haddenham. Felicity has remained active with the charity, now known as the Lymphoma Association, ever since. These days the charity employs twenty staff who manage an annual income of more than £1 million.

Besides remaining a trustee of the charity, Felicity looks after the advertising for Village Voice and is a frequent contributor to the services in St. Nicholas’ Church.

07/01/2012

Clipper Round the World Race

A Cuddington villager is taking part in a long distance sailing race to raise money for an African school.

Honour Schram de Jong has joined the 16-strong crew of the yacht De Lage Landen for the fifth leg of the Clipper Round the World Race ’11-12. The 68-foot yacht, named after a Netherlands-based finance company, set sail from Southport in eastern Australia on Christmas Eve. This leg of the race will take the crews up the Gold Coast of Australia, through the islands of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia to Singapore and then on through the East China Sea to the Olympic sailing city of Qingdao – a total distance of 7,600 miles. The teams spent Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve afloat and the yachts are currently north of Papua New Guinea, heading west towards Malaysia.

Honour is raising money for the Tijutane primary school in Tongabezi, Zambia, and has currently raised just over half of her £3,000 target. To contribute, visit Honour’s Just Giving page and follow the progress of the race at www.clipperroundtheworld.com

13/12/2011

Manor House String Quartet – Christmas Concert

On Saturday Dec. 10th the Manor House String Quartet, who gave us such an impressive performance here in September, returned to St Nicholas Church to provide a concert of Christmas music.

The programme comprised primarily of carols imaginatively adapted for a string quartet.

The wide selection of carols from different countries was introduced by members of the quartet who provided the background to the carol which was to follow.

In addition the programme was varied by pieces from Handel’s Messiah and even included an unusual setting of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, as well as other modern offerings.

The instrumentalists combined beautifully to enthral us with a highly accomplished performance of well-known seasonal music, which did not fail to impress.

Over 80 people enjoyed the evening which included an interval where wine and delicious canapés were served.

Donations of £142 were given on the evening to help fund the Kampala Music School which has been set up by people in the village to enable young Ugandans to acquire outstanding musical skills.

See opposite for a number of photographs.

07/12/2011

Step forward the snow saviours – Bucks

The search is on by Buckinghamshire County Council for this year’s snow saviours – volunteers with four-wheel-drive (4WD) vehicles to help reach vulnerable people during heavy snowfalls.

And the message is, even if you don't have a vehicle you can still be a snow saviour by volunteering to help clear paths at the homes of vulnerable people.

During last year’s heavy snow, despite superhuman effort by the County Council’s home carers, some had difficultly reaching vulnerable people, said Trevor Boyd, Head of Commissioning for Adult Social Care.

“Our staff thought nothing of walking when driving wasn’t possible to provide much-needed care and support to vulnerable people,” said Trevor. “But we could do so much more, and much more quickly if we had the help of volunteers with 4WD vehicles.”

Martin Phillips, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement, said: “We’re looking for the snow saviours of Buckinghamshire! It’s a Big Society ask, and we know our county has so many community-spirited people who’d be so willing to help our vulnerable people during the winter.”

Ch Insp Colin Seaton, Wycombe’s Deputy Area Commander, said: “Last year the county was affected badly by the snow and we want to make sure that we are as prepared as we can be this year.

“It is important for us to ensure that the more vulnerable people in our community are looked after during these times and I hope that anyone who is in a position to help, comes forward.”

If you can help please call the County Council's Localities Team on 01296 383409 or email locality-services@buckscc.gov.uk with your name, where you live, contact details and whether you can help with snow clearance or whether you have a 4WD vehicle.

This is a Community Message from Aylesbury Watch Office on Tuesday 6 December 2011.

02/09/2011

New Bulletin Board Page

You’ll see that the menu on the left now contains a new option – the Bulletin Board. On this page you can discuss any matters of interest to the village, advertise items for sale, or arrange a car share.

There are four message Categories at the moment (although we can add new ones very easily if there is sufficient demand):

Discussion Forum
For Sale
Lift Offered / Required
Wanted

Please note that you need to sign in on the Your Cuddington page before you can post a new message, or reply to an existing one.

14/01/2011

Sign up for Website Membership!

To enrol as a member of Cuddington's new website takes just a couple of minutes, is completely free of charge, and brings you all these benefits:

Highlight all your own particular areas of interest in the village, and then be notified by email the moment there’s a new article or calendar event of interest to you
Create your own personal calendar, filtered to show only those events that interest you
Promote your local business in our Business Directory pages
Add your own entries to the village calendar, to let everyone know about forthcoming events in which you're involved

Don’t worry – you won’t be inundated with junk mail. Your personal details are held securely and will not be passed to a third party. You will only receive an email when the editor of one of your favourite pages posts a new article or calendar event, or has something important to communicate. And you can change your preferences as often as you like.

Make our website work for you – visit the Your Cuddington page and sign up as a member now!