Category: Thame news

THAME Food Festival, which this year attracted over 20,000 people to the town, has earned a Bronze Award in The Beautiful South Awards 2015.

At a glittering award ceremony in Brighton on Wednesday evening, December 2, a delighted Lotte Duncan and Alison Isherwood collected the award on behalf of everyone involved in the event that after just six years since its inception, has become the biggest, free food festival in country.

Commenting on the awards, Nigel Smith, CEO of Tourism South East (pictured right), said, “It was a fantastic evening at the Grand Hotel and a real privilege to be in the company of so many dedicated and passionate tourism businesses. The excellent quality of facilities, service and approach makes our role of promoting the South East so much easier and is one of the main reasons why we are the most popular UK tourist region outside London.”

Thame Food Festival benefits good causes

Not only does the Thame Food Festival showcase the town to thousands of visitors,  it is a not-for-profit organisation and raises funds for local good causes and charities, and this year raised a total of £3,420.

Alison Isherwood, Food Festival Administrator, said: “The following organisations have benefited and we would like to thank our visitors, sponsors, directors and volunteers who came and helped in the run up, and on the day. Everyone was responsible for contributing towards the donations.”

The Thame ATC (Air Training Corp) who transported equipment from the equipment bank and were responsible for putting out tables, chairs etc £250, Thame Lions Stall at event £785, Thame Rotary Club Stall at event £700, Lions and Rotary who stewarded the stallholders’ car park £500, Thame Foodbank from proceeds of  The Big Thame Bake £500 and the Belazu Foundation Pop-up restaurant in Christchurch £685 – a grand total of £3420.

In a letter to Thame Food Festival and The Big Thame Bake, John Hulett, Trustee of Sharing Life Trust wrote: “Thank you so much for thinking of us. This is a very welcome donation indeed which we can use towards the cost of our ‘Community Christmas in a Box’ project which we are running for the third year.”

The Lions and Rotary Club, both based in Thame have been involved with the Festival for a number of years, and they raise money throughout the year for many local causes. Money raised from both their stalls and the producers’ car park on the Festival day, helped The Rotary Club support their chosen charities – the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and Medical Detection Dogs and The Multiple Sclerosis Centre at Wendover.

The Thame Lions Club organise an annual Pantomime trip to the Thame Players theatre, followed by a tea party for approximately 60 elderly and underprivileged people, and the money they raised on the day helped towards making this possible.

“The Thame Food Festival relies on the help of so many people to make it the success it is and I’d like to say a big thank you to them all,” said Lotte Duncan, Patron and Director of the Thame Food Festival. “We are hugely grateful to all the chefs who give their time for nothing to come to Thame, the directors who provide their input and expertise, the new foodie force of volunteers helping out on the day, Jane Hornby who did a wonderful job running the Big Thame Bake and of course our hard-working organiser, Alison Isherwood.  Thank you to everyone – it’s a true team effort,”

The Thame Food Festival is a community event run by the community for the community.  For more details, or to get involved by sponsoring or supporting next year’s festival, visit: www.thamefoodfestival.co.uk

A Thame Town Charter, aimed at strengthening community spirit throughout the town, has been launched by the Mayor of Thame.

Cllr Nichola Dixon, alongside the Town Clerk, Graham Hunt, and representatives of Sharing Life Trust, came together on Friday, November 27, 2015, to formally launch the Thame Community Charter and it is hoped that local groups, clubs and businesses will sign up to share its vision and spirit.

The Charter is described as: “Setting out a vision for our town around which individuals and both the voluntary and commercial sectors can coalesce and actively participate in building a stronger community identity. The simple, recognisable ‘mark’ of the Charter will be a clear identifier of all that makes our town a special place in which to live and work.”

On receiving her copy of the Charter, Cllr Dixon said: “Thame is such a wonderful place to live; full of passionate individuals and businesses who care deeply about the future of their community. This Charter puts into words what we are all striving towards for our town. I am delighted to support it and strongly encourage others to do so.”

Phil Stratton of Sharing Life Trust said: “As a local charity providing relief of hardship and poverty, we are passionate about enabling those in the community to make a difference.”

Anyone wanting to adopt the Community Charter, can visit www.thamecharter.org or contact Sharing Life Trust on 0845 466 0264.

THAME High Street has been officially recognised as a ‘Rising Star’ among British high streets, and yesterday (November 30), was honoured with a special certificate at the Great British High Street Awards ceremony at Admiralty House, in Whitehall, London.

The event was hosted jointly by High Streets Minister, Marcus Jones, and the President of Boots, Simon Roberts, who are co-Chairs of the Government’s Future High Streets Forum, which instigated the Great British High Streets Awards. The judging panel said that the Rising Stars particularly impressed them ‘with their commitment to working together to bring new life into their high streets’ and of Thame in particular, special mention was made of its Neighbourhood Plan and for the way Thame has ‘been put back on the map through the use of social media’.

Two of Thame’s GB High Streets team, Helen Johns and Sonja Francis, were at Admiralty House to receive the award on behalf of the town, supported by Thame’s MP, John Howell, who was instrumental in formulating the Government’s Neighbourhood Planning policy.

After the event, John Howell said: “It was a great pleasure to be at the awards ceremony and to support Thame. I think Thame did very well to be chosen from across the country and I was particularly pleased to see that its Neighbourhood Plan was specifically mentioned. This is good news for Thame and the excellence of what it has to offer in its High Street.”

In his introduction Marcus Jones said: “All of today’s finalists have proven themselves to be among Britain’s best high streets and I congratulate them on their good work. We’ll be sharing all of their top tips with other high streets across the country to make sure others learn from their success.”

A delighted Helen Johns from the Thame team said: “A small group of people put time and effort into preparing Thame’s application during the summer and it is fantastic to hear that our hard work has paid off because of the Rising Star award being given to the town. I would like to thank all those who worked hard to ensure Thame has been put on the national map in this way and hopefully, next year, when we are told the competition will be even bigger, we can look forward to seeing Thame moving up the scale and awarded as winner in the market town category.”

References: The Future High Street Forum – http://thegreatbritishhighstreet.co.uk/about
The Great British High Street Awards – http://thegreatbritishhighstreet.co.uk

A charity Cake Fest, held in a Thame pub, by the the Thame Scooterists’ club, The Red Kites, has raised over £200, towards Cancer Research.

With the support and donations from the landladies of the Falcon pub in Thame, bar staff, all the regulars, Red Kites scooter club members, work colleagues and friends, the daughter of one of the club’s members, Amy Southern, has raised the first £K of her target £3K for the charity.

Red Kites member, Serena Chamberlain, explained: “Amy is currently studying at Cardiff University and hopes to enter the field of medicine when she graduates, and this charity is very close to her heart. We wanted to help support her and by selling home baked goodies, the grand total from the Red Kites Charity Cake Fest was £233.45, money that will go directly to Amy’s donation page https://k16cardiff.everydayhero.com/uk/amy-southern

In August 2016, Amy will be undertaking the challenge of a lifetime, climbing to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise more money towards her target £3K which will go to Worldwide Cancer Research to help them pay for the technology and resources required to find cures for all types of cancer, all over the world.

Amy said: “I am overjoyed and hugely appreciate everyone’s help and support. Sadly, cancer can affect many of us, whether personally, or through family and friends.”

ACTION Fraud (National Fraud Intelligence Bureau) has warned today that there has been a series of incidents recently whereby fraudsters either phone or call at the homes of elderly people, claiming to be police officers.

The fake officer/s claim that they are investigating a fraud which they believe the elderly person to be a victim of. The fake officer/s will then request the bank cards and personal identification numbers (PIN) of the victim and claim these are needed for investigation purposes. If the first contact was made by a phone call, the fake officer/s will tell the victim that someone will be over to collect the evidence. In one case the victim was instructed to attend their local bank and withdraw all of the money from their account. The suspect was left alone in the victim’s house whilst the victim carried out the instructions.

The advice is, before letting anyone into your home who claims to be from any law enforcement agency, ask to see their identity card and check it by calling 101.
Ask if they can attend at a pre-arranged time when a family member or friend can also be present.
If you receive a phone call from a police officer, ask for their name and force and tell them you will call them back. Wait a few minutes and then use 101 to call them back through their force’s switchboard and verify their identity.

The Police will never ask for your PIN or passwords. Do not give this information to anyone.
The Police will never request that you withdraw/transfer any money to them.
If you believe that you have been a victim of fraud you can report it online via http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud or by telephone 0300 123 2040.