Category: More News

A MAN from Thame has set himself the challenge of swimming along the Bosphorous Strait in Turkey, to raise funds for the cancer that killed his beloved mother.

Mike Bishop, 43, from Thame, will be taking part in the 26th Samsung, Bosphorus Cross-Continental Swimming Race on July 20, a 6.5km swim along the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey – the busy shipping lane that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. It’s a gruelling swim in challenging conditions and against the clock because the Turkish authorities close the Bosphorus for two hours only.

It was the death of Mike’s mother, Barbara Coyle, from pancreatic cancer in April 2012, that inspired him to take on this challenge, aiming to raise as much money as possible for the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund (PCRF). Barbara, who worked as IT manager for the LOROS Hospice charity in Leicestershire, was just 63 and planning her retirement when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in February 2012.

“For mum to die only two months after diagnosis was such a massive shock to all of us,” said Mike. “We were very close and her death hit us all really hard. Her grandchildren were her world and she was really looking forward to spending more time with them. She’d recently taken up cycling and was very fit and active.”

Director of Software Engineering for McAfee, Mike had never swum in open water before he embarked on his training schedule in January 2014. Although a reasonable, if out of practice, swimmer, he’s found the training hard going. “I was ready to pull out after my first sea swim – it went very badly and I thought I’d never be ready in time – but I was determined to carry on in mum’s memory,” he explained.

Joining Mike on the swim will be his colleague, 37 year old Madhu Halebathi Marulasiddah from Aylesbury, who is taking part for his own personal challenge. Also among the 1,500 Bosphorus swimmers, who range in age from 14 to 84, will be Pippa and James Middleton – siblings of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.

Mike’s wife, Sue, and his sons Henry (10) and Isaac (6) will be in Turkey to cheer him on. “Sue’s been very supportive and kept me going when the training got tough. She’s proud that I’ve persevered, but I think she’s also nervous that I’ve underestimated just how hard it’s going to be – no chance of that!” he concluded.

Each year approximately 8,800 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It is an extremely difficult cancer to diagnose and treat because it is unusually aggressive, symptoms are often vague and generally appear at an advanced stage of the disease. Around three per cent of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer will survive for five years or more, a figure that has barely improved in forty years.

If you would like to support Mike in his fundraising efforts, please visit: https://www.justgiving.com/BosphorusBas/

THE clock struck 12, the heavens opened, and over 600 ladies and specially nominated male walkers donning ponchos, macs and pink bunny ears, set off from Aylesbury College for the fifth Gemstone Midnight Walk in aid of the Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity (FNHC), which early indications show £45k being pledged on the night with money still to come in.

Although bedraggled, the rain failed to dampen the walkers’ spirits and bunny power prevailed with both ladies and silver ballot place male participants powering on in defiance of the weather. Three energy-boosting pit-stops spread across the 13-mile route proved extremely welcoming for soggy-eared walkers, including Aylesbury Waterside Theatre at mile six, which turned pink for the night. Walkers were re-fuelled and re-energised with water, jelly babies (a walker favourite) and jaffa cakes, with a further pit-stop around mile 10 at the Cotton Wheel, Jackson Road, for 13-mile walkers nearing the finishing line.

The first six milers crossed the finish line around 1.30am with the first 13-milers heading in at just after 3am. Richard Williams of Walton Way, Aylesbury (who had decked his shirt with over 350 Swarovski crystals for the night) was the first male 13-mile walker back, marching in at 3.25am.

A fantastic build-up to the launch saw Katy Brown of Mix96 hosting the stage show helping to entertain the crowd, as well as live music from The Zefrones, singer Sophie Ray and a Cha Cha return from Sian McCarthy & Mark Henderson, who proved why they walked away with the Charity’s ‘Strictly Florence’ 2013 dance competition crown last October at the start of the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Hospice. The walker warm-up was once again provided by Joanna Beardsmore-Dilks of GLOW fitness, who has supported the event for the past four years, which went down a real treat – thankfully just before the rain came down!

“It was an amazing night, despite the weather,” said FNHC’s Karen Shardlow. “It’s the first-time we’ve had rain in five years, but we were prepared with extra marshals in key areas in case of excess water along the route, and spare t-shirts to hand out to walkers who needed a dry layer after completing the challenge. Our walkers were fantastic and weren’t going to let anything stop them from setting off and taking on their Midnight Walk challenge in our Silver Jubilee year!

“On behalf of Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity (FNHC), I would like to say a very big thank you to our walkers, marshals, volunteers, local business sponsors, and to all those supporters who left signs of ‘good luck’ along the road, or waited up with watermelon and sweetie bowls outside their houses – this really did make a massive difference to our ladies, with the weather as it was. We are absolutely thrilled with the £45,000 pledged on the night, which means we have now smashed our fundraising target of £300,000 – the total money raised since the Gemstone Walk started in 2010.”

Karen added: “We will be announcing next year’s date this week, with some early bunny offers, so please dry those pink ears off and put them in a safe place until the Gemstone Midnight Walk returns in 2015.”

For more information visit www.gemstonwalk.co.uk and www.fnhospice.org.uk

SOURCE: Contributed

TWO brothers have been jailed for Conspiracy to Burgle in areas across two Police Forces, including several burglaries in Thame.

The pair were sentenced at Reading Crown Court on Friday, July 11, after pleading guilty to a Conspiracy to Burgle charge during an earlier court hearing.

Scott Blundell, aged 23, of Tower Field Sqaure, Northampton, was jailed for a total of five years and four months after pleading guilty to one charge of conspiracy which encompassed 19 separate burglaries. His brother Jack, aged 21, of Windsor Crescent, Harrow, was jailed for four years after pleading guilty to one charge of conspiracy which encompassed 14 separate burglaries.

The pair were arrested as part of an operation led by Thames Valley Police, following burglaries reported in Maidenhead, Aylesbury, Thame, Romsey, Shirley and Basset near Southampton in Hampshire.

The Conspiracy charge, consisted of 24 burglaries in total, although not all were included in the guilty pleas. The Thame burglaries were as follows:

Five offences in Thame on Tuesday, March 4; Hazelrig Drive, three offences in Henrietta Road, and Overton Drive.
All the burglaries were committed late at night or in the early hours of the morning when the brothers targeted insecure front doors which had not been double locked with a key by the occupants prior to them going to bed for the night.

THAME Residents have enthusiastically welcomed a herd of cows to the town over the last 18 months. The cows in question are life size models featuring advertising boards which have been stationed at various sites in the town and used to promote local community events.

The cows were provided by 21st Century Thame and formed part of a project to promote market towns, which was funded by South Oxfordshire District Council and LEADER, a European Commission programme that supports community-led local economic development in rural areas. The herd are looked after by various businesses throughout the town.

You may have noticed that the cow usually next to Kismet Jewellers in the Buttermarket has moved recently to be part of the window display in Greens Furnishing. When the display is next changed, the cow will sadly have no home. So if you have an area at your business or home that is not on the public highway and you would like to give her a home where she can continue to promote community events, please get in touch with Mary Stiles at 21st Century Thame.
Tel: 01844-213851 or 07779-654840, or email maryandstella@aol.com.

DEFIBRILLATORS in more and more public places in Thame, is the aim of the Staying Alive action group, and after a successful presentation to Thame Town Council this evening, a grant from the council will allow them to install a third defibrillator somewhere in the town that could save a life.

Speaking at this evening’s Policy and Resources committee meeting, Dick Tracey, South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) divisional responder manager, told councillors that cardiac arrest is the UK’s biggest killer, and that for every minute that passes before a heart can be started again, the chances of a successful resuscitation diminishes by 10 per cent on average. He explained that from a survival rate of just 4 – 5% currently, it is possible to increase that to up to 62% as has happened in Seattle, by the use of these publically available defibrillators.

The defibrillators like the one recently installed outside Brothers Hair Salon in Buttermarket, Thame, (see LINK) are specially designed to be used by members of the public with no First-aid knowledge whatsoever, ‘talking through’ the procedure step by step. Whenever someone rings 999 and asks for an ambulance, once the operator has identified that a possible cardiac arrest has occured, he or she will immediately direct the caller to a defibrillator if there is one close by, and help them operate the equipment if necessary by entering an activation code.

There is another defibrillator outside the Scout HQ in Southern Road, Thame, and one each at Upper and Lower Lord Williams’s School, and the young people are being trained so that if the need ever arose, they would not be afraid to use t

THIS year is the 25th anniversary of the reintroduction of red kites in the Chilterns, one of the most successful conservation projects ever carried out in the UK.

On August 1, 1989, in a quiet tranquil valley on the Bucks/Oxon border within the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, five young red kites were released into the wild. This project, to re-introduce a native species that had been wiped out over previous centuries, was one of the first of its kind in the UK, and the people behind it could only hope that the young birds would thrive and breed.

As we now know, the project could not have been a greater success. Over the next five years, another 88 red kites were released in the Chilterns by English Nature and the RSPB. With a few exceptions the young birds thrived in their new home and started breeding. The population has steadily built up ever since, gradually spreading out from the release point. 25 years year on, these beautiful birds are an incredibly common sight in the southern Chilterns and beyond, including above Thame. There are so many now it is impossible to know their exact numbers, but there are at least 1,000 breeding pairs spread across large parts of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Berkshire.

Cathy Rose of the Chilterns Conservation Board said: “The site in the Chilterns was picked as the first for re-introducing kites into England because there’s plenty of natural food for them to scavenge and places to nest in here. The Chilterns area is also nationally-protected as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It wasn’t a certainty though that the project would be a success so it is absolutely fantastic that the kites have done so well.”

Neil Douglas, Senior Nature Policy Officer at RSPB HQ commented: “The Chilterns reintroduction has been fantastically successful in bringing red kites back from the brink. Previously driven to extinction in England, it is heartening to see these impressive birds become a popular spectacle and well-loved feature of our landscape.”

Kites have thrived so strongly in the Chilterns that nearly 300 young birds have been taken to start re-introduction schemes in other parts of the UK such as Gateshead and Yorkshire.

Find out more about the Chilterns’ kites at www.chilternsaonb.org/red-kites

SOURCE: Contributed by Claire Forrest of The Chilterns Conservation Board

THE retiring Chair of the Thame Town Awards, has spoken of warmly of the many people of Thame who volunteer and go unrecognised.

Speaking at the Thame Town Awards presentation evening last Thursday (July 10), Pat Ruxton, who has stepped down as Chair of the Panel after six years, spoke of the many people in Thame she had come across who do ‘great things very quietly’ and spoke of her pride in being part of a scheme that recognised some of these ‘unsung heroes’.

Those who received awards from the Mayor, Jeannette Matelot Green, and their citations are as follows:

Sporting Achievement – Les Canfield

Les has been a voluntary green keeper at Thame Bowls for many years, maintaining the clubs reputation as having the best green in Oxfordshire! Unfortunately, due to family commitments he is no longer able to volunteer, however, this award marks the many hours he has given voluntarily and how much he will be missed by members of the club.

Young Achiever – Harry Parsons

Harry is a student at Lord Williams’s School and has represented his peers in all aspects of school life including the school council. He has given a voice to his year group on issues such as bullying, homophobia and mental health and also supported new students as they make the transition from lower school. He also makes up half of a popular radio show on Thame’s very own Black Frog Radio – all this whilst studying for his GCSE’s.

Service with a Smile – Michael Hutt

Michael is a familiar face to most people in Thame, particularly if you have ever suffered from a cough or cold. As the pharmacist in Boots, Michael gets to meet a lot of local people, many of whom described him as helpful, knowledgeable and a friendly asset to Thame.

Voluntary Individual/Organisation

Due to the number and standard of nominations in this category the Panel decided to split the category into two and award both an individual and an organisation.

Voluntary Individual – Ken Bennell

Ken, an active member of Thame Lions for over 30 years, received an award for his outstanding length of service from the foundation at the 37th Charter Luncheon. He has worked for the Thame & District Housing Association for 6 years and, since retiring, volunteers at the Bowls Club and was recently appointed treasurer for Thame Sports Club. In 2005 he received the Melvin Jones Fellowship for Dedication to Humanitarian Services from the Lions International Foundation.

Voluntary Organisation – Sharing Life Trust

Sharing Life is a vital organisation run by volunteers that offers numerous forms of support to people in our community. As well as providing debt counselling, family support and transport for the less mobile, Sharing Life has implemented the Food Bank, which distributes food parcels to struggling families. The Community Bank which helps combat the pitfalls of pay day loan companies. The charity also has links in East Africa and India, widening their scope of giving to enable these global communities to flourish.

After receiving his award, John Hulet told Thame.Net: “It was great to be nominated and a tribute to the support that the local community gives us.”

Person of Courage – Nathanael Armstrong

At the age of 16 Nat was diagnosed with an extremely rare allergy to all proteins and sugars, dramatically restricting his diet and impacting on his health. He has undergone extensive investigations and experiments into curing his illness at the John Radcliffe, Guy’s & St Thomas and Great Ormond Street hospitals. Unfortunately, due to nature of his illness, treatment is extremely costly and so Nat and his family have set up a trust to help raise the money needed to continue his medication (www.help4nat.co.uk). Prior to his illness, Nat was a gifted county swimmer and continues to support his swimming club.

Lifetime Achievement – Beatrice Dobie

Beatrice has been a lifelong resident of Thame and has devoted her life to serving the community. She was a Brownie leader for many years and continues to be an active member of the Community Hospital League of Friends. She was also instrumental in realising the new library in North Street. Others may also be more familiar with Beatrice in her role as a representative of Thame Town Council, of which she was a member for many years. Beatrice was delighted to receive the award and thanked the people of Thame for nominating her.

The Thame Town Awards were sponsored by : Arriva, Brothers, Independent Mortgage Solutions, Kubota, Parkers and Thame Chiropractic Clinic.

A friend of Nat Armstrong, the gifted Thame swimmer struck down with a serious allergic illness, has decided to shave off  all her hair to raise much needed funds for Nat’s medical treatment.

Natalie Watson, of 18, Chinnor Road, Thame, is holding a barbecue at her house starting at 11.30am this morning, and anticipates that the shaving will take place after people have eaten, expected to be some time between 1.30 and 2.30pm.

Natalie hopes that as many people will go along as possible and donate what they can or take a raffle prize. All the funds will help Nat’s parents pay the £1,700 a week it costs to keep his special treatment going.

On Thursday evening, Nat was presented with the Person of Courage award at the Town Awards Ceremony by the Mayor, Jeannette Matelot Green who read out the citation for the award: ” Nat responds to his situation with great courage and and remains cheerful and optimistic about the future.”

Anyone who can’t make Natalie’s barbecue and shaving can donate by visiting her ‘Shave4Nat’ web page http://help4nat.co.uk/shave4nat.htm

You can read all about Nat’s plight and follow his progress at http://help4nat.co.uk/

Previous news stories about the amazing fund-raising efforts of Nat Armstrong’s friends  https://www.thame.net/archives/14246

FUNDING for Thame’s longed-for, replacement skatepark received a huge boost yesterday, when the young people behind the TSP (Thame Skatepark Project) learned that they were a step closer to being awarded £100,000 towards the scheme.

The announcement came at last night’s Thame Town Awards event at the Thame Barns Centre – just hours after the group had give a presentation to the prospective donor, South Oxfordshire District Council.

If the district’ council’s grants panel decision is approved by the full Cabinet, this will bring the £250,000 transformation of the existing, worn out skatepark to a modern, durable wheeled-sports facility one big step closer. The skaters themselves have been at the heart of the process, petitioning for a new skate park,  determining the design of the new facility and  fundraising. 

A delighted Corin Rea, who has been one of the project leaders for the TSP, said: “We are delighted to hear the encouraging news about the £100k SODC grant. Getting significant funding like that is key to driving the project forward, so we are extremely grateful. We are starting to edge closer to our final, funding goal, these are exciting times!”

Town Mayor, Cllr Jeannette Matelot Green, is a strong supporter of the project having chosen it as one of her chosen charities for her year in office. She said: “I watched the three young men who head up TSP give a very professional presentation to the Community Grants Panel at SODC on Thursday morning. I was so proud of them and the district councillors praised them for their presentation and informed response to questioning.

“I would like to thank all those who have supported the project thus far, and have to say that they still need support for the rest of the fundraising events to get to the £250,000.”

 

FOLLOWING the recent launch of its second ‘Keep Trade Local Challenge’ in May with the Speaker of the House, the Rt Hon John Bercow MP, the FSB (Federation of Small Businesses) is once again challenging  shoppers across the region.

The challenge asks people to use their local businesses and then visit the website to enter the amount spent, to be in with a chance to win £250.

Robyn Bourne, Thames Valley Development Manager for the FSB, said: “Since opening the competition on the June 20,  Thames Valley residents have already entered over £14,000 of local independent business spends. When considering that for every £1 spent with a local business it puts £1.76 back into the local economy, this is money well invested!

“The competition has the backing of the majority of the regions’ 21 MPs and also many local councils, all who are keen to get behind the challenge and encourage people to ‘keep trade local’.  To enter people need to visit www.fsb.org.uk/thamesvalley where they can also sign up to receive a free cotton shopping bag or one of very special KTL Stress Cows (#ktlcows)  which people are using to take photos of where they have been using local businesses and tweeting about their experiences.

“The FSB recognises that small businesses are the heart of the local community; they generate wealth, employment and opportunity. But with people working longer hours and the growth of convenience, one-stop-shopping and the internet, these places are at risk. By challenging people to use independent businesses and shops the FSB hopes to encourage people use what is on their door step and make the most of the smaller businesses in the community.”

NB The cute litte mini cows for your customers to use to take a picture of their purchase and tweet it, are now available from Sonja Francis at Thame.Net, Jordans Courtyard, 8 Upper High Street, Thame, or just email editor@thame.net and one can be delivered to you!