Thame.net

Author: Sonja Francis

  • 21/05/12…Ex Mayor to Chair Thame Show

    JUST One day after handing over as Mayor of the town, (May 16,) David Bretherton was elected by the members of The Oxfordshire County and Thame Show, as its Chairman.

    David, who remains as a Town Councillor, has long been a supporter of the Show, and has been the Domestic Classes chief steward for many years. He brings a wealth of organisational knowledge to the show management.

    The show is not being held this year (2012) but will be back in 2013.

    David said: “I am delighted to take up the challenge of fronting the show. It is a Thame institution which I am determined will continue. We have a lot of experienced and dedicated stewards who put on a great show last year and we cannot let them down. We can now start to plan the next Thame Show which will take place in late summer 2013.”

    This year’s show was cancelled after it made a loss in 2011, and because of concerns over a clash with the London Olympics and the Queen’s Diaomond Jubilee celebrations.

    Although the show made a small profit in 2010 of

  • 21/05/12…..Floral tributes left outside Robin’s house

    FOLLOWING his death yesterday, floral tributes have been left outside Robin Gibb’s home in Thame today.

    One card, left with flowers from Thame & District Round Table, read: “Our deepest sympathies for your loss. Robin’s influence will continue to be felt for generations to come – through his music and his charitable works.”

  • 21/05/12…Lotte’s special cake recipe supports hospice charity

    CELEBRITY chef and owner of Lotte?s Kitchen, Chinnor, Lotte Duncan, is once again lending her support to the Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity?s (FNHC) forthcoming Sunny Sunflower Appeal – Do Something ?Sunny for Money? taking place throughout June, by creating a special cake recipe in aid of the month.

    Lotte has produced a scrumptious recipe for Banoffee Iced Fancies, which is available to anyone who loves baking and who would like to put their culinary skills to the test and help raise funds for the Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity in June.

    The Charity has also launched a special ?Sunny for Money? schools fundraising pack with fun ways for children to get involved in Sunny Sunflower Month from a sponsored bounce, wear yellow mufti day to a sponsored silence.

    ?We?re hoping to encourage as many people as possible to have-a-go at making and baking Lotte?s lovely Banoffee Iced Fancies ? perhaps to be sold in school at snack time or in offices at lunch, at a bake sale or at a Sunny Sunflower Jubilee or Olympic-themed tea@3 or wine@9 party,? said Karen Shardlow, Development & Events Manager at FNHC. ?All money raised will go towards supporting the Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity which helps support local families affected by life-limiting illness across Aylesbury Vale and surrounding areas.?

    She added: ?If you are organising a Sunny for Money event in June, make sure to give us a call as we can provide helpful promotional materials including balloons and banners and can help publicise your event on our website and Facebook page. We would of course love to hear about it too!?

    The Charity, which needs to raise

  • 21/05/12….Do YOU play the Ukulele ?

    A NEW club for Ukulelei players has been formed in Haddenham, near Thame, by Adrian Broadway, who runs Haddenham Shamrocks. Haddenham Ukulele Musos (HUM) met for the first time on May 16, and will meet on the first and third Wednesday of the month (7-9pm) at the Rose and Thistle, Station Road, to play popular songs from the last 100 years of the ukulele.

    As it says on the new group?s website: LINK ?The songs in the repertoire can be downloaded from the tunes section of this site or are available at the session.

    “The musicians vary from beginners to experienced ukulele players and the tunes vary in level of difficulty. Beginners can just join in the chords they know and leave the rest to the more experienced uke players. The emphasis is on fun and enjoying yourself!

    “Lessons will not be given but advice about playing the songs will be given and any questions answered. There will be a break in the middle of the session for people to be able to discuss things and at this time beginners can seek individual advice from the experienced players.
    You are asked for a donation of

  • 20/05/12… Robin Gibb R.I.P.

    AFTER astounding doctors with his recovery from a coma, and his on-going determination to fight his illness, Robin Gibb died of cancer earlier today.

    Robin has lived in the 13th Century Prebendal in Thame, with his wife Dwina, for many years, making very few appearances in public in the town, one main exception being when he turned on the town’s Christmas lights in 2004.

    On another occassion Robin went to the home of a young handicapped boy to present a cheque for a sum of money raised by Thame’s carnival committee for special treatment for the boy.

    More recently, he and Dwina had expressed their concern about a decision to choose the old pig farm in Oxford Road, Thame, as its preferred site for a new housing development.

    Robin was born in the Isle of Man in 1949, the third eldest of five. After the family emigrated to Australia, Robin formed the Bee Gees with his twin brother Maurice and his older brother Barry.

    The Bee Gees became one of the most successful pop acts of all time with estimated record sales of more than

  • 19/05/12……….’Darkly, hilarious’ Young Adult at Thame Cinema

    THAME CINEMA 4 ALL, Nelson street, Thame – Saturday, May 19, 2012l; Young Adult – USA 2011, 93 minutes, 15 certificate, Directed by Jason Reitman, Starring Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt.

    You know the score… jaded 30 something, cynical and slightly let down by life… returns ?Home? to the warm reassurance of her childhood haunts, indulging in the sweet nostalgia of first loves and Mom?s home cooking. In so doing, she learns some valuable lessons about common decency and remaining true to her roots and that home-is-best and we all feel warm inside… blah, blah, blah. This is not that film. In fact, this is a darkly hilarious antidote to that film, from the director and writer of the wonderful Juno.

    Charlize Theron is divorced, depressed, functioning alcoholic, former prom queen Mavis, until recently a writer of ? you guessed ? a successful series of teen high school novels. Learning that Buddy, her high-school squeeze, has just become a father, she decides to go home to tempt him away from his sorry life of suburban compromise and to prove that she still has ?it?. Along the way, she teams up with a former classmate Matt, someone violently bullied in high school, the kind of kid Mavis was once contemptuous of but who now might prove useful.

    Her self-styled triumphant return to relive the glory days of her youthful allure goes, needless to say, from bad to worse: Mavis? initial sneering superiority gives way by degrees to mortal embarrassment and pathetic tragedy. It seems ultimately that she is the one who hasn?t managed to grow up. She has failed to grasp that real life is not just high school with money and that the power afforded by teenage beauty wears thin as the years pass.

    Theron is brilliant as probably the least sympathetic movie heroine imaginable ? narcissistic, petulant, cruel, deluded, but kind of bleakly fabulous too. And Cody?s script is acerbic, incisive and witty, a refreshingly unsentimental reflection on the pathos of getting older and the myths we create for ourselves about how great things used to be.

  • 19/05/12….Time for a Hoe down!

    CHRISTIAN Aid Week Barn Dance – Saturday 19 May 2012.

    Live band, Bodger?s Wood and Madeleine Smith calling; Bar and Hog Roast.

  • 18/05/12..St Mary’s, Thame’s flower festival for ‘Special Occasions’

    WHAT? St Mary?s Church, Thame, Flower Festival ?Special Occasions?- Friday 18th May & Saturday 19th May 10am-6pm
    Sunday 20th May 1pm-6pm.

    6.30pm Songs of Praise Service.

    Flower Festival Admission

  • 18/05/12………….’Vive le jumelage’

    AS well as the huge success of Thame?s Music In The Park on Sunday, the town?s golden weekend had begun on Friday evening when a group of friends from Thame?s twin town of Montesson, arrived for the weekend, welcomed by the then Deputy Mayor, Nigel Champken Woods.

    Hosted by local families, the visitors were blessed with fine weather for a visitor to the Guildhall in the City area of London, a picnic lunch in a little park that used to be a church before it was bombed in WW11. Here a bust of Shakespeare stands on a plinth in memory of John Heminge and Henry Condell who had the foresight to publish Shakespeare’s works following his early death. The pair were fellow actors and personal friends of the bard and had been co-partners with him in the Globe Theatre, Southwark.

    The tour ended on the roof terrace restaurant of the new shopping mall, 1 New Change, London?s newist shopping destination, in Cheapide by St Paul?s Cathedral, designed by French architect, Jean Nouvel. From here the view across London is breathtaking and the eye is level with the dome of St Paul’s – a perspective of his masterpiece that Sir Christopher Wren could never have known anyone would have!

    The evening was spent with host families, where family news and the Euro crisis dominated the dinner table conversation. The general view seemed to be that French people had voted against Sarkozey rather than for Monsieur Hollande but most remain concerned about the economic future of the Eurozone.

    Once again four young people with special needs from ?le Courlis? in Montesson, were included in the weekend visit, staying at the Spread Eagle Hotel, and joining their friends from Safari (The Wombles) in Thame, to ‘let their hair down’ for a disco and party at the Barns Centre on the Saturday evening.

    The weekend culminated in a two-course lunch for the 65 French visitors and hosts, in St Mary?s Church, which had been transformed into a banqueting hall for the occasion.

    At around 3pm, after a tour of Thame shops for many of the guests ? admiring the many Jubilee window displays on their way round (anyone know where you can buy lemon jelly in Thame?) – to replenish medicines, which are apparently more expensive in France, to buy cupcake stands, mint sauce and Marmelade making kits, the French coach was waved off, with hopes that Thame ?twinners? will be making the return journey to Montesson themselves in September.

  • 18/05/12….Thame Neighbourhood Plan update

    SOUTH Oxfordshire’s Core Strategy Examination in Public resumes next week to consider the Main Modifications to the plan which will decide how South Oxfordshire, including Thame, will grow and develop to 2026, including where new housing will go.

    These modifications have been made following the Inspector’s initial ?soundness? findings, following the Examination in Public (EIP) last November.

    What are the modifications?

    The principle modification in the Core Strategy relating to Thame was that the Inspector considered that the decision as to where to allocate the 775 houses in Thame should be deferred to the Neighbourhood Plan, rather than allocating a site (Site F) in the Core Strategy. This modification has, itself, given rise to additional issues that will now be considered at the Examination.

    The main question the Inspector has asked is whether, in deferring the matter of the allocation of houses to the Neighbourhood Plan, there needs to be a contingency option included in the Core Strategy in order to make it effective. Two options have been suggested by South Oxfordshire District Council:

    (a) to include a ?reserve site allocation? in the event that the Neighbourhood Plan is not adopted by April 2014; or

    (b) to include a requirement that an alternative document (to the Neighbourhood Plan) be prepared if the Neighbourhood Plan has not been adopted by April 2013.

    The District Council favours option (a), and has suggested that Site F should be retained on a reserve basis and allocated for 400 dwellings if the Neighbourhood Plan is not adopted by April 2014.

    These matters, and other issues, will be considered at the Examination. Thame Town Council will be represented at the Examination to discuss these matters, and to report on progress in connection with the Neighbourhood Plan.

    As it relates to Thame, it has been publicised that the Examination recommences at the District Council Offices, Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford, and will begin at 9am on Wednesday May 23. (Though this may have changed to Monday, May 21 – I am trying to find out whether a note on SODC’s website that the meeting regarding ‘MM25’ scheduled for May 24, is now on May 21 !!)