Week beginning July 8th 2002

The Royal British Legion Women's Section are holding an afternoon Strawberry Tea on Friday, July 12th between 2 pm and 4 pm in Hedon Methodist Church Hall. There will be a raffle and a Bring And Buy stall, and entrance will cost £1.

Also in Hedon, the Royal British Legion Women's section are running regular Bingo sessions at the WRVS Centre, Baxtergate. These take place every Tuesday, starting at 8 pm. Refreshments are available, and there is also a raffle; everyone is welcome to attend.

Preston Village Show takes place at the Sandhill Country Park, Lelley Road, Preston (opposite Sandhill Garden Centre) on Saturday July 20th. The fun starts at 1.30 pm, when the show will be opened by the Show President Mr. Steve Sweetman, and there will be something for all the family. A wide variety of exhibits will be there, competing in classes for fruit, vegetables and flowers, cookery and wine-making, crafts, flower-arranging and several children's classes. There is still time to enter any of these competitions, and schedules with full details are widely available at shops and post-offices in the surrounding villages. Most of the classes have small cash prizes for the winners, and rosettes and certificates in children's classes, and there are twenty-one trophies to be won too. There is also a "Fur and Feathers" pet show planned, for cage birds and small animals (sorry, no dogs or cats) to be judged by Geoff Capes, the well-known athlete and strongman who is also a noted budgerigar breeder. Details and entry forms for the Pet Show are available from Pets R Wright (next door to Sandhill Garden Centre), who are sponsoring the pet show. Various other events will take place throughout the afternoon : a fancy dress competition, children's sports, car boot sale, steam engines, children's rides, a tug-o'-war, balloon race, cake and craft stalls, and lots more. Admission to the whole show is only 50p for adults and 25p for children.

Paull School Summer Gala takes place on Sunday July 21st on the river front sports field. All manner of entertainment is planned, in the form of stalls and sideshows, competitions and even a treasure hunt for the children. All proceeds from the Gala will go towards the Paull School Fighting Fund, set up as part of the campaign to keep Paull Primary School, currently under threat of closure, open.

The Hedon branch of the Holderness Volunteer Centre, currently situated in the Market place, Hedon, is regrettably closing at the end of this month due to lack of funds. Hoped-for Lottery funding has failed to materialise and so the organisation, which has no public funding, has no option but to close down. Until now the Centre has provided a useful drop-off point for news and information for this column; until I can arrange a new drop-off point (which I will notify in this column) please send all news etc. after July 31st directly to me - messages can be left on my answer-phone if necessary.

I have had several queries over the last few weeks referring to my past columns. To make it easier for everyone (including myself!) to check back on what I have written previously, I have created an Internet site of "back issues" of my column, which can be found on http://local-news.freeservers.com : this is an easy-to-use website on which you can choose any of my previous columns by date, download the selected column, or search the site for a specific topic.