January Sales

Are you all done shopping for Christmas then it's time to start hunting for bargains in the sales.   Take a look at the offerings from Amazon below, I've already ordered a few items with some great discounts.

Carol Singing

Don't forget to turn up for community carol singing on Friday 17th, 7pm at the village hall.   Everybody welcome whether your from Skeffling or one of our neighbouring villages.

Winter Weather Bulletins

The Community Team will endeavour to keep residents updated on what East Riding County Council is doing to eleviate any problems as soon as they issue their updates.   At the moment updates are arriving daily.

Latest News...

Easington Newsletter

Due to a number of requests from villagers we are now publishing "Eastend News" on the website each month.  Courtesy of their editor Diane Horncastle.

Visit here for the latest edition

Coffee Morning in aid of St Helens Church

Don't forget the "Coffee Morning" that Trev from Easington, is holding a coffee morning at Easington Community Centre on Saturday, 20th November at 10am.   The proceeds will go towards the refurbishment of St. Helen's Church, Skeffling.   Please come along and support we need all the help we can get.

Bonfire Night

Don't forget this years Bonfire Night will be on 5th November!   Now there's a surprise.   It's a Friday, and promises to be a stupendous success.

Proceeds from the Barn Dance will go towards the fireworks and the Skeffling T'ai Chi Group have donated £100.   If you'd like to make a contribution there will be donations buckets in the Village Hall on the night, but please don't bring your own fireworks we've got plenty!

There'll be a BBQ, and home-made soup, tea, coffee and soft drinks available in the Village Hall.   Bring the kids and come and have a good time.   You can even have your supper while watching the firework display.

The BBQ will be ready about 6.30pm and the fireworks will start to light up the night sky soon after.

Village Voices & Wartime Memories

Webmaster Holidays

For all those that missed seeing the photographs in the September issue of Skeffling News.   Here is our webmaster relaxing on holiday in Cyprus.

If this makes you want to book next summers holiday take a look at Jet2holidays.com

Its Hot Out Here

Been here three days now and yet to get a full nights sleep.   Its so hot as soon as you put your head on the pillow it begins to boil.   So what can you do, one sit outside the villa by the pool and have a few drinks (the local beer is quite nice) and cigarettes.   Two, put the air conditioning on, but the other half likes the patio doors and windows open which renders the air-con in-effective.   Three, surf the internet looking for interesting news to read, would watch the iplayer to catch up on TV back home but its not available outside the UK.   Four, as a last resort will try putting the sun lounger on the balcony outside the villas bedroom and see if that works (locals may think us Brits are crackers, but if it works why not).

Shouldn't complain really as Cyprus is a wonerful place to visit and the ex-pat community are great especially Karen our next door neighbour who has kindly offered the use of her broadband so I can post this minor complaint.

Fun Day for Kids

At a loose end this weekend, then why not go to this local event on Sunday, 29th August, as Easington Youth Club are holding a Fun Day on the Youth Club Field in Easington.

There will be a Car Boot or Table Top Sale, kids races, tuck shop refreshments and a Tombola, all beginning at 10.00 a.m. Followed by the annual Easington Bogey Race.

Easington Bogey Race

Gas Terminal Exhibition

Community info for the area surrounding the gas sites.   On Sunday the 29th of August, the operators from Easington's four gas terminals will be holding an exhibition at Easington Community Hall.

The event follows meetings and consultations with community representatives about the warning systems used at the site and emergency procedures.

Hopefully you will be able to come along and express your opinion.   The exhibition will be open between 11 am and 3 pm.   For further info ring Simon Taylor on 0800 0126775 he's available 24hrs a day!

This event is sponsored by Gassco - BP - Centrica organisations.

Lifeboat Exhibition

Trivia News

New pages have been added this week, firstly a quiz about Oscar Winners. Secondly in the Useful Bits section a page about Budget Planning with a lot of the information coming from Martin Lewis of Money Saving Expert fame. Hopefully this will help everyone out there with the pressures coming from the governments autumn cuts.   I’ve tried it myself and the on-line calculators make it very simple to understand even though its not something we would like to be doing.   Read More

If there is any other Useful Bits of information you would want to appear in this section get in touch by e-mail.

The Daily Quiz on the Trivia pages, this week the winner was David Smith from Weeton who scored a maximum on Tuesday.

Afternoon Tea {Cancelled}

Afternoon Tea on Saturday 24th July has been cancelled as a mark of respect.   Reason being that due to the funeral of former village stalwart Mr John Billaney taking place on Saturday & the majority of organisers, participants wishing to attend the funeral.   John and his widow Mary did an enormous amount of fund raising for the village & St Helen’s church over several decades.

Personally I have fond memories of John and the advice he gave to me on gardening.   If you never saw his garden at Skeffling you missed something special, it was admired by many, many people.

Trivia Launches

New section of the website has now gone live!   Time to relax and while away a moment or two with some frivolous entertainment.   Funny jokes, jigsaws, quizzes and horoscope's.   Not that it is all Trivia, there is some useful bits of information about making Healthy Choices to improve your lifestyle.

The Joke's are provided by readers of the site, so why not send yours in to be published.   The Jigsaw's will show photo's of Skeffling & its people.   If you want to see what the stars have in store for you pop along to the Horoscope pages.

There are numerous Quizzes to suit all ages and range from sport to history, if you want to see if you're in love try the Personality quiz with help from the Cupid Love Meter (this reveals all).   The Daily Quiz is updated as often as possible.

Over the coming months we will be adding lots of new features, if there is anything you would like to see included please send an e-mail.

We at the Community site would welcome your feedback on this new venture.

Charmain Parsonage

Happy birthday wishes go to Charmain Parsonage today from the Skeffling Community team.   If you would like to add your congratulations then click on the picture to add to Facebook.

The Bench

Have you visited the Village Hall recently, if not you will not have seen this new addition.   This has been provided by the T'ai Chi group in memory of their instructor Paul Swann.   I have to say I was impressed with the workmanship that James has put into making this bench with the symbolism it depicts.

The dedication ceremony for the bench followed the scattering of Paul's ashes in the field behind the Village Hall.

Skeffling's Got Talent!

And it's got it in spades!

The Pub Lads - aka, Charles Hill, Richard Newsam and Guy Moxon - are good.  REALLY good.  Apparently when they play at the George and Dragon they fill the pub.  And that's what they did at Skeffling Village Hall last night. 

Mike Turnbull and Gaz Watts were celebrating their completion of the Trans Pennine Trail with a complementary Hog Roast.  People came from the villages around and heaped money into the dontions boxes for the Hull Royal Infirmary Stroke Ward.  The end result was a colosal £820 which will be added to the sponsorship money Mike and Gax raised for their 220 mile bike ride.  The final total will be in the July issue of Skeffling News.  But early estimates put it at over £2,000!

Mike and Gax were overwhelmed and thoroughly chuffed with the generosity of local folk.  They couldn't stop smiling and thanking people.
When The Pub Lads had a break, Andy Wells took over.  A local singer songwriter and guitarist Andy really wowed the audience with his songs of local people.  Pete Simmons was imortalised in verse, as was Tom Hodgson, local farmer and true eccentric.  It was all there in Andy's song:  Tom Hodgson, Skeffling, R.I.P.

The words encompassed Tom's life.  He was a legend in Skeffling and the surrounding area, and will never be forgotten.  I certainly won't forget him - he was my Landlord when I lived at The Lodge, and I had a lot of time for Tom, even when caterpillars dropped off his slightly torn trousers and landed on the living room carpet!

There was some young up and coming talent at the Village Hall last night, too.  Guy Moxon, who's been in the music business for 30 years, was joined on stage by his son Eddy, 13, who accompanied his Dad on the guitar.  Eddy showed a lot of talent and confidence - no bum notes either!  Well done, Eddy, keep playing.

Guy's daughter, Jess, 16, is also a talented musician.  She plays lead guitar and bass, and has aspirations of making music her future career.  This is not jut a talented family, but a really nice one.  Good luck to Jess and Eddy - don't waste your talent!

It truly was a wonderful night.  Good music, good atmosphere, and a lot of laughs.  And thanks to everyone who gave so generously to Mike and Gaz's charity appeal.  They raised a big pile of money which will go a fair way to helping the Stroke Ward get their much needed scanner.

Well done, everyone...

Police and Partners Community Forum

Make your VOICE heard.

The Police and Partners Community Forum are holding a public meeting on Wednesday 7th July, 7.00 p.m.   The venue for this is the Withernsea Hospital Community Room.   All residents for the South East Holderness Ward are invited.

Intrepid Duo

Good luck to Mike & Gaz on their sponsored cycle ride along the Trans Pennine Way.   Hope this glorious weather holds out for you both and a safe journey back to Skeffling.   Anybody who hasn't sponsored these pair who are raising money for Stroke Victims read about it in the Skeffling Newsletter

Wind Turbines

Did you see Look North's report about the wind turbines. I think they could of mentioned that they were filming our wind turbines no mention of Skeffling. The Lib/Dem man did'nt even turn up for the filming at Skeffling.

If you missed it here it is.

Candidates Visit

The visit of our candidates yesterday turned out to be very entertaining, and quite unexpected.

First to arrive was Bill Rigby of the Green Party who came on his bike.  Then Ian Saunders of the Labour Party, and finally Graham Stuart of the Conservative Party.  Interviewing them for Look North was Caroline Davis who, unfortunately, had lost her camera crew.

Sue Turnbull, whose instincts were on top form yesterday, had left all the stuff to make tea and coffe (and a large packet of plain chocolate biscuits) in the Village Hall.  "Just in case," she'd told me on the phone earlier.

We were all gathered at St. Helen's waiting patiently while Caroline harrangued Look North as to the whereabouts of her camera crew.  Turns out no one had told him he should have been at Skeffling at 10.30, and he wouldn't be arriving until 12!

By then James Robinson had turned up and someone suggested the Village Hall and a cup of tea.  This went down a storm, so Sue and I went to put the kettle on.  Just imagine, three potential MPs imprisoned in the Village Hall unable to escape.  So we did what anyone would do - we gave them a grilling!

It was a lovely sunny day so we sat outside and chatted whilst waiting for the elusive cameraman.  He arrived, looking innocent, but a bit sheepish, and they all went off to Out Newton Road for Caroline to interview the candidates using the wind turbines as a backdrop.  The item she was doing is the increasing use of wind power in South Holderness, and the political party's views on it.

They eventually went their respective ways just after 1pm, pronouncing the filming as very successful.

If you want to see the report it's on Look North on Monday night at 6.30pm. 

One interesting point.  Caroline's Grandfather, five generations back, came from Welwick and his house is still there!  Small world isn't it...

Election Candidates Visit to Skeffling

This is very short notice, but I only heard about it at 10pm last night!

BBC Look North have organised a photo opportunity for the five candidates standing in South Holderness at the election.

It's taking place at St. Helen's Church at 10.30am THIS MORNING, FRIDAY, 9TH APRIL. 

Look North think Skeffling is just the right place to hold this photo call as it is a perfect example of rural life in the Holderness area. 

The information was given to me by Bill Rigby, the Green Party candidate, who said he would be happy to talk to any resident with questions after Look North have finished filming.

If you can get to St. Helen's by 10.30, it could be an excellent chance to talk to all five candidates, and ask those probing questions.

Community Road Watch

Have you noticed that this scheme seems to be having the desired effect.
Personally I think drivers have realised that it is better to comply with the speed restrictions through our small villages.   Much better than getting points on your licence just to save a few minutes in getting to work.

I like to thank our local PCSO Phil Wriglesworth for his efforts in making our country roads safer for children and cyclists.

Woodland Development

Have you received a questionnaire to support the Withernsea & South East Holderness Regeneration Partnership in identifying the need for the development of a 10 to 15 acre publicly accessible multi purpose woodland within a mile or so of Withernsea, somewhere between the Withernsea to Hull Road (A1033) and the Withernsea to Halsham road past the water tower (B1262).

If not and your interested then please contact Phil Milnes at East Riding of Yorkshire Council on 01964 611605 or email Phil if you have any further questions or want to get hold of a questionaire.

I think this is a great idea as there is a lack of this facility in this area.

Untimely Death

I was saddened to hear about the untimely death of Bernard Blashill of Welwick.   He was a character who worked tirelessly for local charities, I will always remember him for the times when he played his hurdy gurdy at events in Skeffling.   The whole of South Holderness will miss this "Welwick Relic".   Please visit the Hull Daily Mail website to read their tribute to this much loved character and the many comments this has had from people all over the country.   I'm sure all villagers would want to express their condolences to Mary his wife.

Who & What are the Parish Council

Its been commented on that there is very little content about the Parish Council appearing within the pages of the Community website.   One reason for this is that the Community website is not affiliated to the Parish Council and they have no control over what appears there.   That being said if you the residents of Skeffling wish further details to be published about what the council functions and activities are, then please contact the website for your ideas on what we should include within those pages.

The amount of content will only be limited to the extent that I have the time to compile any necessary content.   If you can provide content that is ready to be published I would be most grateful.

Possible items already mentioned have been, rules, duties, contact details, agendas, minutes, elections, how to be a councillor, history etc.   So once again to those that have made their feelings known, the Community website is for all residents to have their say.   Contact details are as shown at the top of this page.

Don't forget to re-visit over the coming months to see how this part of the website develops or not?

Webmaster

Injured Animals

There has been a lot of interest in the Injured Animals article in Skeffling News.  Sharon has commented on it via the website and lots of people have phoned me or spoken to me personnally.

I've been checking out the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the one where they tell you how concerned they are about the countryside and resident wildlife, and will be writing to them with a copy of Skeffling News so they can see just how concerned they are at protecting our wildlife.

During my surf of the internet I discovered YWT have a Facebook page...  Red rag to a bull.  I am currently gathering support before I put the photo on Facebook!  There are a lot of animal lovers out there who'll be appalled and might like to comment on just how caring Yorkshire Wildlife Trust are.

Please leave a comment either here, or on the link to the Comments Book from the newsletter page.

Injured Animals

In the February issue of Skeffling News I published a distressing story of a deer injured on the barbed wire fence in Hodgson's Field.  Since then I've heard quite a few similar stories, all of them heartbreaking.

Then I had a phone call from Mike Wright of Golden Hope, Out Newton Road, and I began to feel optimistic about our local wildlife.  Mike had seen the article and, like many other people, was insensed by the indifference shown to the animal's suffering by the RSPCA.

The good news is that Mike wants to help if he can.  He has contacts at the Hull Animal Rescue Centre and volunteers who will come out to treat injured animals.  So if you're unfortunate enough to find an animal or bird injured and suffering please give Mike a call.  He's promised to do whatever he can to help. 

His number is 07850795765.

There will be a follow up item to this story in the March issue of Skeffling News.  Please don't miss it.  If you have any helpful suggestions or advice please use the Comments box underneath this post.

Kill the Bill

   How would you like to have solar panels fitted to your roof and not have to pay an electric bill for the next 25 years, and all for FREE?
   That's right -  FREE.
   At the Microgeneration Awards last night I was talking to Stewart Davies from ASHADEGREENER and he assured me this was for real.  No hidden costs.  No nasty surprises.  Oh, and at the end of the 25 years the solar panels are yours to keep. 
   His company will do all the necessary surveying, installing, maintaining throughout the full 25 years.  All you have to do is not pay any electric bills.
   Yeh, right!  Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?  So, because I'm naturally suspicious about a something-for-nothing scheme, I grilled him quite extensively.  'There's no such thing as a free lunch.'  'There's got to be a snag to the scheme.'  'Airlines who offer you amazing deals then hit you with a bill when you've bought your ticket.'  But he kept shaking his head and repeating 'No - it's completely, totally FREE'.
   This morning I went onto their website and followed the very simple instructions.  Put in your post code, up comes a googleearth map of Skeffling, zoom in till you find your house, then a little 'push pin' appears and you stick it on your roof.  Fill in your details and they'll get back to you if your house qualifies.  This means it has to be south facing to catch maximum rays. 
   Next question... So who pays what to whom.  You're a business not a charity so you must make something out of it.  Well they do.  But not from their customers.  They get their money from the recently introduced Feed In Tariff, which pays them 41p. for every kilowatt produced.  And that's why it's FREE to you.
   Have a look for yourself.  Log on to http://www.ashadegreener.co.uk/  it'll tell you all the things you need to know...
   When you've done that please read my Blog about the Award Skeffling received last night.  And it's all thanks to you...

Have You Seen Her

It's been reported that Nick & Vicky have lost a brown hen with black tail feathers.   If you've seen or found her could you please return her to 5, West View, Chapel Lane or telephone Nick/Vicky on 650468 or mobile 07861657931.

Any assistance would be most gratefully received, I'm sure our many readers will do all they can to help.

When it works Halleluia!!!

Reading Toni's article on Sunday about computer problems I can concur with her that it was a very difficult week. But as the title suggests when it does it's fantastic and this product deserves a mention it being a Logitech QuickCam Plus E3500 web-cam.

The reason we wanted a web-cam that was easy to use was to be able to contact friends and family either in this country or abroad. It so much better to talk to friends over the Internet when you can see them and not just through e-mail or instant messaging. The CD that came with the product was excellent and guided you through each stage of installing the software to use the web-cam and within a few minutes we were set.

Now came the acid test, making a video call to friends in Cyprus. We started the Skype program, inserted our friends Skype name and after a pause waiting for them to answer there they were. We were able to see each other and chat straight away.

This was the first time I had added a new gadget and software to the computer that did what it said on the tin with no problems. I can certainly recommend this gadget especially to those other villagers that have family abroad and the best thing is apart from the cost of the web-cam all video calls are free.

Anyone who wants to buy this gadget have a look below you won't be disappointed.

Winter Woe's - Brrrrrr

Have you noticed that as soon as we get all this snow the authorities say don't travel unless its absolutely necessary.   Well it's fortunate that some workers think their jobs are necessary, I for one appreciate the efforts of our local refuse workers in continuing to work normally.   As we didn't have a visit from them last week due to the christmas holidays I'm sure we all would like to say a big thank you to these workers.

Another person some of us are thankful for is the coalman from "East Riding Coal Supplies", his must be a most un-enviable job in the present weather conditions.   Yesterday he kept his commitments to his customers in Skeffling even though it was 6:30 at night when he managed to get through due to the adverse conditions in rural East Yorkshire.

So if you struggled to get to work to provide a service to others and ignored official advice not to travel THANK YOU, what would we do without this sentiment?   Plus don't they realise if these workers didn't turn up for work they wouldn't get paid and that's why its essential that they keep the roads gritted and open for ordinary people to continue to work normally.

Do you know of any other worker that provided you with an essential service and would like to recognise their efforts, then e-mail you story to be published here or why not join our community and post yourself "details can be found elsewhere on this page".

But if you are unfortunately having to stay at home why not indulge in a bit of retail therapy by visiting any of our sponsors for example Amazonplus they are still offering free delivery on all items however low the price.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year from all here at Skeffling Chatter & Community website.  We'd like to thank all visitors who are interested in reading our web pages whether to learn more about our village, keep up with local events or news from the Skeffling Chatter, Community and Skeffling Newsletter pages.

We'd also like to thank our many sponsors for promoting our website or offering services that may be of use to our visitors in 2010 i.e. Heart Internet for hosting our web site, Google for providing a direct search from these pages, Amazonfor their vast array of products which I know many visitors are grateful for, also other commercial companies Jet2holidays.com, AA Travel Insurance, Jessops Photography, Purple Parking for when you start thinking about your summer holidays now the New Year is here, these are just a few examples. We must also not forget our local trades people and information on their services can be found on the Local Info page.

Last but not least, an invaluable member of the team who will provide the bulk of our local news Toni Cornford and if your an avid reader why not visit her personal website "Love Zone".

Once again thank you all and we look forward to you returning to these pages throughout 2010.