The last year has probably been the quietest year for the Parish Council I can remember, which either is a comment on the efficiency of our organisation or the state of my memory.
The village as a whole was much exercised by the closure of the shop and this year has seen an energetic committee of volunteers working to resurrect a shop in the parish. The Council has done all it can to help from the sidelines, and wishes them well in their continued efforts.
In past years footpaths have been a major preoccupation of the council, but this year we have had few complaints. We have employed labour to help and also the excellent Lengthsmen have worked wonders. Instead we have an ongoing situation in the Churchyard where the Parish council is endeavouring to do our bit for the environment by encouraging wildlife and flowers in the further corners of the area.
One might say:
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field…
But maybe not in these days, it might run contrary to the Disability Act and a desire to tame nature to a suburban garden level. We will see.
While the Church has been a center of the village for a thousand years or so we were reminded this year of our much older heritage when an Archaeological dig took place at Canning Cross revealing hundreds of years of feasting and merry making over two thousand years ago.
Details of this dig, and other village news was put on our new official Parish Council Website www.allcannings.org - I believe in the next year this will grow into a useful resource.
This year we have seen changes in the Parish Council:
We said goodbye to Councillors Hunt and Curry a year ago, and welcomed Sally Bishop and Russell Frost. Unfortunately Sally shortly afterwards moved out of the area and so Francine Coles bravely volunteered in her place. We were saddened when Allanah Riseley-Pritchard had to resign in the autumn after many years of sterling work for the council, but pleased to welcome Lesley Sinclair in her place.
As always I would like to thank all the councillors for their work for the village, a lot of which goes unrecognised. Thanks. And of course our tireless clerk Jim Scott makes sure the council works and that my life is easy. Many thanks to him.