This Sunday morning 10 January, can you help take down Chippy’s Town Centre Christmas Trees? Council Contractors get the trees down, but organiser Pat Lake would welcome volunteers – 9am outdoors at the Town Hall – to undo and take off all the lights.
Covid means working separately in Household groups – single people can also help collect up trees and lights. Hot take-away drinks will be available. Many thanks from Pat – and well done to him for another good community effort.
It’s your last chance to pick up your bumper December/January Chippy News from the shops. You can catch up on:
The News understands there are more Town Council resignations which will be reported in February’s Chippy News – signalling some important local elections coming up in May.
All contributions (news articles and letters) to Chippy News are welcome at Chippymail@aol.com – the next issue deadline is 15 January.
With Covid Cases rising, from Boxing Day, Oxfordshire joins Tier 4. Here’s what it means for us in Chippy
Thanks to Ian Nolan and the Illuminate Chipping Norton team, St Mary’s Church was lit up this month – and a socially distanced audience of 160 watched two live shows of West End Musical stars perform a stream of musical favourites. You can watch the Very West End Christmas concert here online on Ian’s website. In addition to the West End concert there’s also the Faces in Windows project which has been installed, looks amazing and had great feedback.
To everyone who supported the West End show, Ian said ‘We cannot thank you all enough for the support in making this project happen. From the community members who came along to watch the event, the Church for hosting us and Chipping Norton Theatre for selling the tickets. I was really overwhelmed with the response. I didn’t expect to see people moved to tears as they left; I heard stories from members who haven’t been out of their house since March. This really was a project which brought joy, hope and happiness to people – everything I’d wanted when the project was imagined.’
The NHS has announced that COVID-19 Vaccinations started in Chipping Norton Health Centre this week – as part of the national ‘rollout’. Our GP centre was one of 280 practices nationally to start first – as Chippy has a higher proportion of over 80s than in many areas.
Local resident and Bake-Off star Pru Leith was filmed by the BBC queuing safely with other ‘over 80s’ at the Centre and having the jab. She said ‘I could not be more pleased to be here. It’s great that Chipping Norton is so quick off the mark. The staff here have worked really hard to make this as easy as possible for us patients and my jab was painless.’ Pru already has her second jab booked for 21 days time.
The NHS stress that public should not contact the NHS to enquire about jabs – the NHS will contact you when vaccine is available and you can be booked in. Other age groups and cohorts will be offered the vaccination in a phased approach, in line with national priorities.
If you need to travel safely locally to see family over the Christmas holiday, then Stagecoach and other local buses for Oxford and Chippy will be running – with special timetables somewhat similar to weekends with some earlier departures
See the Stagecoach website and look for Oxfordshire Service Updates.
If you fancy a heart-warming 90 minutes, get a last-minute ticket for Chippy Theatre’s A Christmas Carol – on stage until 24 December using a script from Simon Callow. News Team members went along this week and thoroughly enjoyed David Bradley’s (yes he of Harry Potter and Game of Thrones) terrific one-man reading and acting of mean Scrooge’s transformation into a generous and happy Christmas reveller. Folk singer Sophie Crawford’s great music and sound effects combined with the misty, shadowy, staged atmospherics to get us emotionally absorbed into the well-known story. It was almost as if Dickens himself was reading the story to us on a foggy Victorian night.
Oh…and the spaced-out auditorium meant comfortable, safe sitting and wonderful legroom! Who would have thought socially-distanced theatre-going could be so much fun? Ticket availability via Box Office of the Theatre website.
Pat Lake – who once again led the terrific efforts to put up Chipping Norton’s Christmas trees and their lights – asked the News to post a big personal thank you from him to everyone from the community who helped last Sunday. Pat added ‘they look great – thank you all’…..and a big thank you to Pat from everyone in the Town. The Chippy News Team
December’s Chippy News is out! – Merry Christmas! Start the festive season with your bumper Xmas Chipping Norton News – on sale now. There’s a Chippy Christmas Treasure Trail, What’s on at Christmas, Chippy’s favourite carols, quizzes, church services & festive food ideas.
Read all the local news on cinema plans at Harpers, objections to closing our recycling sites, grants for Town clubs, Remembrance pictures, Drs Parkers’ medical memoirs, community support over Christmas and more. Plus lots of Arts, Sports, Clubs, Schools and readers’ letters.
Buy your News, still only 50p, from Aldi, Sainsbury’s, Coop supermarket, Post Office, Coop Pharmacy, Chequers, Bartholomews, Hidden Beauty, Crown & Cushion, Costcutter, Esso Londis garage, Gill & Co., Café Nero, Cotswold Newsagents, West St News, Old Mill Bistro, Jaffé & Neale Bookshop, Roger’s Fish and Deli, CN Health Centre, CN Hospital, Café de la Post Chadlington
Thanks to everyone who has helped keep the News going this year. The News Team now takes a well-earned month off – next deadline is Friday 15 January for the February edition. All contributions welcome.
The Chipping Norton News Team volunteers
