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This weeks News

St Marys News at 22 St Marys Avenue, Bletchley  tel: 01908 378274  are prepared to deliver newspapers 7 days a week  to homes in the village if they can find 40 people who want them. 

.Sports Club:  The cricket match in aid of Willen Hospice raised £310 for their funds.  Many thanks to all the villagers who contributed to the tombola and the cake stall and to Peri Purnell and Elaine Carter for running the stalls.   Play in the Park  has been a great success this year, AVDC’s play in the park staff have painted faces, played target golf, kicked footballs and cleared up in good weather and bad this year so thank you to them, particularly as they are on holidays jobs and due back at school and college in September.

Wasps:  A word of warning now there does seem to be an enormous amount of wasps’ nests in the village at the moment.  We have one in the trunk of our maple tree, and have had one in our roof.  The fruit is about to ripen so do be careful when out picking blackberries, dogs are susceptible to stings so do watch them when they are in the hedgerows.

Post Office: The Post Office has told the Clerk that the closure of the post office in Stoke Hammond is only temporary.  Meanwhile those wanting to pick up their pensions may do so from Great Brickhill Village Hall on Monday afternoon between 1.30 and 3.30pm. The Post Office runs, on behalf of Swanbourne Post Office a Hosted Post Office Outreach service there and also at Drayton Parslow’s Sports and Social Club on a Friday between 9-11.00 a.m. There are other venues too at Twyford, Little Horwood, Great Horwood and Thornborough.  All of these locations offer most Post Office services including postings and banking, paying your bills  and would welcome your continued support.  There is no queuing with easy parking and they guarantee personal and confidential attention.  If readers require further information contact the customer helpline on 08457 22 33 44.

Songs of Praise: There will be a special service on Sunday 29 August at 5.00pm.  This will be Songs of Praise, come and sing your favourite hymns in the Methodist Church, Newton Road, all welcome.  There will be a Benefice Holy Communion Service in St Luke’s on 29^th August at 10 a.m. led by Revd. Valerie Rushton.

Bucks County Show:  This will be held at Weedon on Thursday 26 August; traffic is normally very heavy near the site so go early if you don’t wish to sit in a traffic jam. 

Harvest Dance and Harvest Festival: St Luke’s will again be putting on its popular Harvest Barn Dance if you would like tickets please call Diane Webber on 270409 or John Bowler on 270202.  The date is Saturday 18 September.  The Harvest Festival service will be held the following day, Sunday 19 September at 9.30 a.m. any gifts of fruit, vegetables and flowers will be gratefully received on the previous Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. 

Parish Council: The September meeting will be held on Monday 13 at 7.30pm in the Community Centre.  All electors welcome.

Planning notice:  There has been an amended notice in the press recently for the land up at Drayton Road/Stoke Road.  The outline planning permission is for 350 houses, a dental surgery, allotments, and a playing field among other things.  If villagers wish to comment please do so before 1^st September. Comments should be forwarded to the Planning Officer at 66 High Street Aylesbury, Bucks.  The site is adjacent to Newton Leys, but further towards the crossroads opposite Rectory Farm.

BROADBAND ISSUES

Some of you may have noticed that broadband connections within the village are intermittent/prone to frequent drop out’s. 

I am not talking speed as this is due to the distance we are from the exchange although you may notice over time your speed drops significantly. For info typical speeds for the village are between 3 and 5 Mbs.

So have you wondered:-Why does my broadband keep dropping out especially first thing in the morning and early evening? The answer is simple, IF you have had all your equipment and line tested and optimized then it is the train's.

Let me explain, Our exchange is in Soulbry the lines go from here all the way to the village. They actually go over the railway line via the bridge opposite the Three Lock's. The copper phone lines are in close proximity to the overhead electric power lines, when a train goes past a little thing called your "signal to noise ratio" drops as there is increased noise on the phone line. If the SNR drops too far your line drops, this can have a knock on affect in that the exchange equipment thinks your line is unstable and will reduce your speed.

HIGH SNR=LOW SPEED (and in theory more reliable connection)
LOW SNR=HIGHER SPEED.

What I am trying to do at present is evaluate if this is a whole village problem or isolated to just my street , I have monitored 4 ADSL connections in the street and they all suffer the problem at exactly the same time and also either 5 seconds before (southbound) or 5 seconds later (northbound) a train goes past.

To judge if this is a ‘whole village’ issue I have started a yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stokehammond/ if you could login (you may have to register) and complete the poll I have started it would give us an insight if this is a village wide problem. The poll is located at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stokehammond/polls

You have 4 choices:-

Question

Are you suffering broadband drop out's?

• yes and it matches train's going past
• yes but i am too far away from the line to be able to tell
• unsure but broadband seem's okay
• no my broadband is fine

The Post Office have notified the Parish Council that the closure of the Stoke Hammond branch is temporary, and apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. They are currently investigating the options available to them to keep a Post Office service in the village. This will take 6 to 8 weeks. In the meantime the nearest branches may be found at 110, Serpentine Court, Bletchley, 17a Greenway, Newton Longville and 140, Queensway, Bletchley.