Brackley Amenity Soc & Residents' Action Group
TWO well-established Brackley pressure groups, the Brackley Amenity Society and BRAG (Brackley Residents' Action Group) have decided to merge on April 8 to form a new group, the Brackley Residents' Association.
If you are interested in the future of Brackley, join us and have your say.
There is a need for a community voice as there is potential for large-scale development in Brackley in the coming years, particularly on the Radstone Fields site, and it will be necessary for local residents to scrutinise and comment on the plans.
For further information or to express interest in joining please contact Peter Joyce (BRAG) on 07908 969654 or Julie Blencowe (Amenity Society) on 07891 958676 or email bhnutting@aol.com.

Buckingham & District Horticultural Society
THE society's next show will be the Daffodil Show in Maids Moreton Village Hall on Saturday, April 11.
Free entry, open to the public from noon to 2pm.

Brackley WI
AFTER the president and committee had welcomed our merry growing throng, we were informed of all the current activities, such as bringing along unwanted books, coins for rolling and plants for selling.
There is a trip, detailed in the newsletter, to the Malverns, and we are to vote for trustees of the National Federation.
The monthly meeting is on April 6 due to Easter being at the beginning of April.
When all business was done, we were introduced to Mrs Young who treated us to a demonstration of Ikebana.
This is the Japanese art of flower arranging.
It is a disciplined art form that is studied for at least 14 years before one can become a master, is highly revered, and dates back to the 14th Century at least.
Mrs Young, with a big smile on her face, bowed to us saying 'Good evening' in Japanese.
She told us she had studied Ikebana for a long time, and the courses are available at Denman College.
An arrangement uses just a few items, and will have a theme.
The number of items should never be four, because this is thought to be very unlucky.
The tradition is to put the arrangement at the entrance of your home when expecting a guest. If the visitor has connections with the sea, the design might resemble a boat. Oasis is not used, but a special pin holder will hold the flower stems erect. The water used is minimal, but in summer a little more is used than in winter.
Mrs Young arranged one design with pussy willows, and another with catkins and one flower.
Simple designs are the norm, not the big bunches of many coloured flowers as we tend to favour.
Fruit and vegetables can also be used, keeping the number very low.
As well as fresh flowers, dried and silk flowers are permitted – on one of the displays Mrs Young used dried leaves and flowers and explained that each form of flower design has its own special name.
Another design is the floating flowers.
We were all captivated with the spiritualistic nature of the art, as well as the designs, and promised ourselves to 'have a go' when we got home.
Mrs Young then bade us Good Night in Japanese and was applauded very loudly indeed.
Hope to see you all on April 6, with an 'Aussie' memento for the competition, the talk to be given by Mrs Bailey, called A Kookaburra Stole my Tent Peg.

University of Buckingham
THE University of Buckingham will kick-start the spring term with a wonderful selection of concerts and lectures, all open to the public.
This term runs from April to June and here is a taster of what to expect.
On Tuesday, April 21 at 6.30pm the Annual Friends of the University Lecture.
Simon Rees gives his lecture entitled Welsh National Opera, The Life and Work of a Touring Company.
Tuesday, May 19 at 6.30pm, Dr Harin Sellahewa, Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham, will talk on Biometrics for Human Identification: Applications, Issues and Challenges.
Tuesday, June 9 at 6.30pm, Dr Glenn Patrick will return to lecture on 'The Large Hadron Collider and the Rise of the Grid.
Concerts include one on Wednesday, April 15 at 1.15pm, Geoffrey Saba, Saba Plays Chopin, and another one on Wednesday, June 10 at 1.15pm.
Robert Tucker returns with a concert given by GCSE students from the Royal Latin School, including breezy solo and ensemble items.
For further details, or to be put on our mailing list, please contact The Publicity Department, University of Buckingham, Buckingham, MK18 1EG, telephone 01280 820213 or email publicity@buckingham.ac.uk.

Bicester Local History Society
BICESTER Local History Society will be holding its next meeting of the 'Do You Remember When?' oral history recording group at The Pop-In Centre, adjacent to Crown Walk car park, Bicester, on Monday, April 6 at 7.30pm.
The theme of the meeting will centre on markets, fairs, fetes and festivals that took place in Bicester and the surrounding area over past decades.
Entrance is free. Further details can be obtained from Pete Chivers on 01869 600109.

Buckingham & Winslow Film Society
TODAY, Friday, is an evening of short films entitled Evoking the Age of Steam at 7.30pm in the Rose Room, Winslow Centre, Park Road, Winslow.
Admission is by ticket only which costs £7.50 per person and includes refreshments.
Tickets can be obtained from Jenny Wren's Tearooms in the Market Square, Winslow or by calling Janet on 01296 688374 or Mike on 01296 715523.
This year's annual event is a special evening dedicated to the early days of cinematography and the golden age of steam trains.
Much of the footage was shot by local film-makers but covers locations from around the world.
This special event launches with one of the Lumiere Brothers' one-shot films Train Arrival at La Ciotat Station showing a steam train arriving at a station and moving towards the camera.
It has passed into film folklore for the incident that occurred at its world premiere, when the audience, unfamiliar with the cinema, thought the train was really coming right at them, and panicked!
All members and non-members are very welcome.

The Inner Wheel Club of Buckingham
THE ladies of the Inner Wheel Club of Buckingham were full of admiration for their guest speaker, Bob Parfitt, at the March dinner meeting.
Bob has been collecting and distributing truck loads of goods, including the shoe boxes which are packed just before Christmas, for some years now.
He is a very dedicated man who is concerned by the plight of poor children and orphans in other countries and has spent a good deal of his time and effort to endeavour to help many of them have a more comfortable life and an education.
Bob showed us many photographs of some of the children he has helped as he talked about his work and the children who have so little that they are thrilled to receive even a small shoe box of presents.
He told us of his help to raise funds and resources to enable others to receive an education in the most basic of buildings, and also explained that many of these children only eat one meal a day and that is at school!
Bob is prepared to deliver items to wherever the need is greatest.
He has even delivered such items as tables, chairs and pianos!
Whatever he is asked for, he tries to collect.
We were all very impressed by Bob's kindness and caring attitude towards the children and also the adults who care for these children.
We all realised just how much we have and how little so many others have, yet they do not complain and are always smiling.
The club already supports Bob with donations of money, food, resources and a large number of shoe boxes at Christmas.
However, I think we are even more determined to make an even greater effort to raise money and provide Bob with useful items for his next destination which is to Gambia and planned for May.

Brackley Means Business
LOCAL active networking group, Brackley Means Business, has a new chairperson.
After a very successful 12 months in the role and due to relocation, Geoff Langston stepped down at the AGM on March 17.
Jan Dean will take over the role and plans to build on the popularity of the group throughout 2009 and beyond.
We have a full calendar of events planned this year with excellent business-related speakers, as well as the opportunity to network in an informal and friendly atmosphere.
For more information, visit our website www.brackleymeansbusiness.co.uk
Please contact Jan on 07044 059939 if you would like to learn more about BMB or would like to come along to the next networking meeting on Tuesday, April 7, at 7pm at The Deli, Market House Courtyard, Brackley.

Brackley Jubilee Choir
TOMORROW, Saturday, Brackley Jubilee Choir is giving a concert and singing some, or part, of some works by Handel.
The main piece will be Dixit Dominus, and we will also be singing some of the Messiah (including the Halleluiah Chorus) and my favourite – Zadok the Priest.
The concert will take place in Magdalen College School Chapel, High Street, Brackley at 7.30pm.
Tickets are £7 and are available at the door.

West Buckingham Benefice Choir
THE West Buckingham Benefice Choir, which won the Church Choir Trophy at last November's Buckingham Festival of Music and Drama, will sing Sir John Stainer's popular passiontide meditation The Crucifixion at St Mary's Church, Tingewick at 7.30pm on Palm Sunday, April 5.
The tenor soloist will be Ian Barratt who was a choral scholar at Magdalen College and later a lay-clerk at University College, Oxford before developing a solo career.
The baritone part will be taken by Tom Cox, a member of both the WBBC and the Buckingham Choral Society.
Tom won several solo vocal classes at the Buckingham Festival.
Michael Tinsley will accompany – he is well-known to audiences in north Bucks where he's been playing church organs since the age of 12.
Ed Grimsdale will conduct. He has taught chemistry and computing at the Royal Latin School for 40 years and learned to beat time while camping in Brittany.
The programme will reveal the unlikely connection between Stainer's indestructible work, the suffragettes and the burning down of a church in Hatcham.
All are warmly invited to this event – there will be a retiring collection for the choir's charity.

Railway Walk Conservation Group
THE calendar, and the sight of sweet violets and bright yellow celandine in the woods and along the roadside, tell us it is springtime, but the weather has a tendency to disagree on occasion.
Some of us might recall the term Blackthorn winter, a cold snap which coincides with sloe bushes coming into flower, so we cannot rely on the warm sunshine to remain.
Unperturbed by the weather, birds are beginning to build nests in which to rear their young.
The chosen task for conservation volunteers tomorrow, Saturday, will be to begin to check the bird boxes along the Railway Walk.
With over 50 bird boxes along the entire length of this scenic walkway, we usually choose a selection of boxes to monitor for nesting activity.
Past records show that blue tits or great tits are the usual species of bird to make use of these additional man-made nesting sites.
The open-fronted style of box has yet to appeal to any birds.
We have also found that some nests have not only been built using moss, feathers and fine grasses, but also the fluorescent fibres from tennis balls, helping to make the nest soft and warm.
In recent weeks frogs have been making their way to the muddy, murky waters in and around the pond, and sadly rather a lot of rubbish has also appeared.
Cans and bottles, apart from being unsightly, present a danger to wildlife, so we will also be having a clean-up to remove these discarded items to the local tip or recycling centre if appropriate.
New volunteers are always welcome to join this active conservation group.
We will be meeting at 10am in the university car park at the top of Station Road, Buckingham.
Tools, safety gear and light refreshments are provided.
Please wear old outdoor clothes and stout shoes or boots.
For further information please contact Jenny Manning on 01280 815223 or via railwaywalk@tiscali.co.uk.

Buckingham Acoustic Club
FRASER hosted our weekly session at the New Inn on Wednesday, March 25, starting with a couple of self-penned numbers, and continuing with some Beatles songs accompanied by Mike on bass.
Fraser will be back at the New Inn today, Friday, with the Rag 'n' Roll Band, who play a lively mix of Ragtime/Piedmont blues and just a hint of jazz with numbers ranging from the roaring '20s to the present day.
With a complete change of musical style, Nick Sherreard performed some impressive flamenco tunes.
Nick will be one of the performers at this year's Music in the Market on Sunday, May 24.
Alex and Craig brought us more up to date with some good renditions of Oasis, Dylan and REM.
This duo is a well-balanced mix of vocal, guitar and some inspired harmonica playing.
Mike, with his mellow singing voice, then took us through some '60s love songs, and he was followed by newcomer Mark from Thame, who kept in the same gentle mood, but in the slightly different style of Jack Johnson and David Gray, with a couple of well-crafted self-penned numbers.
Two more newcomers, Mark and Jon from Milton Keynes changed the tempo once more with very polished performances of their own songs, which were in a Johnny Cash-type vein, and a Jim McGraw number.
Hopefully we will see more of these very entertaining newcomers.
Udo, one of our regulars, then took to the floor, showing us the wide range of styles in which he can play, including some lively tunes on a 12-string guitar, and sang a delightful W H Auden poem which he had set to music.
Finishing the evening in a country flavour, Brian started his set with Mike on bass and was then joined by Pat, who many regulars knew as a former performer from the Buckingham area, now moved away but on a visit from Cornwall.
Pat gave a feel-good end to the evening with his strong seasoned singing voice ringing out some well-known Irish songs.
Well done everyone – what a great night!
If you enjoy a good night out playing or listening to music, why not come and join us on Wednesdays at the New Inn – entry is free.
For more info, see www.buckinghamacousticclub.co.uk.