Category: Notices/Information

Dave Wadeson – “Dave the Post”

As many of you probably know, Dave Wadeson – known to all at Mountfield as Dave the Post – is retiring after many year of dedicated service.
He certainly went above and beyond the call of duty and his efforts are gratefully appreciated.  We will miss him.
We have arranged for a presentation to him at the Mountfield Parish Assembly on 18th April 2023, in the Village Hall at 7.30pm.
We hope you will join us to chat with Dave and wish him a long and happy retirement.
Irene – Parish Clerk

EMERGENCY STATEMENT – MOUNTFIELD VILLAGE HALL

EMERGENCY STATEMENT

MOUNTFIELD VILLAGE HALL

To put it bluntly, without urgent action, Mountfield will lose its Village Hall and the Club will lose its home in approximately two years. The reasons for this are straightforward.

First, several groups who provided regular, bread-and-butter bookings did not survive Covid.

Secondly, it is clear that life will not be the same as before the Pandemic and business is not returning to pre-Covid levels — ask local shopkeepers or restaurants. And these social changes are affecting village halls too.

Without action now, Mountfield will lose its Village Hall and the Club will lose its home in two years

Finally, there is the rise in energy prices. Mountfield Village Hall was very lucky: our electricity renewal notice arrived about 10 days before the ‘Energy Crisis’ hit the headlines — and the renewal quote was for a cool 100% increase! Neil, our treasurer, managed to find a deal at only 70% increase but other halls have been faced with 200%, 300% or worse. Energy costs are the biggest single factor simply as a result of the scale of the rise and because they are beyond our control.

Neil recently spelt out the economics of the situation:

“Despite reducing maintenance, suspending capital investment and increasing prices, my current forecast for March year end is a deficit of -£4,400. Our total reserves then will be about £9,500. This works out to around two years left (i.e. mid-2025). However, the contract only freezes our electricity costs until December 2024 when they are likely to rise. And, of course, in the meantime, suppliers’ prices will continue to rise as energy costs rise.

“We have little or no room for further cost-cutting so we need to increase income but even matching our best ever hire figure of £8,444 (2019-20) would still only produce approximately £3.3k of extra income against the forecast annual deficit of £4.4k. To make up the forecast deficit would require an extra 24 hours hire per month at £15 per hour.”

That’s a tall order but not impossible. We know what needs to be done but we just don’t have enough helpers to do what’s required. To make things happen, we need more trustees and more for the Management Committee. But we also need volunteers who have any specific skills to offer such as graphic design, social media, marketing, painting, building maintenance, sponsorship deals, etc. And we also need helpers who can let a tradesman in, or show someone round; research local caterers or bouncy castle hirers; source grants for any particular projects; whatever — or to pour teas. And we can always use ideas. So…

… there will be a special meeting, in Mountfield Village Hall to discuss the problem on:

Tuesday April 25th at 7.30.

Please come along with ideas, offers to help, or just moral support. See you there.

Peter, Neil, Nick, Steve, Trish

(Trustees)

£7,000.00 from SE Water Community Scheme

Due to the recent water outage at Mountfield, SE Water have paid Mountfield Parish Council £7,000.00 in compensation – to be spent for the benefit of the Mountfield Community.
This is the only way SE Water will compensate Mountfield residents, despite efforts by myself and other clerks of parishes that were involved – they will not compensate individual residents.
So we are asking you all how you wish the funds to be spent – there will be an opportunity for you all to let us know at the Mountfield Parish Assembly – to be held on 18th April 2023, 7.30pm in Mountfield Village Hall and I would also ask that if you wish to let us know before that – please email me with your wishes at  clerk@mountfield.org.uk
Irene – Parish Clerk

British Gypsum and its Communities Survey

Social Change are conducting a survey for British Gypsum and the details are below.
If you wish to take part, please please click on this link

We’re conducting research on behalf of British Gypsum to understand stakeholder and community perceptions of British Gypsum. We are carrying out this survey with a range of people who live and/or work within a community local to a British Gypsum site. The aim of this research is to start a conversation with the people and communities close to the sites on how the company can be a good neighbour. As a thank you for completing this survey, there is the opportunity to enter a prize draw to win a £100 shopping voucher at the end of this survey.

This survey is being conducted by Social Change, an independent social research and marketing agency, on behalf of British Gypsum. All of your answers will be stored securely and kept confidential. This means we will not identify you at any point in the storing, processing and reporting of the data. You can view more information about our policy and how we work in line with GDPR by clicking here. If you require an accessible format or would like to ask any questions about this work, please get in touch by emailing research@social-change.co.uk.

 

Southeastern Railway – strike action

Email received from Southeastern Railway, please note if you are intending to use their services on 16th and 17th March.
Irene – Parish Clerk

Strike action by the RMT union is due to take place on our network next week on Thursday 16 and Saturday 18 March.

We’re sorry, there will be a limited service running on our network and some routes will be closed. Please only travel if necessary. If you are travelling expect some disruption, plan ahead and check your entire journey.

We’ll be running our normal timetable on the days either side of the strikes, except on Friday 17 March when trains will start later from 07:00.

Journey planners for Thursday 16 and Friday 17 March are now available.

Journey planners for Saturday 18 March will be available on Tuesday 14 March.

If the strike action is cancelled at short notice, we may not be able to switch back to our normal timetable immediately. Rail services are built in complex, interrelated IT systems covering fleet, crew schedules and rosters and so it takes some time to get everything back into place.

Ticketing and refunds

For ticketing and refund information please visit our strike action web page. When trains are running, you travelled and were delayed for 15 minutes or more, you are entitled to Delay Repay compensation

More information

You can find full information and keep up to date on our strike action web page, follow us on Twitter, or you can sign up to receive service updates.

We’re very sorry for any inconvenience this strike action will cause you

SE Water Survey – vulnerable customers

I’ve received the email below about a survey regarding how SE Water provide to their vulnerable customers.  In view of the recent water outage in Mountfield, I thought it would be useful to post it here, so anyone who wishes can complete it.
Irene – Parish Clerk

Dear Irene Marchant

South East Water want your views on the services they provide to their vulnerable customers in your area.

South East Water is undertaking some important research about the provision of services and support they provide for their customers with circumstances that make them vulnerable. To help with that, they’re undertaking research to understand how satisfied you are as a key stakeholder.

It would be great if you could complete this survey by clicking below to continue. It will take less than five minutes.

 Start survey 

If you can’t see or click the button above, please copy and paste this link into your browser:

https://secure2.accent-mr.com/A2/3407.aspx?urn=TL6oyq&dy=t

This study is being carried out on behalf of South East Water by Accent, an independent market research company. Accent has been working with the company for over five years now to help it understand what customers want from their water service.

The research is being conducted under the terms of the MRS code of conduct and is completely confidential. Your answers will remain anonymous and you will not be identified in the data Accent will pass back to South East Water. If you would like to confirm Accent’s credentials, please call the MRS free on 0800 975 9596.

I would be very grateful if you could complete the survey by Monday 20th March.

Yours sincerely,

Yasamin Mehraj
Associate Director

This research is conducted under the terms of the Market Research Society code of conduct and is completely confidential. If you would like to confirm Accent’s credentials please call the MRS free on 0800 975 9596.

Any answer you give will be treated in confidence in accordance with the Code of Conduct of the Market Research Society

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