Affpuddle

  • THE coffee morning in aid of church funds went off very well despite the fact that its venue had to be changed at the last minute from Launchfield to the village hall because of the threat of rain.

All the stalls were groaning under the weight of attractive wares of all sorts, and doing a roaring trade when I arrived.

Sandy Moriarty tells me that the event made £335.66 for church funds.

  • JONATHON Haigh sent me the following interesting anecdote: Aliens invaded St Laurence's church in March, and some of them are still around, so mind your step!

The aliens concerned are harlequin ladybirds, a foreign species that has recently been spreading through the UK, to the detriment of our native ladybird population.

They are more rapacious than our native species, and out-compete them for their natural diet of aphids. They are mostly brightly coloured and multi-spotted. Many of the ones in the church were orangey red with at least 20 black spots, but some were black with fewer spots which were red.

During the Good Friday afternoon service many settled on the floor of the main aisle, and it was impossible to avoid stepping on them.

Ian Cross, countryside warden, has examined some and confirms that they are indeed harlequins. Their spread through the country is being monitored, and we were asked to report any findings.

There is no official extermination policy, but actually, I don't think we need worry about stepping on a few, as long as we are sure that they are harlequins and not our threatened natives.

  • IT IS some time since Briantspuddle entered the Dorset Best Kept Village competition, so the village hall committee decided that this year was a good time to enter again.

You will shortly see members of the hall committee out and about litter picking and weeding, etc, as the judging takes place between May and July.

Any offers of assistance will be welcome, so if you are willing to help, please let any member of the committee know, or just come along and join in when you can.

  • THE village hall committee will shortly be submitting further applications for funding for the hall improvement project.

The intention is to start work on the building within the next 12 weeks.

A meeting with the architects has recently taken place to begin the process of completing the detailed specification so that tenders can be sought from contractors, and the selection completed by the end of the year.

  • FOLLOWING the purchase of the multimedia projector and screen for the village hall last month, it can now be reported that the screen has been installed and that the committee is working on a launch event to demonstrate the equipment.

The launch is planned to be a community fun event.