We know the Torch Relay will be going through Basingstoke on Wednesday 11 July 2012 and heading to Winchester [...]]]> I’ve been working with our town’s mayor to gather signatures on a petition – we hope to convince the organisers of the London 2012 Summer Olympics to bring their Torch Relay through towns, including Whitchurch.

We know the Torch Relay will be going through Basingstoke on Wednesday 11 July 2012 and heading to Winchester via Kings Worthy.

What the organisers haven’t yet done is announced the route the Relay will take between those big towns. That’s where the petition comes in!!

Whitchurch mayor and mayoress collect signatures on the Torch Relay route petition.

CHAMPIONED BY OUR MAYOR

I was with our Mayor, Cllr Barry Jackman and the mayoress Sandra Jackman, plus several other town councillors, on the Town Hall forecourt and The Square this morning. We met a couple people who had seen the Torch Relay when it came through in 1948 – and one person who was an actual torchbearer from then!

Other towns along the proposed route (B3400 to Hurstbourne Priors then south through Sutton Scotney where Naomi House is) are also out collecting signatures. Petitions are in various businesses and town halls, too.

We will give the petitions to our MP, Sir George Young (who is Leader of the House) on Wednesday 28 December. He will pass them on to Lord Coe who runs the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG). We should hear if we have been successful early in 2012, perhaps in February when the announce the torchbearers.

See the campaign site: http://TorchRelay.org.uk

Click: GALLERY

I have mainly [...]]]> After some bugs squished; the gallery portion of this website has reopened. Sadly, the stuff that was once there is no more. Such is life sometimes. Friends and family can drop me an email to be added to the access list for the, well, friends and family gallery photos section!

Click: GALLERY

I have mainly added photos of various events around our town, although I did forget (honest!) to take my camera to tonight’s play in the park Lawn: WADS is putting on Shakespeare’s 12th Night under the open skies this weekend and next. And boy! did the skies open tonight right at the 7pm start! Thankfully, things moved on.

Lots of things happening around town these days; most are listed on our town’s official website…

Click: WHITCHURCH.ORG.UK

Our town had its annual Church Fête on Saturday, 9 July 2011. One of its organisers asked me if I could possibly, please, pretty please, oh come on you could couldn’t you? be their unofficial official photographer.

Well, it didn’t get [...]]]>

The 2011 Church Fete in Whitchurch, Hampshire is held on Prof.Denning's lawn.

Our town had its annual Church Fête on Saturday, 9 July 2011. One of its organisers asked me if I could possibly, please, pretty please, oh come on you could couldn’t you? be their unofficial official photographer.

Well, it didn’t get me free admission; but I did leave with a bottle of booze. That’s fair.

So, the whole story will make its way onto the town’s website soonish, Whitchurch.org.uk – but for now, you can oogle at my unofficial photographs in our newly reinstalled Gallery: 2011 Church Fête

I took some movies with my Sony Alpha A55, too. One day I’ll get around to editing them together (I’m in the process of switching to Sony’s Vegas editor, having been a long-time Pinnacle Studio user who is finally fed up with its limitations; but I do miss Studio’s easy to learn interface).

And what’s this? Next weekend is the Procession and Carnival? Does the fun ever stop in this lovely little Hampshire town?

A lot of time has been put in by a gaggle of volunteers around Whitchurch over the past couple months to try to win a competition run by BT. They were offering to upgrade 5 rural telephone exchanges to use fibre-optic [...]]]>

Andrew Reeves-Hall sprays the volunteers with champagne to celebrate the town's wins.

A lot of time has been put in by a gaggle of volunteers around Whitchurch over the past couple months to try to win a competition run by BT. They were offering to upgrade 5 rural telephone exchanges to use fibre-optic technology so that faster broadband Internet access would be possible. In November, three of us (me, John Buckley and Mike Stead) founded the Whitchurch Faster Broadband Campaign to coordinate the voting in the  ’Race to Infinity’, after our Town Council backed our initiative.

A full story will soon be written about the whole campaign, suffice to say it was worth it and then some. Whitchurch won the Race, beating out the 2494 other eligible towns in the UK. Not only that, the town won £5000 of computer equipment for a community project. Were now collecting ideas from the community on what that project should be.

This was the first major campaign that I have ever been involved in. It was a tremendous experience, and I met so many people. The last two weeks of the competition saw many of us go out ‘door-knocking’ to sign-up votes from those people who might not have yet got around to voting, or were unable to vote online for lack of a computer. This turned out to be clincher for the town. Not only to win the race, but to bring the community together in a common goal. We’re throwing a party on Saturday at Campaign Headquarters (the White Hart Hotel pub) – and the whole town is invited.

Media interest has been high, culminating (so far) with interviews on BBC radio and mentions on BBC South Today TV. See the BBC article HERE.

A news item about the win is HERE, and another about the £5000 prize is HERE.

A report on the celebration by our local MP, The Rt Hon Sir George Young, is on his website HERE.

Arkells have brewed a special limited edition ale at their Donnington brewery – one of the most traditional breweries in the [...]]]> Local resident Andrew Reeves-Hall started his long road to join the ‘Beer Tickers’ or ‘Scoopers’ when he became the first to register a ‘scoop’ at the White Hart of a rare new beer.

Arkells have brewed a special limited edition ale at their Donnington brewery – one of the most traditional breweries in the country and in perhaps the most beautiful of country settings.
DONNINGTON

Texts flew around Whitchurch as Andrew was baptised into the secret Society, where the enthusiasts score as many different beers as they can, an activity often equated with the extremes of trainspotting, and line bashing!
SCOOPERS

Regretably Andrew will have to wait for his tickers anorak as he made the ultimate supreme error of recording his scoop incorrectly, informing everyone it was Doomington Founders Ale.
Doomington? DOOMINGTON?

He also fails on another count too – he doesn’t have a beard!

Andrew says in his defense, “Hey, I was trying to text and drink at the same time, give me a break! Beard!? I did grow a moustache during Movember, though”