This brief note is to confirm that our next parish meeting will take place on Wednesday 16th May. It will be held in our parish meeting room in Hall Road, Hoe from 7.30pm. For those of you who wish to prepare for the main event with a hot drink, Sue Malt will be kindly serving one up as usual after the doors open at 7.00pm. Those attending are guaranteed a warm welcome.
Our meetings are known to finish on time but of necessity and exceptionally the last one ran over by a few minutes; I will ensure that does not happen again. To reduce the necessity for me to report too extensively on ongoing issues at the meeting, I have increased the number of written updates I circulate between the dates we meet and that will make more time available for discussion of the things on the agenda. Please let me have details of anything you wish to have included in it before it is printed and displayed three days before the meeting.
I would just make a plea for people who have not been to our parish meeting before to consider coming. It is a very unique way of deciding parish issues through a system of direct democracy where there are no elected councillors and every parishioner’s view and their vote is of equal value. There is never any requirement to speak but the more residents who attend the more representative and credible our meeting is. Our visitors are often quite envious of our uncomplicated method of deciding the things that affect our lives and our parish has decided it wishes to maintain our current system so please support it.
I have said a number of times in the past that Norfolk is one of the safest places in the country and our parish is one of the safest in the county. Some years ago however I included in a parish update that elsewhere in the county there had been a number of incidents and I provided some advice regarding the action to take to avoid becoming a victim. Almost immediately after that there were a number of incidents here and as a result of our parishioners following the advice several people, all from other counties who had travelled here, were arrested. There is absolutely no doubt that the offenders made it known that our parish should be given a wide berth and we have not been bothered since. There have been occasional recent things of concern elsewhere however and so this may be a good time to revisit how we can help ourselves and each other.
The first thing to say is that in our small community anything out of the ordinary tends to stick out so if you see