First public meeting of the Community Plan Action Group (CPAG).

The first public meeting of the Community Plan Action Group (CPAG) took place on Friday the 28th October in the Memorial Hall. It was well attended with more than 50 people contributing valuable suggestions, practical ideas and experience to the subjects being explored for action. The CPAG committee were thrilled by the interest and enthusiastic help offered and collectively agreed it was a promising start.

You may know that the CPAG was formed from volunteers within our community to help identify actions suggested from analysis of the community questionnaire. Action projects may prove to be straightforward or more complex and require specific research, specialist advice or further consultation with the village community.

The first public meeting was an opportunity to present thoughts and findings to date and importantly, continue to solicit input and advice from the wider community. Some of the areas are complex and continue to require research and community input and creativity, balancing what works with creative thinking.

Community members arrived early and were able to preview the displays set up by the group members researching particular areas. The Chair, John Labouchere, opened the meeting and was followed by a spokesperson presenting each subject area for five minutes, providing a frame for subsequent input from any interested parties.

Subject areas:

1. Traffic Management, including a map of suggested projects.

2. Village Hall – an analysis of current facilities and amenities inviting suggestions for the future.

3. Footpaths and Public Spaces.

4. Local Government and Services.

5. Clubs and Societies.

6. Sustainable Energy.

7. Local Learning/Teaching.

Displays can continue to be seen at the post office where there is also a box for your input and suggestions. If you missed the public meeting, or attended and have further ideas on the subject areas it is important that you contact the CPAG via the suggestion box, e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or contact the Secretary on 668539. These will be passed to the relevant subject area person who may contact you if needed.

This is an ongoing process and CPAG seeking to discern appropriate actions alongside and on behalf of the community.

An update on individual subject areas including analysis of input from the public meeting and ongoing suggestions will be included in the January edition of Elmham News and a further public meeting has been set for 29th February 2012 (more detail to follow). Please do try and make it. The matters we are discussing affect/benefit every member of the community and your input will make these projects as successful as they can be.

The CPAG is looking for people to become involved in looking into traffic management. If you have an interest in this area please contact

CPG December 2010

The work of the Community Planning Group goes on!

Although the Community Planning Group appears to have gone quiet since the questionnaires was distributed and collected in May and June, be assured that we have in the meantime been very busy. All the data, which includes over 4,000 free text answers to questions, have been put been into the computer database and we are hard at work on the analysis.

Working through the answers I have been struck time and again by the quality of the responses and the thought which has gone into them. The answers are full of clever ideas and innovative suggestions, many of which should be taken seriously.

Our absolute deadline is to have the report published by March, but I see no reason why we should not have something out well before then.

Anyway, we will keep everyone up to date with progress through the pages of Elmham News. So watch this space! Peter Wade-Martins,

Chairman of the North Elmham Community Planning Group

Community Plan Prize Draw and update

Judy Mitchell & Caroline Payne with CPG prize draw cheque We said there was a draw for respondents to the survey, well what with holidays and festivals eventually it was held and to prove it the photograph shows the winner Judy Mitchell receiving her prize cheque from Caroline Payne, Chair of the Parish Council.

We are still going through all of your answers but it will take a bit of time before the report is ready, in the meantime a few things have been noted and where it is simple and possible to do something we will bring it to your attention, starting with Broadband speeds.

You will see from the separate item that BT are actively canvassing peoples interest -

Now you've had your say...

So, the first part of the project to map out a plan for the future of North Elmham is over. The completed questionnaires have been collected and the on-line entries collated. The signs are that the response to the invitation to Have Your Say has been extremely high.

One of the first findings to emerge from the exercise, in fact, was to dispose of the notion that people don't care. The people of North Elmham demonstrated in large numbers that they did care and were prepared to spend time showing they did.

What the volunteers came back with was a groundswell of interest in what was afoot. Some reported back with completed questionnaires from every house on the list. One batch of completed questionnaires was returned from a group of householders who were outside the official village boundary but preferred to think of themselves as North Elmham. One doorstep visit led to the discovery of a small but fascinating military museum in a garden shed.

The scene is set now for the business of processing the views that have been expressed - a process that, it is worth repeating, provides no way of identifying a particular response with a specific street, let alone an individual address. The details of entries for the prize draw take an entirely separate route.

As to the draw itself, for that £200, the steering group will keep you posted. Watch this space...

David Adeney
Babs Moodie
Bryan Tidnam
Eileen Bent
Nick Moore
Nicholas Varnon
Jacquie Braybrook
Jean Noble
Sue Waters
Michael Broom
Andrew Parsons
Shirley Werrell
Martin Budgett
Martin Phillips
Di Weatherall
Norman Clarke
Linda Richmond
Susanna Wade Martins
Bob Fletcher
Robert Rickett
Meg White
Muriel Gladwell
Richard Sewell
Janet Woodhouse
Tony Langford
Mary Smith
David Worshop
Brenda Manning
Sharon Sowinski
Mike Wyatt
Christine Mitchell
Martin Sullivan

Alan MacKim

The SURVEYS

Finally you have your chance to have YOUR say.

Choose the appropriate survey, enter the token number in the box where it askks for it and away you go!

If you have no answer to a question just go on to the next one, quite simple really.

When you finish the survey you will be presented with a page to print out - this is essential as it is your entry to the prize draw - IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT A PRINTER YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ENTER THE DRAW - fill in a printed version instead.

If you are aged 11-17 choose the

YOUTH SURVEY

If you are 18 or over please choose the

MAIN SURVEY

Banners up!

Remember there is still time to send in your surveys (sorry there was a problem for some - slight glitch, but sorted now)

The first banners reminding people of the upcoming Community Plan Survet were erected on Sunday (in the oh so typical Bank holiday weather...)

Linda Richmond pictured finishing off the attachment of one of the 8 banners distributed around the village over the course of the next week - there should be sufficient so that it is impossible to miss all of them (well at least that is the theory!).

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