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EGGS

When looking for ideas of wildlife or environmental projects in Elmsett I was spoilt for choice. Should I visit the school to hear more about their recycling scheme and gardening club, or pay a visit to the intriguingly named EGGS?

It had to be the latter with a name like that! The Elmsett Greenlife Grove Scheme (or EGGS) is community woodland which was begun in 2005.听 After appealing to local landowners for help, farmer James Buckle offered an ideal site just behind the community centre and primary school.

Appropriately named Buckle's Wood, the name chosen by the village children, at the moment 1,500 tiny trees, suitably supported and staked, have been planted. Supported from the beginning by The Green Light Trust, the volunteers of EGGS have included children, parents and staff from Elmsett primary school.

Sue Mackie arranged for several of those involved to meet me at the new wood on a blustery Saturday morning, just after gales had felled many trees in Suffolk. James Hitchcock was busy with a mallet checking stakes and making sure that the young trees were safe after their battering.

鈥淭hey are all native trees, indigenous to this area. Oak, ash, hornbeam, spindle, hawthorn, hazelnut鈥�.. things like that, 鈥溙� he explained. I asked him his vision for the future for Buckles Wood. 鈥淚 want nice woodland that benefits wildlife and the local residents can enjoy. I think it鈥檚 a good scheme to encourage people to enjoy their surroundings more鈥�.

The children who gathered to meet me, Alistair, James, Katrina, Sarah, and Edward, were proud to tell me how they had helped with the planting, grown plants from acorns and seeds, and how they would play there in the future.

How long before the trees would have grown as tall as me? About ten years was their reply. I鈥檝e promised to return for another look then!

Elmsett Village shop and Post Office.

Elmsett is lucky to have so many facilities that other villages have lost. The shop/post office has just been taken over by Andy Kempson and Yvonne Elmes. With a tiny shop front it鈥檚 surprising when you step inside to find it crammed full of supplies for the villagers. Saturday customers were coming and going while I was there 鈥� buying items forgotten, queuing at the minute post office counter and asking after village pantomime tickets.

Andy accepts that the village shop will never be the place where families do their main weekly food shop, but insists that the shop is vital for the community, for all those extra items that shoppers need 鈥� especially when the village is cut off by bad weather.听 He and Yvonne are very new to the job, having left the corporate world and moved into the village just at the end of 2006.

鈥淲e had never done it before. We were new to the retail industry, new to the post office, new to the lottery, new to being able to sell alcohol. It鈥檚 a complete change of life and it鈥檚 been a massive learning curve. We wanted to be our on bosses, to breakaway and make decisions for ourselves.鈥�

They decided to each take a different side of the business and train for it, so Andy has done the post office training while Yvonne has concentrated on the retail side.

鈥淭he post office is, for most people, somewhere where you buy your stamps but it鈥檚 a massive institution with 150 products 鈥� banking, insurance and everything else. You have to learn the systems and be able to serve the customer who is stood in front of you- hopefully in a slick way. I鈥榤 still learning and I still make a few mistakes,鈥� smiled Andy ruefully.

Now Andy and Yvonne have to spend time learning each others roles. However tough it proves, they have no regrets and are full of praise for the villagers who are making them so welcome in their new home.

Elmsett Methodist Church visit to Ohio.

There are two churches in Elmsett, the 12th century St Peters parish church and the Methodist church that was built in 1962, although there has been a Methodist chapel in the village since 1858.

It was to the Methodist church I was heading, on my weekend visit, because I had heard that a party was going to Cleveland, Ohio, USA in the summer, to help at the Nehemiah Mission. The mission helps with decorating and repairs when the poorest citizens of Cleveland are threatened with eviction for not maintaining their property.

As volunteer helpers have to pay for their food when they stay in the hostel-style accommodation, pay travelling expenses and for the materials for the repairs they undertake, there is a lot of fundraising going on in Elmsett 鈥� everything from church tuck shops to concerts.

The idea for a party to go to Ohio, came from Liz Copes, youth leader at the church, when she visited the Mission back in 2005,

鈥淕oing around the Mission, one of the group just made a throwaway comment 鈥榯his is something you and your young people could do鈥�. I sort of brushed it aside, but several months later I had a hunch going through my head that said, 鈥榶es, why not try that鈥�. I thought perhaps it was a silly idea but people said 鈥榞o with your hunch鈥�, and really it has blossomed from that. We have had the whole church, the whole community behind us helping us to fund raise鈥�.听

A party of twenty, seven adults and thirteen teenagers, will be in the party, including Beth Edwards and Will Holmes who are looking forward to helping those less fortunate than themselves 鈥� and having a bit of an adventure鈥�. but first there鈥檚 the fundraising to get on with. (They have promised to come into 91热爆 Radio Suffolk on their return to tell me how the trip went).