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Church Choir

Do you like to sing?
If so, have you thought that you might join
Fletching Church Choir. We sing regularly for the
principal service on Sunday morning, and occasionally for weddings and funerals. Mostly we are simply there to support worship in the singing of hymns, but there are times when we sing something rather more ambitious in the form of an anthem appropriate for the season.

We meet twice a month to practice (one hour on a Wednesday evening) with extra preparation for big occasions such as the annual Carol Service.

Whilst many of the choir sing regularly, full attendance is not required and many of us have other commitments. We are happy too for singers to join us occasionally, for example at Christmas when there are extra services to support. The ability to sight read is always helpful, but is by no means a requirement, and we do not hold auditions.

If you would like to know more or would like to come to a practice to get a feel of the choir, please do ring me: 01825 712384 or 07974 796122.

Susanna Martin

Support the village cafe!

The project to restore the 1880 Forster & Andrew
still needs your SUPPORT

Find out more details about our organ project
CLICK HERE
fletchingorgan.org

OPENING HOURS
TUE - FRI: 10am - 4.30pm
SAT: 9am - 1pm

“ The Parish Council would like to welcome Bell & Bellflower to Fletching High Street and wish them every success. The Clerk, in particular, is looking forward to regularly popping in for a coffee when she visits the village putting up the notices etc…. ”

November 13th

is the Bag2School collection day for
Fletching School

Local company celebrates
20 years in business

We now send over 20,000 gifts a year from the nursery and have a fantastic team of local staff who look after the plants, the nursery and the orders day to day.

You may have noticed that we have recently taken down another of the older greenhouses for safety reasons, but we are still using the land for growing and one of our team has an exciting chilli project underway behind the fencing.

Please put any unwanted clothes, shoes, soft toys, towels, bed linen, belts, handbags, hats or jewellery in black bin bags and bring to Fletching School on
Monday, 11th November or Tuesday, 12th November during school hours of 8.40am to 3.15pm.
Every item raises funds for our fantastic village primary school and is very much appreciated.
More details can be found at
www.bag2school.com/what-we-collect

Thank you!
Holly Sandell
Fletching School PTA Committee Member

Neighbourhood Plan

Progress on the Neighbourhood Plan has been complicated by the change of government and the impacts their policies are likely to have on the development of the Local Plan. The Steering Group for the Neighbourhood Plan have therefore decided to focus our next pieces of work on issues that can either totally or only marginally affected by the Local Plan. These are:

• to identify non-designated heritage assets

• to develop design guidelines for any new buildings

• identify key views within the Parish

• identify green spaces within the Parish

Whilst the last two items are largely self-explanatory, non-designated heritage assets would benefit from some clarification. These are physical, artificial buildings or other objects that are not listed by English Heritage. The obvious ones in the Parish that we are already aware of are the Pump House, the letterbox/fingerpost on Splaynes Green, and Piltdown Pond. We would welcome any further recommendations, including homes and barns that are not listed but would benefit from being identified as having heritage value to our Parish.

We would also like to hear from everyone about key views and green spaces. These do not have to be of or from public places. We believe there are many views of the church spire that should be recorded both from public an private property, so please send in photos identifying where they were take.n from. Obvious green spaces so far include the Recreation Ground, Splaynes Green and Piltdown Golf Course, but any other suggestions would be welcome. They do ht have to be large or obviously ‘green’, just be significant sections of non-agricultural countryside.

Please send all suggestions to richard.hannay.cllr@gmail.com.

Many thanks in advance.

After the tremendous commemoration of the Normandy Landings in June, we turn to look forward to November.

This year, with the generous encouragement of the PCC, a Field of Remembrance will be introduced on the bank beside and immediately to the west of the main Church door on which you may wish to place a remembrance cross in memory of family, friends or other people.

The plan is also to place one of these crosses by each grave or memorial of The Fallen in the Burial Ground. As you may know, since the memorials on the High Street and in the Church were created, the names of four people who are not remembered on these memorials, have been established: Frederick William Fieldwick, Frederick Padgham and Albert Edwin John Payne in The Great War and Richard Francis Gunn in The World War. A brass plaque recording their names is being prepared which will be installed immediately below the stone memorial
in the Church.

The Book of Remembrance in the Church was prepared in August 1995 to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of The World War. It contains the names of The Fallen and records the contribution of the Canadian Army in Fletching. The Book is to be replaced and expanded to incorporate all those from both Wars, drawing especially on the biographies researched in 2018 marking the centenary of the end of The Great War.

Finally, the wonderful team of Poppy Appeal Collectors will be out and about from the end of October to raise funds for the work of the Royal British Legion in supporting our serving personnel, veterans and their families.

Royal British Legion, Fletching Branch

The Service of Remembrance
Sunday, 10th November,
will be followed by a short service on
Armistice Day, Monday 11th November

Fletching
Christmas Fair

SAVE THE DATE

This year’s Christmas Fair will be on
Saturday 7th December between
2 & 4pm.

There will be a wide variety of stalls across the three sites of the Village Hall, the Church and the School as per last year.

Anyone interested in having a stall should get in touch with Emma on
07966 035578 or emmahannay@ownmail.net

This year the Chromatics, a local singing group, will be singing carols in the Church from 3pm.

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For those of you who don’t know us, Plants4Presents is an online plant gift delivery service. We’re a family business, run by mother and daughter team, Isobel and Emily Rae, sending boxed plants as gifts across the UK from our base just outside Fletching. 2024 marks our 20th year in business and we’re delighted to have weathered the storms of the last few years and to still be here and thriving. Plants4Presents began as a true kitchen table business out of Isobel and Alan’s house in Surrey but very quickly we expanded and by 2006 we were looking for new premises. It was then that we came across the old glasshouses on Fletching Common Lane and since then we have been delighted to call this little corner of Sussex our home.

Tucked away on the outskirts of Newick and Fletching, many of you walk, run and drive past our nursery and whilst it may look a little scruffy on the outside there is a lot going on behind the scenes.

Two decades seems to have passed in a flash. We’ve had lean years and bumper years, and we've survived snowstorms, postal strikes, Covid and losing our wonderful chairman, Alan Rae, husband, father and all-round hero. As a mother and daughter team, we feel very privileged to still be working together and doing what we love after all this time.

Unfortunately, our working nursery is not open to the public, but we do really value the many local people who support us. We’re always happy to offer free delivery for local residents, whether you are delivering locally or to friends and family further afield and you can find more about the range of plants and citrus trees we offer on our website www.plants4presents.co.uk.

Now the youngest member of the team is starting school, we hope to host another open day in 2025 so watch this space for more news soon.

Emily Rae, MD, Plants4Presents

Thank you to everyone whio came out an lined the High Street and supported 170n years of Fletching Bonfire Night on 5th October. We hope you enjoyed the torch lit procession and fireworks display that concluded the night.

Resol String Quartet Concert

The Resol String Quartet are delighted to be making their annual return to Fletching Parish Church on the 16th November at 3pm.

The concert is sponsored by Peter Bassett and is the “climax” of events nin Fletching marking French composer Theodore Dubois’ centenary.

The programme features his enchanting First String Quartet alongside
Max Bruch’s own First String Quartet.

Refreshments will be served with proceeds going to church funds.

Tickets are £15 or FREE for under 18’s, available online at
resolstriingquartet.com/events or at the door by either card or cash.

200 years old!

This year, the Fletching Church of England Primary School is proud to be celebrating its 299-year anniversary!

We would love to hear from any ex-pupils about their time at the school. Also, if anyone has any photographs over the years, we would be so grateful if you could send them our way. We’re planning to showcase these at the Christmas Fair on 7th December, so keep your eyes peeled for more information in the next issue.

Please email us on ptafletching@gmail.com if you have any nmemories to share.

Fletching Bonfire Society

What a night!

Maybe you want to join us as you liked it so much, we are always looking for new members. Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 18 months. We couldn’t have achieved any of this without you.

Although our night has finished, there has been no rest for the society. We have been out helping light the streets of Heathfield, East Grinstead, Hailsham, Isfield, Ewehurst over the past month with still many out meetings to come.

If you would like to assist in any way, please contact fletchinngchairman@gmail.com or Julie on 07834 323030.

Please feel free as always to contact us should you have any questions or comments about the society, we promise we are a friendly bunch, we just like to burn things! And, as always STAY SAFE!