Around Town Magazine Rayleigh April Edition 2016

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CONTENTS QUALITY KITCHEN FACELIFTS

A new look for your old kitchen this Spring

E

199

Before

6 Mark Francois Political Update

12 Recipe

Cheesey Bake

14 20

• Trusted reputation • Large choice of doors, worktops, appliances and accessories • 50% deposit balance Nature Notes on completion

EWT Volunteer Neil Sumner CALL JAI FOR A FREE ESTIMATE:

01702 713533 OR EMAIL Martin Lewis los@dreamdoors.co.uk Moneydreamdoors.co.uk Saving Expert

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11 Visit our showroom: 1741 London Road, Leigh on Sea, Essex SS9 2SW

22 A View from the Church Rev. Mike Lodge

24 Around Town Sports Is Gaming A Sport?

25 Edition 29

26

Rotary Club / Lions Club Organisations Around Town

31 Useful Numbers Around Town Magazines Graphic House, Radford Way, Billericay CM12 0DX

To advertise contact our Sales Team today, details below. Booking deadline for our May edition is: Thursday 14th April Copyright 2016. Around Town Rayleigh is an independent magazine and does not endorse the products or services that appear in the magazine.

Opinions expressed in Around Town do not necessarily represent those of the editors of Around Town Magazines. Around Town Magazines are published by Black Square Print Media Ltd produced by Black Square Litho Ltd.

01277 658444 www.aroundtownmagazines.co.uk sales@aroundtownmagazine.co.uk

®

in over forty years.

mark francois conservative Parliamentary mP for rayleigh & Wickford

I am very pleased that The Conservatives have launched an In/Out Referendum, to give the British people a direct say on Europe for the first time

I will be voting out for three main reasons. Firstly, I believe we can survive perfectly well outside the EU, whose countries run a massive trade surplus with us, which they will not want to give up.

Remember, we were told that we should not leave the ERM and then prospered when we did. We were also told that we had to join the Euro or be left behind economically – and that also proved untrue.

Thank goodness we kept the Pound.

Secondly, I stood on a manifesto to reduce net immigration to “tens of thousands” a year but while

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we remain in the EU we simply cannotachieve this. Last year to September net immigration into the UK was just under a third of a million people, over half of themfrom the EU. The only way to take back control of our own borders and reduce immigration materially is to leave the EU. We also need to re-establish sovereignty over our own country. Up to 50 per cent of ourlaws now come from the EU and Parliament cannot change them.

Laws can effectively be imposed upon us by people who we did not elect and cannot remove. I want to live in a country that elects its own Government and makes its own laws instead.

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Cloudy2Clear Announce Trusted Trader Partnership Consumer champions Which? have now joined the thousands of customers who recognise that Cloudy2Clear Windows really are a business that you can TRUST. The company which specialises in repairing windows which are steamed up, broken or damaged by replacing the panes – not the frames has received the coveted ‘Which Trusted Trader’ status after going through a rigorous accreditation process entirely focussed on customer service.

Group Managing Director Marcus McGee believes that Which? have endorsed Cloudy2Clear’s long standing company

policy of delivering the highest standards possible at all times. ‘Our service is simple. If your double glazing has misted up we can replace the glass at a fraction of the cost of a new window, in any type of frame, and with a new 5 year guarantee. But it’s not just about saving people money, although that obviously helps. Whilst a number of tradespeople perhaps don’t focus on customer care as much as they should do, we make sure we turn up when we say we will, do the job the customer requires and leave their house as clean as a whistle.

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manager Chris Miller agrees that this approach is a major factor in his success. ‘The truth is that it’s not just the personal satisfaction that I get from doing a good job but also it makes good business sense. I get a huge amount of business from friends and family of people I’ve done work for, which just goes to show how much a little bit of effort is appreciated as both my customers and, obviously a body as nationally important as Which? now recognise.’

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11

RECIPE Cheesey Bake

Ingredients: (serves 4) 6 Large Eggs 200g Mature Cheddar 200g Bread 225ml Bag Baby Leaf Spinach 1tbsp English Mustard Powder 425ml Milk

Equipment: Shallow 2-Litre Dish Colander Food Processor

Method: Begin by buttering the dish and preheating the oven to Gas Mark 5, 190C. For the spinach, you can either cook it in the microwave as per packet instructions or empty the spinach contents into a colander over the sink. After boiling the kettle, pour the boiling water over the spinach and leave to wilt.

Then begin to make your cheese base by breaking up the eggs into a food processor bowl. Proceed to add the milk, the mustard and a tsp of salt.

Break up all of the bread (including the crust) and whizz it all together until the mixture is smooth.

Pour the mixture into a large bowl and grate 3 quarters of the cheese in. Once you have done this, to get rid of all the water, squeeze the spinach. Then put the spinach within the cheese mixture and stir in before pouring the finished mixture into the dish.

Once this is done, grate over the rest of the cheese on top. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes until risen and golden. Allow to cool.

If you would like your recipe to appear in Around Town Magazines then contact our sales team on: 01277 658444 or email: sales@aroundtownmagazines.co.uk

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11-14 Fletchers Square, Temple Farm Industrial Estate, Southend-on-Sea, Essex SS2 5RN

Written by Neil Sumner

Neilsumner123@aol.com twitter.com/neilsumner123 The idea of putting woody debris into a river may seem strange to some but it is actually good for the river and its adjoining banks. During the winter, Essex Wildlife Trust led a work party along Nobles Green Ditch near Rochford, with the Friends of Cherry Orchard Country Park, volunteer river wardens and the Environment Agency. At selected spots, where the river was shallow enough to wade in wellies, we fixed wood to the bank then drove wooden pegs into the river bed to hold it in place. The wood will cause the flow of the water to speed up around the wood and deposit silt behind it, which reduces the amount of silt washed downstream. It also increases oxygen in the water, cleans the gravel in the bed and helps small pools to develop. The gravel is good for fish spawning and insect larvae and the small pools are good for the fish – all of which contribute to the food chain. You may spot similar woody debris structures as you walk along the Crouch in Wickford Memorial Park and the Wid at Buttsbury Wash near Billericay.

This is part of the Essex Rivers Hub project, a partnership which includes the water companies among many other bodies. Its aim is to improve water quality in our rivers in line with the European Water Framework Directive which became law in 2003. Our ditches and streams flow into the seas which we rely on for food and other resources. Installing these pieces of wood contributes to the wider picture of a healthy environment: we are thinking globally and acting locally.

In April, the scrub and trees along the Nobles Green Ditch will burst into leaf. Our native birds will be joined by some back from Africa. Whitethroats will perform their dancing song flights, Swallows will fly across the grass around the rivers to pick off the insects and Bluebells will carpet the nearby ancient woodlands.

With so many pressures facing our wildlife I try to be grateful for any time enjoying nature. I am grateful also to Stu, our outgoing Sales Manager, for giving me the chance to write about our natural environment in Around Town, and wish him well in his new job. I hope to continue here to spread the word about our natural world which, according to Professor John Lawton, is ..”not a luxury, but essential to our health, well-being and economy”. http://essexrivershub.org.uk/ http://www.friendsofcherryorchardpark.org/ photo courtesy of Samantha Dyer

14

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STUDENT LOAN There’s been a furore in Parliament about the scrapping of student grants. And every time politicians get lairy over such issues, the news focuses on the scrap and the real truth of what’s actually happening gets lost.

I’m going to focus on the situation for students who started in or after 2012 in England, for elsewhere in the UK the loans tend to be smaller.

I’ve been swamped with panicked questions about student grants from students, future students, graduates and their parents, so I want to mythbust what’s really happening. In many ways people are panicking unnecessarily about the grant changes, but missing the really damaging change, which is a retrospective hike in student loans.

A: Until now, students from lower income families (roughly below £43,000 income) had some of their loan replaced by a non-repayable grant for up to £3,400.

Student finance: the basics

1) This only applies for new starters starting from 2016. Those already at university and getting grants will keep getting them.

When you go to university, if you’re a first time UK undergraduate you don’t need to pay upfront.

The Student Loans Company pays your tuition fees for you and gives you money for living, then you owe it.

- You only start repaying when you leave university and, even then, only if you earn over £21,000. If you don’t earn over that you don’t repay.

- The amount you repay is proportionate to earnings. You repay 9% of everything above £21,000 (eg, earn £31,000 and, as it’s £10,000 above the threshold, you repay £900 a year).

- If you haven’t cleared what you owe within 30 years, the debt is wiped.

- If you never earn over £21,000, you never repay.

In many ways, financially it’s a no win no fee education. An easy way to think of it is a bit like an extra income tax, with the one difference that once you have repaid what you borrowed (plus interest) it stops. For far more help on this, see my full 20 student loan mythbusters guide atwww.mse.me/studentloan.

I’m going to use examples for English students studying in England. For students from Wales, whether you go to university in Wales or elsewhere in the UK, the amount you borrow tends to be less, but the way you repay is the same.

Q. So what’s happening to student grants?

From September 2016 grants are being scrapped in England and Wales. Yet there’s much confusion about this. There are two big things to note:

2) This doesn’t mean they’ll have less money coming in. New 2016 starters will get a bigger loan to replace what they would’ve got in grants.

In fact, the loan figures for new starters (not continuing students) have been upped by a chunk. This is useful, as often the big issue that hits students isn’t the size of the loan, it’s that they don’t have enough money to live on day-today. Rents alone eat up much of this

IF YOU NEVER EARN OVER £21,000 YOU NEVER REPAY. Q. Isn’t this likely to really hit poor students hard?

A: You may be surprised that I’m going to say no.

In many ways the big problem is the confusion and psychological deterrent, not the practical finances. For most students it makes no practical difference. The replacement of a grant with a loan will ONLY cost more for those who leave university and have long-term very high earnings.

That’s because if you compare the current and new system, the fact it’s a loan and not a grant

would only cost you more if you would’ve repaid your entire tuition fees, remaining maintenance loan after the grant, and interest in the 30 years before the debt wipes anyway.

Most students won’t, so there’s no cost to them.

In fact, my calculations estimate only those on STARTING salaries of £35,000 and up, and then above inflation pay rises would actually pay more. So if the system remains as it is now, it’s only those from poor backgrounds who go on to be big earners who this is negative for.

However, the big question is ‘will the system remain unchanged?’

Q. What’s this retrospective hike to student repayments?

A: As I explained earlier, since 2012, graduates only repay 9% of what they earn over £21,000.

The government had said this threshold was due to rise each year from April 2017 in line with average earnings.

Yet the Government has now decided to freeze it for at least five years, meaning many low- and middle-earning graduates will pay thousands more back than they thought they would when they signed up. After all, if we go back to thinking of it like a tax, if you were to pay 9% of everything earned above £22,000, but now repay everything above £21,000, that’s a hike.

It’s received little publicity though, as it doesn’t immediately seem such a big problem. Here I need to declare an interest: I was head of the Independent Taskforce on Student Finance Information in 2012 when the system changed.

The Government repeatedly told me the threshold

martin L E W IS Money Saving Expert

would rise, and I, of course, told people, and used it in all my cost calculations.

Well I refuse to missell these loans in hindsight.

So I am actively campaigning on it – I’ve written an open letter to the Prime Ministerand have personally hired lawyers to see if it can be challenged (read it at www.mse.me/ studentloanhike).

The big problem, even more important than the additional cost, is the message this sends. The Government is not just freezing it going forward, it’s freezing it for everyone who signed up since 2012 - effectively changing the contract after people have signed up.

The regulator would not allow any commercial lender to change its terms this way. This could destroy any trust current and future generations can have in the student finance system, and perhaps, even more widely, in the political system as a whole.

I said above that the impact of replacing grants with loans isn’t actually as bad as many think under the current terms. Yet the real concern is, as the Government has shown it’s willing to change loan terms even after you’ve got them, who knows what may happen in the future.

Revd Canon Mike Lodge

Spring into life…

No one knows for certain how the month of April got its name, but it may have come from the Latin word ‘aperire’, which means ‘to open’. April is said to be the month of rain showers and it’s during this month that we see many buds begin to open and plants and trees start to grow again after the winter, the April showers enabling the plants and trees to burst into life. The arrival of the cuckoo in mid-April is also the signal that spring has truly arrived, the season of spring officially beginning in March.

As well as a feeling of spring being in the air,April begins with a day of fun and jokes – April Fool’s Day! No-one really knows where this custom came from but it has been kept for hundreds of years, which is reflected in the poem: The First of April, some do say, Is set apart for All Fool’s Day; But why the people call it so, Not I, nor they themselves do know April fooling became popular during the 1700s, with jokes usually involving someone to do something silly, like looking for hen’s teeth, striped paint, a long weight, a left handed screwdriver or some other non-existent thing. The jokes also include news items which include something ‘believable; but really made up, like ‘spaghetti farmers’ growing ‘spaghetti trees’ or online internet jokes

with ‘Google’ launching ‘Google gulp’ to make you more intelligent and quench your thirst!

However, you can only play April Fools on people before midday, when the jokes must stop, or the trickster is told: All Fool’s Day is past and gone, You’re the fool and I am none.

As well as spring and “springtime” referring to the season, it brings ideas of rebirth, rejuvenation, renewal, resurrection and regrowth. This thought follows on from Easter, last month, when we celebrated Jesus rising from death to life, brings us new life and new hope, as we turn to God. This is highlighted in the Bible, where we read in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the people of Corinth, ‘Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new’ (2 Corinthians 5:17).So what does it mean to become a new creation in Christ? The moment you believe in Christ, there’s a spiritual transformation — everything changes! This is a matter of faith and not sight.The greatest step of faith we can take in our lives is to believe what God says about who Jesus is and accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.

Each of the Christian churches and Christian organisations in Rayleigh can help in providing a way back to meeting with God, through their life and work and ministry, for all people, transcending age and gender. We live in a challenging and demanding world, physically, emotionally and spiritually, where each of us needs to find a way of expressing ourselves, including our fears and our hopes. In all that they do each of the churches can help to open up the way to a new and renewed life, helping with some of life’s difficult questions and sharing in some of the answers…

Yours in the love of Jesus.

Parish Office 01268 742151 info@parishofrayleigh.org.uk

www.parishofrayleigh.org.uk

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IS GAMING A SPORT? While scanning the channels the other day, I came across the common problem, I pay for all these channels and there is never anything on. As a big sports enthusiast, my “go-to” channels are usually the Sky Sports channels to see if any live sports or perhaps even repeats can pass another half hour before my girlfriend decides what we are actually going to watch.

To my surprise I came across the Fifa Interactive World Cup!? I thought that this was something new, possibly youth football related; however when I selected the channel and watched it for 5 minutes it soon became clear... I was watching people play The FIFA Football computer game live on Sky Sports.

There were commentators describing the game play as if it were the real thing and we had two guys battling it out with console controllers in hand. Money has obviously been thrown at this, considering they have pundits like David Villa (Spain’s all time leading goalscorer), studio audiences and one of the world’s leading sports channels providing coverage.

Each to their own I suppose, and a few months ago I spoke about Darts not being a sport in the true sense of the word, but this is a step too far.

Gaming is huge and sports games are huge, however for our sports channels to be dedicating prime time slots to people playing sports games is surely not only wrong, but it is setting a bad example for kids all over the globe.

As a parent I am dreading the day I have to get my children off the consoles and get them outside either playing a sport or at least socialising and now the fact there seems to be so much money to be made in gaming makes it all the more hard for us parents and families to justify our preference.

Imagine telling your child to get out and go play football rather than play on FIFA all day, for them to tell you “if I get good at this, I could earn six figures in a year”.

Before my sports page becomes a Victor Meldrew style rant, I must stop and point out that it is worth tuning in and watching this for 5-10 minutes at least to see what I am talking about.

Our sports channels are governed by what makes money, this is the reason why Poker and now gaming has a regular slot, however I feel they should be elsewhere, not on Sky Sports.

Put the spotlight on your local sports team, contact Zaki Hasan, via email, zaki@aroundtownmagazines.co.uk

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RAYLEIGH LIONS CLUB Late last year The Lions Club of Rayleigh were approached by Charlotte Edwards, Clinical Nurse Southend Hospital, who had already raised the wonderful amount of £1,000 herself towards the purchase of a much needed AccuVein for Neptune Children’s Ward, at the same time Charlotte also indicated that the Neo Natal Ward would also benefit greatly if they had an AccuVein.

After a brief explanation to our members as to how wonderful and much needed these machines are The Lions Club of Rayleigh voted to donate the balance of £2,200 to enable Neptune Ward to buy their AccuVein and we also voted to donate a further £3,200 to enable the Neo Natal Ward to buy one outright.

The Lions Club of Rayleigh are delighted that we were able to assist and have been able to reduce the stress, pain and anxiety for so many babies, children and parents alike.

If you would like to come along to one of our meetings and hear for yourself how Lions raise money for worthy causes please contact us via our Facebook page or website

ROTARY CLUB OF RAYLEIGH MILL For most weeks in the year, we meet on Mondays as a club, with our members enjoying a meal at The Rayleigh Club near Hullbridge, Essex.

It is followed by a particular kind of meeting such as ‘committee’, ‘business’ and ‘speaker’ - the latter gives us an opportunity to invite a well-known personality or charity organisation to keep us informed about their work or life.

We have a members’ raffle at the end of the evening and our Sergeant-At-Arms is an appointed member of the club who manages to extract small amounts of money from us in friendly fun from personal observations of us which goes to our charity box.

The evening is run by our President who sits at the top table with his Secretary and we welcome our visiting guests too. Toasts are made to the Queen and our Rotary organisation.

We have a Treasurer to manage our accounts and appointed officers to involve us in the more gentle sports, a press officer to publicise our events, an IT specialist to handle our information, a webmaster to run this website and particular members who take on responsibility for an event eg. our Charity Golf Day and our social trips and dinner dances. Our Foundation officer looks to promote the work of Rotary eg. Purple Pinkie support to End Polio Campaign.

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We offer a great range of pub classics for you to enjoy.

Choose from a range of delicious burgers, steaks and pies.

Don’t forget to join us on Sundays for a delicious roast..

DRINKS

PAUL PRY 14 High Road Rayleigh, Essex SS6 7AA

We have a great range of wines, draught beers and cask ales for you to choose from.

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