ASHBY ST MARY PARISH COUNCIL
NEXT MEETING - Wednesday 3rd November 2021 - 7 p.m. at the Ashby St Mary & Thurton Village Hall
Locum Parish Clerk: Tina Higlett
Email: clerk.ashby@gmail.com   Website: www.ashbystmary.org.uk


Parish Council Meeting Minutes
When published, the draft minutes of the last meeting will appear in the appropriate HERE link on the MANAGEMENT page.
All Council Meeting Minutes can be inspected at any reasonable time by appointment with the Clerk.


Latest News
Until otherwise advised all Latest News will appear on this Home page so make a note to check it regularly. For speedier access in the future why not add the link to this Home page to the Favourites folder of your Internet Browser?  Latest News for approximately the previous 12 months from the date of the Update above can be found in Latest News Archive on the Management page.


ASHBY ST MARY PARISH COUNCIL PUBLIC NOTICES
In line with statutory provisions, formal notice of forthcoming Parish Council meeting agendas, latest meeting minutes for public view and every parish election are displayed on each of the Council's three noticeboards - at the junction of Mill Road and Mill Common; the junction of Sandy Lane and Spong Lane; and close to the junction of Chapel Lane and Chapel Road.


DIARY (including other Meetings or Events held in the Parish or that may interest Ashby St Mary residents)

- FUTURE PARISH COUNCIL MEETNG DATES
Please note meetings are aimed for being held on Wednesdays where possible, subject to the Village Hall availability.
Unless otherwise stated, all Parish Council meetings take place at Ashby & Thurton Village Hall commencing at 7.00 p.m.
Confirmed meeting dates: Wednesday 1st September, Wednesday 3rd November 2021.
Click HERE to show the location of the hall.  Always check Latest News for advice of meeting date/time changes.

- ASHBY ST MARY FUNDRAISERS


There are currently no / no other Ashby St Mary fundraising activities or announcements concerning Ashby St Mary which the Parish Council has been requested to advertise.

- OTHER
None.

ASHBY HEATING OIL SYNDICATE

Do you use Domestic Heating Oil? If so, why not join the Ashby Heating Oil Syndicate?
It’s free to join and you could make real savings.
· Your parish council has set up the Ashby Heating Oil Syndicate.
· The Ashby Heating Oil Syndicate makes worthwhile savings for residents after compiling a bulk order.
· It works! The syndicate’s bulk order regularly saves 2 – 4p per litre over a typical 1000 litres amount.
· Come and join the increasing number of residents who have already benefited.
· This is a free parish service.
· Like to know more? Email webmaster@ashbystmary.org.uk for a fact-sheet.
- This is an Ashby St Mary Parish Council initiative for serving the local community.
RECOMMENDED - A useful site that includes oil price trends between one week and five years ago can be found HERE.

Ashby Heating Oil Syndicate - an update and for oil users interest
If you are a parishioner who is an oil user and have not joined (free) the parish council-run village syndicate, you may be interested to learn a bulk order was made just before the spike in price in early September due to well-publicised world events involving two countries. Via personal negotiation the Syndicate regularly achieves 2p or more per litre less than the cheapest available on Boilerjuice and the village delivery can be within just 5 working days - not up to 25 days via Boilerjuice.  Now are you interested? Contact webmaster@ashbystmary.org for more details or a free factsheet.
During the buying process, the syndicate organiser was advised by one supplier to warn oil users not to let their stock get too low. An instance recently occurred where a boiler failed and upon a necessary service inspection the jets were found to be blocked. Originally it was thought to be due to the quality of oil but it was felt much more likely that when oil is pumped from the delivery vehicle into a domestic tank low on oil, sediment is inevitably stirred up and problems can arise. For interest, premium oil (i.e. higher grade and arguably 'cleaner' and longer lasting) usually costs about 3p more per litre and is the product of an additive to the standard heating oil at the point of delivery.

ASHBY HOMEWATCH / ASHBY WEBSITE UPDATE SERVICE
Ashby's Homewatch service is provided free and is available to any resident.
For more information, please go to the HOMEWATCH page on this website.
The Ashby Website Update service is also included as part of its free service and is available to any Ashby resident.
If you know an Ashby resident who you think should join this free information service, why not tell them about it?
All that is needed is for the recipient to email a few details.
The Parish Council's homewatch representative does the rest - keeping residents informed when a Police Connect alert message affecting our area has been received (including certain national alerts e.g. scams etc), when our parish website has been updated, plus occasional news of the Ashby Heating Oil Syndicate.
Messages are usually issued once per month. For full details look on the HOMEWATCH page.
This is a free parish service.
Contact the webmaster (click on the Contact Us tab near the top of this page) for a fact-sheet.
This another Ashby St Mary initiative for serving the local community.

Ashby Broadband Speed Test
In a bid by the parish council to assist the Better Broadband campaign for rural Norfolk, Ashby residents were asked to test their broadband download speed. Residents undertook tests in 2015, 2017, and 2019.
By 2020 it seems faster broadband has at last arrived in some areas of Ashby - but we like to keep a check on the claimed speeds. If you live in Ashby and are willing to help for the first time (or to check your speed again) just carry out the very simple test below.
1. Click on this website link http://www.speedtest.net/    (For consistency only this site is being used)
2. Make a note of the 'Download' and Upload figures, the time you did the test and email the details HERE
For your interest the last reported download speed test figure achieved by a resident in March 2020 was 54.7 Mbps, and Upload speed 18.4 Mbps. A test in April 2019 was 10.0 and 0.7 respectively. 'Super-fast' fibre broadband is available throughout Ashby via both the cabinets at Chapel Road and Mill Common. BT has told a parishioner 'ultra-fast' fibre broadband is achieved when a fibre connection is made from the cabinet into a property.