News from April 1996
[archive index] Volunteers needed for Strawberry Fair - (31/5/96)
Copied from cam.misc:
The 23rd Strawberry Fair needs you!
If you can spare at least two hours, then read on...
The Strawberry Fair is a free festival of arts, crafts and music that takes
place on Cambridge Midsummer Common each year. For a large number of people,
it is the main event in the Cambridge calendar, offering something a little
different from the run-of-the-mill Cambridge event, and all for free.
This year’s Strawberry Fair will have something for
everyone: from the Kettles Yard and Wysing Arts activities involving moving
fire-breathing sculptures and stained glass arches, through the
multi-media-marquee offering a blend of audio and visual stimulation of the
senses, the five stages for performing arts and music of all types, to the
two-hundred plus arts and crafts stalls. The whole thing kicks off with a
children’s procession through the town (around mid-day), and finishes with a
grand finale (around 10:30pm). To keep everyone going, there will be two beer
tents and numerous food outlets offering food from all over the world.
The Strawberry Fair is organised ‘by the people of Cambridge, for the people
of Cambridge’. As you can imagine, arranging an event that is attended by
thirty thousand people (one in three people of Cambridge!) takes quite a bit
of organising and running: from the preparations beforehand, through the day
itself, to clearing up afterwards.
Arrangements for this year’s Strawberry Fair started way back in November, and
while we have got a long way down the
road, there is still a lot to do. If you would like to get involved in any way
at all - however great or small the contribution - then please contact me.
Your reward: food! And the satisfaction of knowing that you were involved in
putting on what is one of the best, and last, free events in the country.
And all that can be yours for just two hours of your time!
Kam Sanghera
Chairperson
Strawberry Fair Committee
[archive index] Charges for care in Cambridgeshire rocket - (31/5/96)
The County Council has increased charges for essential work by as
much as 400 per cent. The increased charges were made this month
apparently in response to the Government's 'refusal' to fund services
properly through the Standard Spending Assessment.
The Council's director of Social Services is reported to have said,
'The Government would not acknowledge that Cambridgeshire was entitled
to the Special Area Cost Adjustment, which has been awarded annually to
surrounding counties'.
More than 300 people have complained to the council already
- based on an article in the Cambridge Evening News of 29/5/96.
[archive index] Pipex part of another merger - (27/5/96)
The largest Internet Provider for business in Britain, darling of the Cambridge Evening News, local benefactor and recent acquisition of American company UUNET Technologies, Unipalm Pipex, is to become a part of an even fatter corporate monster. UUNET Technologies has agreed to a merger with the Microsoft backed MSF Communications Company.
Last week as the company changed its name to UUNET Pipex, their head of European operations, Peter Dawe, bowed out, sold his shares in UUNET - vowing to serve the greater good of the Internet community as part of the Internet Service Providers Association.
- interpretation of articles in the Cambridge Evening News of 3/5/96 and 21/5/96.
- editor's note: The letter I wrote to the Cambridge Evening News (published in
last Friday's edition) contained a part I was particularly keen for them to print.
In that part I
suggested that competition amongst Internet Service Providers was set to keep prices low and
levels of service high. This wasn't printed. I'm not suggesting there was any
ulterior motive for them to have done this. I'm just taking this
opportunity to mention it in the remote event that someone who
read that letter is also reading this.
- Ben Aldhouse.
[archive index] County council must keep to Government budget - (22/5/96)
On Monday the County Council heard that it would not be able to spend the £5.8m it said was needed beyond the spending limit imposed on it by the Government. The average council tax bill will be nearly £21 less than if the spending had been allowed. However it thought that 100 more teaching jobs will be lost in the county during the year - on top of the 117 lost last year.
- based on a story in the Cambridge Evening News of 21/5/96.
- see Government to decide whether Cambs. can spend £5.8m extra on schools and social services - (14/5/96)
[archive index] Cambridge graduates held in Irian Jaya - home at last - (19/5/96)
Anna McIvor, Annette van der Kolk, Bill Oates and Daniel Start were reunited with their families when they arrived at Heathrow Airport today. They were taken hostage by 'stone age' rebels in the Irian Jaya province of Indonesia last January as part of the Free Papua Movement's campaign to bring attention to the encroachment of Indonesian and multi-national exploitation of the land they see as theirs.
The Indonesian Army took on the rebels last Wednesday in order to free the captives. Two Indonesian hostages were killed during the operation.
- see Red Cross abandons rescue of Irian Jaya hostages - (10/5/96)
[archive index] Government to decide whether Cambs. can spend £5.8M extra on schools and social services - (14/5/96)
The county council will have to wait until the end of the month to find out if it will be allowed to spend £5.8 million on schools and social services beyond the limit imposed by the Government.
The council is concerned that without this money, teaching jobs will be at risk and the level of care for elderly people will be affected.
- based on an article in the Soham Advertiser of 9/5/96.
- see Spending - County v. Government - (19/2/96)
[archive index] Red Cross abandons rescue of Irian Jaya hostages - (10/5/96)
The Red Cross has abandoned efforts to rescue 11 hostages including four Cambridge graduates being held by rebels in the Irian Jaya province of Indonesia. The rebels said they would make no concessions until they attain independence from Indonesia.
- based on an article in Ceefax 9/5/96.
See - Red Cross talk with Irian Jaya hostages - (4/3/96)
[archive index] Mildenhall staff help with Liberia evacuation - (9/5/96)
More than 100 service personnel from Mildenhall Airbase were involved in the evacuation of Westerners from Liberia after intense fighting broke out between rival militias in Monrovia.
USAF KC 135 Stratotanker in-flight refuelling aircraft from Mildenhall flew more than 50 missions to support the evacuation.
- based on articles in the Soham Advertiser of 25/4/96 and the Cambridge Evening News of 6/5/95.
[archive index] Cambridge local election results - (5/5/96)
Last thursday's local election in Cambridge left the Conservatives with just one seat on the city council. The full results are listed in this file.
[archive index] Cambridge city radio license - (30/4/96)
Date sent: Tue, 30 Apr 96 20:34:16 0000
From: John Lawton gv27@dial.pipex.com
To: ecoln_editor
Readers of ECOLN might like an update on the new
Cambridge City radio licence. At the closing date of
23rd April, applications have been lodged by CCR, (who
have a web site at http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/ccr/
) HAWK fm, KING fm and AMBER fm. Readers can see copies
of the applications in the Central Reference Library.
CCR is hosting open meetings in the CB1 cafe in Mill
Road, where their application will be available, and CCR
personnel will be available to talk to. These meetings
are being held on Wednesdays 6-8pm and Sundays 3-5pm,
starting this week. CCR will be publishing a summary of
their plans on their web site soon. The Radio Authority,
which regulates commercial radio in the UK, will decide
between the various applicants. They would like letters
with views on the different applicants, and their plans,
and also their own requirements and wishes for the new
City station. They want to hear by 24th June at the
latest. Their address is on the CCR web site.
John
Lawton, for CCR.
[archive index] Ambulance service fears - (30/4/96)
This week's 'Soham Advertiser' reports fears amongst Ely Ambulance workers that there will soon only be one ambulance on call in the Ely area during the night.
At the moment there are two ambulances on call in the area. They were both based in Ely but one of them was moved to Newmarket a few months back. Both ambulances are also on call to March and Cambridge. It has been claimed that the response times of these ambulances have been reduced because of their presence at relatively far flung places. An ambulance worker in the article said that extra staff in Cambridge would solve the problem but that it is easier for the 'powers that be' to rely on cover from Ely.
The East Anglian Ambulance Trust intend to increase the number of vehicles available during the day by changing rotas. The operations director of the trust would not comment on the affect this would have on the night time ambulance cover in the Ely area. He said that ambulance workers were speculating on 'rumour and innuendo'.
- based on an article in the Soham Advertiser of 25/4/96
[archive index] Soham train hero remembered - (30/4/96)
A man who was nearly killed while doing his part in a successful attempt at preventing a major catastrophe in Soham during World War II has at last been commerated by the creation of a special garden at his home town of Ipswich.
Clarke was thrown tens of feet along the rail track at Soham when a burning wagon full of bombs blew up. The blast gave him wounds from which he never recovered - yet he managed to get up and walk nearly three miles along the track back to Barway to make sure other trains stopped well away from the scene.
- extract from 'But for Such Men as These...' - an account of the train explosion by Tony Day.
[archive index] Health authority to reduce open meetings - (28/4/96)
Cambridge and Huntingdon Health Authority has reduced the number of meetings it has which are open to the public from six to four a year.
A spokesman for the authority said that the way the organisation was structured meant that fewer meetings were necessary. A spokesman for the NHS union, UNISON said that the 'NHS no longer belongs to the tax payer - it belongs increasingly to a number of unelected bureaucrats accountable to virtually nobody'.
- based on an article in the Cambridge Evening News of 27/4/96
[archive index] Ely councillor says that the Government will increase homelessness - (21/4/96)
During a visit to a hostel run by a housing association hostel for the homeless, Cllr. Higginson of the Liberal Democrats commented on the Housing Bill which was read in the House of Commons last Friday.
He said, "The need of most homeless people is a permanent solution to their problem which they have been unable to arrange for themselves."
"The shortage of affordable housing is the housing crisis in Britain but the Bill does nothing to help this".
"It attempts to address a predominantly urban problem with blanket solutions which removes the ability of the council to give a local approach more suited to the differing needs of a rural area."
"In this district, the private rented sector is the biggest cause of homelessness, so it is crazy for the Government to be giving the private sector the job of reducing homelessness".
- based on an article in the Cambridge Evening News 19/4/96.
- The Housing Bill can be read at this web site.
[archive index] Vigil held at Lakenheath on anniversary of the bombing of Libya - (18/4/96)
Around 20 people took part in a vigil at the United States Air Force base at Lakenheath on the 10th anniversary of the day aircraft
were launched from the base to attack Libya. Candles were lit in memory of the Libyans killed.
- based on an article in the Cambridge Evening News of 16/4/96
[archive index] New East Cambs. cycle routes - (15/4/96)
Cambridgeshire County Council have placed routes from Little Downham to Ely and from Queen Adelaide to Ely at the top of a list of 26 cycle route proposals for which £600,000 has been set aside.
The Soham Advertiser says, 'The money will come from Government grants and from district councils working with the county council. Work is expected to start soon.
- based on an article in the Soham Advertiser of 11/4/96.
[archive index] Council election candidates - (12/4/96)
Council elections will be held in Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire on May 2nd. The candidates for Cambridge are listed here and for South Cambridgeshire here.
The results of last year's local elections can be found here.
[archive index] Private school will turn allotments into playground - (9/4/96)
The King's School, Ely has won its battle for planning permission to convert its property at The Barton Fields allotments into a recreation area for its junior pupils.
Members of East Cambridgeshire District Council were said to be sympathetic towards the allotment holders but could not find any planning reasons to refuse the school's application.
More than 1000 people showed their support for the 34 plot holders by signing a petition in their favour. 44 people wrote to the council asking them to disallow the plans.
In the Cambridge Evening News Cllr. Dil Owen is quoted as having said, 'As a planning authority we are in the invidious position that the decision we must make today will reflect very badly on us.'
'The people with the upper hand are the King's School and the whole application is very unreasonable, especially considering the considerable amount of sports facilities they already have.'
- based on article in the Cambridge Evening News of 4/4/96.
- see also Plans to turn allotments into playing fields for private school - Ely - (9/2/96)
[archive index] Cambridge gain 4th consecutive boat race victory - (6/4/96)
This afternoon Cambridge beat Oxford in the annual boat race on the river Thames by two and three quarter lengths and by seven seconds. Their time was16 mins 58 secs.
[archive index] Is enough being done for the region's ME sufferers? - (6/4/96)
Last week a story emerged of how an Isleham woman was preparing to sell her house in order to send her daughter to be treated for chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) at the private Breakspear Hospital in Hemel Hempstead.
A spokesperson for Breakspear Hospital said 'About half our patients come from the NHS...We get patients from as far away as Scotland.'
The chief of public health from the Cambridge and Huntingdon Health Authority, Dr. Ron Zimmern, confirmed that there was no specialist ME service locally.
He said, 'Our general physicians deal with it, so we don't pay for people to go elsewhere.'
'If they ask to go to other places, we say no unless there is good clinical evidence that these places are any better than the service provided by our general physicians. With ME there is no good clinical evidence that this is so.'
- based on an article in the Cambridge Evening News of 30/3/96
[archive index] Man declared innocent returns to Britain after Thai prison ordeal - (3/4/96)
Former Anglia Polytechnic student Robert Lock arrived in Britain yesterday after having spent three years in a Thai jail awaiting trial on a drugs smuggling charge.
The case against Robert Lock stemmed from an allegation made by his travelling companion, Sandra Gregory, that he offered to pay her $1000 dollars to smuggle heroin on a flight out of Bangkok.
When the couple were stopped by police at Bangkok International Airport three years ago, 102 grammes of heroin were found on Sandra Gregory but no drugs were found on Robert Lock. Gregory never denied the charge of smuggling. She said she was ill and needed the money to return to Britain. Gregory pleaded guilty at her trial and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
- based on an article in the Cambridge Evening News of 2/4/96
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