Recycle crisp packets at the Queen's Hall thanks to Greener Cuckfield

In late 2019, a few like-minded people in the village decided to get together to provide a place for local ‘green’ initiatives to unite under one umbrella to help Cuckfield become a more sustainable community. Now nearly 20 people strong and growing, Greener Cuckfield has just launched its first programme: a scheme to give more recycling options to the village. The group conducted a poll a few months ago to find out what materials people most wanted to recycle and the top vote was for: crisp packets! Over 6 billion packets of crisps are consumed in the U.K. each year, most of which ends up in landfill sites or blowing in the wind.

Working in co-operation with Terracycle, a global leader in recycling hard-to-recycle materials, the first bins have been placed in the Queen’s Hall (for public use, in the entrance hall next to the food bank bins) and another in the Village Hall entrance hall (for hirers’ use only). People can collect up their crisp packets and drop them in whether on their daily dog walk, on their school run, or while making use of the post office counter.

Over the next couple of months, more bins will be rolled out in some of our pubs and other public places. Not only will the bins help in cutting waste and keeping our streets tidy, but they will also raise bit by bit funds for us to do more to make Cuckfield a more sustainable place.

The group would love to hear from anyone who would like to help make Cuckfield a more sustainable, environmentally friendly place to live and should contact Vicky Koch at vicky@iamkoch.com.

White Hart 1867: No rush as ham thieves have midnight feast

www.cuckfieldconnections.org.uk

On Tuesday night some thieves broke into the White Hart Inn (Mrs Stubberfield’s) by forcing open the shutter, a hinged one, of the bar window, into which room they got and seem to have forced open the money till with a pair of sugar nippers lying on the counter. They took about £2 in coin, nearly all pence. They also opened and disturbed the contents of another drawer and a workbox, took down a bottle of bitters and helped themselves, leaving a bottle and cork on the table.

They also displaced the cigar boxes, emptying one nearly half full of its contents and carrying away a bottle of peppermint. By aid of a key, they got into the cellar, from whence they took about four or five lbs of cooked bacon; they seem to have eaten a small quantity of it, from the appearance of a small bone, freshly gnawed; they left behind part of a loaf of bread and a bottle of cordial. Letting themselves out by the back door they threw away part of a rush candle in the yard and decamped. The thieves are still at large.
Surrey Gazette - Tuesday 12 March 1867

Computers for kids help thousands of families across Sussex

By Deirdre Huston

Nearby Holy Trinity Cuckfield School takes a delivery of IT equipment

Recently, a news item grabbed Colin Hill’s attention. Shocked to learn there are currently 1.8 million children in the UK who do not have a device on which to learn from home, he found two old devices, which had been sitting unused in his home, and wiped them. “Then I popped a message onto Facebook,” says Colin, “saying any local kids in need of a device were welcome to my old machines, and it all sprung from there.”

The response was incredible. Colin had over 100 responses from local people in need of devices, but, thankfully, there were also plenty of people saying they also had devices available. “It was the start of something very positive,” recalls Colin.

The first two machines went to a local family, where one of the four children has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Colin prioritises the most vulnerable families, and he believes that if pupils can stay at home and study effectively, it will help slow the spread of the virus. He is driven by a desire to improve equality.

About two days after his first post, Pixel Computing in Burgess Hill offered to wipe and clean the devices. And Tubbs Computer Supplies now help with storage. “We’ve built a deployment server and we’ve put it in there too,” explains Colin, “so that we can prepare multiple machines at once. We are interested in machines that support home learning - Apple 4 onwards (4th generation iPads or later), or ideally Windows 7 onwards, as they can then be upgraded to Windows 10 easily and run more of the programmes used by schools.”

In a few short weeks, Colin and his team of volunteers have already helped between 400 and 450 families, but they now have a waiting list of over a thousand families in Sussex. Holy Trinity School in Cuckfield has taken delivery of several devices recently. As well as being referred through schools and the church, families in need sometimes approach the organisation directly through Facebook.

Computers for Kids is in the process of becoming a charity and Colin is grateful that several people have stepped forward to be trustees. However, in the meantime, they can’t apply for grants. Computers for Kids are looking at premises to store and distribute more machines and have started a GoFundMe page

to help make this possible. “We’ve recently partnered with BT too,” explains Colin. “It’s one thing to give the families the devices, but they also need to be connected to the internet and BT have provided vouchers towards free bandwidth.”

Thankfully, about 25 volunteers have come forward, including Cuckfield residents Vicky, Debbie and Anne. “We still need more volunteers,” says Colin, “especially people who understand computers enough to be able to delete all data from the devices using a three-pass wipe.”

If you know a child in need of a device, have a device which could be wiped and reconditioned, or would like to volunteer your skills, see www.computersforkids.org.uk