Preview of Latest Dragon

Award winning magazine

In 2000 the Dragon was thrilled to win two awards in competitions for village magazines. We were one of only eight runners-up to the winner in the Country Living competition which attracted 250 entries from across the country. On a more local level we gained a highly-commended certificate in the contest run by the Rural Community Council of Essex.

What are we trying to do?

The Dragon aims to give all village organisations and individuals a channel of communication. Many clubs and other organisations contribute regular reports and the letter page allows readers to express their views to a village-wide audience. The Dragon carries church news and the monthly letter from the vicar as well as the church calendar and village diary of forthcoming events. The Parish Council contribute a summary of their meetings and details of planning applications. The village school publish their news and examples of their pupil’s work. Each August we publish a village directory of useful names and telephone numbers.

The Dragon also aims to be a readable and interesting village journal. In the past year we have run series of articles on local footpath walks, village history, interviews with local residents and places of interest to visit. There are occasional contributions from readers on, for example, their holiday experiences. A new series in 2001 looks at the nuts and bolts of researching family history.

The Committee

The Dragon is run by a committee of villagers.  Angela Tucker is responsible for finance and Helen Pimblett and Eric Dent organise the advertising.  Jerry Platt looks after distribution and William Coleby contributes the church news.  The  joint editors are Liz Griffith-Jones, Ros Heywood and Wendy Hogg.

Want to contact us?

The best way to contact the Dragon is by email to henhamdragon@hotmail.com and one of the three editors will answer you. Are you an ex-Henhamite living somewhere far across the world or even elsewhere in this country? Why not get in touch and tell us about your new life? Would you like to receive copies of the Dragon? If you e-mail Liz we will provide you with a quote.

I wonder whether my colleague, Wendy, realised when she raised the policy of Henham Church not to appoint a woman vicar, how much discussion it would lead to. Consequently, this issue boasts an extra large letters section. We welcome the thoughts of a new comer to the village who has incorporated help from her sister, a trainee vicar and that gives us further food for thought. The editor suggests that maybe the subject should be closed until the new vicar is in situ as we understand that is to happen before too long.

There are mentions of the forthcoming Consultation meetings for the proposed new housing and the need to ensure the missive from the Council was not inadvertently thrown away as Junk mail as a response is shortly needed.

Cookery corner provides an opportunity to experiment with seasonal food and produce some hearty soup. Incidentally, the apple pudding proved a great success when I ventured to try it out.

Sheena tempts us to try out the Cock Quiz evenings with a taster of local Questions. Can you answer them?

The Dragons Den interview with nurse from Great Ormond Street makes useful and stimulating reading for anyone looking for a career opportunity. Maybe this could be the first article of many exploring different jobs and careers.

Carol tells us how much the Book Sale raised for OSCA, which was an amazing result and thanks are expressed to Viv and Josie for their great efforts.

Snow drops are in the news in the gardening page and there are ideas for things to do as soon as the weather becomes warm enough for it! Continuing the inclement weather theme, John keeps us up to date with the latest local tennis matches which took place in spite of the weather, while reminding us that recent successes on the world circuit from British players might give us something to which to aspire. His little anecdotes encourage even the most disheartened of players.

 The Shop news gives special thanks to Pat, (who has been a great book-keeper since the community shop opened) and to Lynn and Rob for their help with the shop. We wish Lynn and Rob every success with their new venture.

It is good to see how busy the Penguin class have been and they have obviously enjoyed learning about Sikhism.

Just a timely reminder please that articles should be submitted by the 12^th of the month to ensure publication in the following month’s Dragon.

Ros Heywood