Saturday, 27th April, 7pm @ Cardinal Newman Hall (Old Sorting Office)

Teams of four – £3 per person. Bring your own drinks and snacks. Raffle!

Book early to avoid disappointment, limited places. Contact Charlotte Clark – tel: 07715 388916; e-mail: frogclock@hotmail.com.

Saturday, 1st June, 7pm @ Reydon Village Hall

£10 per person, including cheeseboard and lucky-entrant draw. Teams of up to six. Bring your own drink. Raffle!

Book your tickets with Charlotte at Southwold Library – tel: 07715388916; e-mail: frogclock@hotmail.com.

All funds towards the RVH Golden Anniversary Appeal Fund to repair, renovate and refit the Hall.

We are delighted to announce that Citizens Advice East Suffolk will provide a monthly drop-in service in Kessingland on the first Monday of every month from 10am–12 noon from 3rd June 2024, open every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.   

Since the formation of Citizens Advice East Suffolk, our services have been reviewed to ensure they meet the needs of the people in our communities. Establishing a presence in Kessingland will extend our reach in the Lowestoft area.

Chiara Saunders, Chief Officer, Citizens Advice East Suffolk, commented: “With our offices spread from Lowestoft in the north to Felixstowe in the south, we identified Kessingland as an area we have not been present in. Making sure we are accessible to as many East Suffolk residents as possible is an important part of our work. The start of the Kessingland service coincides with the opening of a new office in Woodbridge.”

Starts:  With a trial session on Monday 8th April 2024, due to Easter.

Time:  Will continue after that on the first Monday of the month from 10am–2pm.

Venue:  Marram Green, Kessingland, Near Lowestoft NR33 7AH.

Citizens Advice East Suffolk is an independent Charity and is part of the Citizens Advice national network. We are responsible for raising our own funds to operate in the East Suffolk area. If you are able to donate to support our running costs, please do contact us via info@caes.org.uk or Donate via JustGiving from our website – www.caes.org.uk.

The latest, Spring edition of The Reydon Robin, the free quarterly magazine for our local community, is hot off the press today, Maundy Thursday, 28th March. Over the next few days, our team of dedicated volunteers will brave the weather to ensure copies make their way to all Reydon households. It is also available to read online here.

The next, Summer edition of The Robin will be out on Thursday, 20th June 2024, with a copy deadline of Friday, 7th June. Please get in contact at reydonrobin@gmail.com if you would like to contribute to this.

Stop Press

The 2024 Reydon Scarecrow Trail will be starting at 10 am on 14th and 15th September 2024, not 11 am as stated. Entry forms and programmes will also be available from Little Gems as well as Bridgefoot Stores, Boyden Stores and Southwold Library.

For our March quiz, we welcomed Charlotte Clark of Southwold Library as our guest quizmaster.

We were entertained by Charlotte’s light-hearted and enjoyable quiz, and particularly enjoyed learning some new facts about pineapples!

Scores were once again very close this month: in third place were ‘What, No Broadside?’ with 132 points; in second place ‘What the Ecc ‘ with 134 points; and winners once again this month, ‘Three’s Company’ on 136 points.

Together with proceeds from the raffle, the evening raised £282. This was donated to FoSL (Friends of Southwold Library) and presented to Charlotte there and then. The fabulous work she and the rest of the Library team do is hugely appreciated by the local community, so we are delighted to help support them.

An e-mail of thanks for our February donation was received from the team at the VHC, and this was shared with the quizzers.

Many thanks to all who support our Community Quiz, it is hugely appreciated.

The next quiz will be held on Friday, 19th April. 

The May quiz is cancelled, so the April one will be the last one until the autumn. There is sometimes space for another team, so do contact me if you are interested in joining us at ahumphry@talktalk.net.

The Lowestoft Kittiwake Project

The March meeting of the Blyth Valley and Southwold Suffolk Wildlife group welcomed Rupert Masefield from the Suffolk Wildlife Trust to tell us about the local Kittiwake Project. Many people will be aware of the great numbers of kittiwakes nesting in Lowestoft, and Rupert discussed both the bonus of a nature success story, and the nuisance that this abundance of birdlife has brought with it.

Kittiwakes are of the gull family, but they are smaller, and spend their winters in the harsh northwest Atlantic waters. They come ashore in spring to nest, usually on tiny cliff ledges, and raise their two chicks. They feed exclusively on fish and sand eels, and each parent takes it in turn to fly out to sea for food, covering huge distances over three to four days. Kittiwakes are in serious decline globally, but numbers are increasing in Suffolk, and Lowestoft has become a centre of breeding. No-one really knows why, but kittiwakes first started to move into the town in the 1950s, and their numbers have continued to increase.

The smell of large amounts of guano and the noise of so many birds has caused a nuisance to town dwellers, and over the years many measures have been tried to persuade kittiwakes to leave public buildings and move to artificial sites. However, some measures, such as netting, were potentially harmful to the birds. As a result, the Suffolk Wildlife Trust has brought together local interest groups to form the Lowestoft Kittiwake Partnership, aiming to find safe solutions. There is to be a Kittiwake Officer, who will work with local people and businesses to keep kittiwakes safe and reduce the problems with nesting on buildings. The offshore ‘kittiwake hotels’ you may have seen were constructed by a windfarm company as mitigation measures for sea birds. Decoy kittiwakes are being used to encourage nesting activity, and it is hoped that with time, these will be inhabited by these attractive but vulnerable birds.

Our next meeting is on Thursday, 11th April, 7.30pm, at the Southwold Arts Centre IP18 6JP. There will be a brief AGM, followed by a film, ‘Secret Rivers – The Waveney, Part Two’, featuring Paul Heiney. There will be refreshments. Admission free.

Penny Mansfield

Contact us at swtblythvalley@gmail.com.