Work has been underway on the Market Place to install the long-awaited community notice board, thanks to Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council. Hester has raised the need for this at the Annual Parish Meeting for several years, so its arrival will be especially welcome. This new board should help keep residents and visitors better informed about the happenings in town.
For now, the notice board remains wrapped in foam and black plastic and fenced off — looking like a giant Christmas present waiting to be unwrapped.
Also on the Market Place, the Christmas tree was being decorated.
If only there were some sort of digital virtual environment where notices could be posted for free…….
Fine for those of us (me included) who are happy to get all their information online, but there are still many who aren’t. And even the online forums are full of people saying “I didn’t see any publicity for that….”.We need to keep as many communication routes open as possible.
There are issues with online notifications though, if you rely on Facebook groups and pages then there’s no guarantee the algorithm will show you posts for upcoming local events, quite often it turns up on your feed after the event has passed – which is annoying. There’s also no single place online which lists everything that is going on locally, it’s all scattered about in different places, and it makes it difficult to keep an eye out for things. This blog can be quite handy.
When there were free newspapers (Oxford Star?) and printed papers that most people received through the letter box, people could read the What’s On / events sections in there, and know at a glance what was happening in the next week, and that was quite reliable.
Quite often I’m informed about a town event that’s happening when I see a banner advertising it, eg down Stratton Way, and not from online advertising.
So a notice board is a nice thing, particularly in a place where lots of people can see it.
Less room for tables for R&R! Would rather have that!
Each cafe will continue to have the same number of tables and chairs as previously.
Some bike racks would be good too (I know there are some in a couple of places but they’re not really overlooked enough for there not to be too big a risk of a swift electric angle grinder)
Of course what we really want is a portal!
https://www.ipswich.gov.uk/ipswich-newsroom/2025/first-ever-uk-portal-launches-ipswich-joining-global-network
https://www.portals.org/
https://youtu.be/6C4Bfo9p0UI?si=gDprs2_9TuwWFTTb
I reckon the square would be a perfect place for one!