To support us, and for info go to http://uk.movember.com/ (google UK Movember), simply click donate, then select team, and type “flaming tashes”.

You can logon during the month, as we post our tashtastic updates!. There are also collection boxes located at supermarkets, petrol stations, and our employers around the town.

The fire fighters see this as a fun and unusual way to support these charities. As it is proven that men are less likely to seek medical advice, or visit their doctor than women..

Organiser, firefighter Andy Gunn says “with a man dying from prostate cancer every hour in the UK, its time for men to use movember, to think about their health”

Dear Sir,
The letter from Mr Young in the last edition of the Flyer (August-September 2011) raised an interesting question about who is responsible for the River Gipping where it runs through Stowmarket. Perhaps it is Suffolk County Council, who are charged with keeping public footpaths clear for all to walk along; perhaps it is the Environment Agency who have a duty to make sure the river flows freely and to prevent pollution of its waters; for a few months more bits around the new bridge may still be the responsibility of the contractor who has just completed its construction; and maybe it is down to whoever owns the land through which it flows (although because of the river’s history of canalisation, takeover by railway companies, nationalisation of railways, abandonment of navigation rights and railway privatisation it is impossible to find anybody who will admit to owning the riversides). But perhaps actually every one of us has their own little bit of responsibility for it.
Certainly, in the Pickerel Project we have decided that we should do our best to look after it, and to look for help and accept it from wherever we can. The front cover of the same edition of The Flyer had a lovely picture of our newly completed river bank scheme between the Pickerel and Station Road bridges. It has taken the Pickerel Project several years and a lot of voluntary effort to get this scheme completed and we have won help from many willing people, not least the developers of the Pickerel Court apartments who undertook a huge part of the physical work.
Another important part of our work is our monthly clean-up days where we have volunteers of all ages come along to pick up litter, carry out clearance work, and generally demonstrate that we care about the state of the river and mean to do something about it. Sometimes we concentrate on special jobs – last month we worked on taking rubble, bricks and stones out of the river, and the month before we were pulling out the Himalayan Balsam which has been threatening to overwhelm native wild plants. We are very conscious that the river is a great haven for wildlife – and we don’t intervene too much with stinging nettles because they are so very valuable in the ecosystem.
You will find us working along the river on the morning of the first Sunday of every month – we meet at 10am in the Prentice Road Car Park. The more people who come along the more we can do, and the better the river will look as a result. We will be only too happy to welcome Mr Young and anybody else who wants to lend a hand when we meet up again next month.
Jon Pattle
for The Pickerel Project

September
Sep TBA
Restitution, Thunder Soul, Saving Grace B. Jones
Sep 2
Apollo 18, Shark Night 3D, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, Saving Private Perez, Seven Days In Utopia, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, Insight, Love Crime
Sep 9
Warrior, Contagion, Creature, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, Shaolin, Where Soldiers Come From, The Afterlight, Laugh At My Pain, The Whale Burke and Hare, Tanner Hall, Main Street, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan
Sep 14
Granito: How To Nail A Dictator
Sep 16
Straw Dogs, I Don’t Know How She Does It, Drive, Stay Cool, Restless, The Weird World of Blowfly, Connected, My Afternoons With Marguerite, Jane’s Journey, Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace, Hermano
Sep 20
Pearl Jam Twenty
Sep 21
Shit Year