Oh Dear! Mayor to switch on Christmas Lights

Burgess Hill's Mayor, Christopher Thomas-Atkin (the one we didn't get to choose) clearly thinks alot of himself, for on December 1st at 6pm its been decided that he is the best person to be switching on the Burgess Hill Christmas lights in order to draw local residents into the town centre.

Christopher Thomas-Atkin's role these days is to promote the town, whereas the juicy work is handled by Andrew Barrett-Miles as the council leader.

Can someone please explain how the Mayor switching on the lights is a good way to draw people into town for this festive event? Burgess Hill is not a tiny little town anymore. Such an event needs some sort of a celebrity to be switching on the Christmas lights.

How difficult is it to pick up the phone or to send an email to potential candidates? At the very least some squad players from Brighton and Hove Albion with a few of the Gully's Girls could have been lined up.

Kings Lynne with a population only around 25% bigger than Burgess Hill are having both Letitia Dean AND the X Factor's Johnny Robinson turning on their lights. We get the Mayor.

So, its a choice between the Simpsons on Channel 4 at 6pm on Thursday 1st December or to go into town to watch the Mayor turn on some lights.

Burgess Hill Fairtrade Anthem Released

Oh my!

Exciting times here at the Burgess Hill Uncovered offices as an email came through with a link to the Burgess Hill Fairtrade Festival Website. On the loading of the page, music pumped out of computer's 5.1 surround sound system. At first I thought I'd been given a link to a church website, but no, it turned out to be the Fairtrade song that the whole community will be getting together to sing on Saturday 12th March at 5:30pm at the Market Place Shopping Centre.

Apparently the song was a joint effort by school pupils from across Burgess Hill. Surprising really as it doesn't sound anything like the modern music that most children listen to these days if the hit parade is anything to go by.

Naturally I played the song to the BHU office cleaner, and I can tell you that she had a huge smile a mile wide on her face.

The lyrics to the song are included on the webpage so that you can sing along and learn them over the next 7 weeks. I shall personally ensure that all the staff here at BHU memorise the song word perfect in time for the big performance.

This is being billed as 'Burgess Hill does the Choir' So I assume that residents can all be expecting personal visits from Gareth Malone and then some practice sessions before March 12th?

All together now: We toil hard in the burning sun, and hope our crop will grow........

Link to Burgess Hill Fairtrade Anthem:
http://www.burgesshillfreedomfestival.com/Fairtrade/Burgess_Hill_Does_The_Choir.html

Burgess Hill Christmas Event In False Cancellation Farce

The Citizen newspaper arrived at the Burgess Hill Uncovered offices on Thursday morning.
Imagine my shock and surprise dear reader when I saw some pictures taken in Burgess Hill of some people looking rather festive. In fact, they were taken from the Town's Christmas thingy.

Nothing strange about that you may be thinking...... However. Last Thursday (2nd December) I read on a local website that due to the snow, the Christmas Fair was being cancelled and was going to be rearranged for today (Sat 11th December)

I'm rather annoyed about the very false information that was written, as it robbed me of a good piece of content for the website. Annoyingly I can't remember which website incorrectly reported the event cancellation, I fear that it was the official Town Council Website actually.
Does anyone want to own up?

This blog entry is also for the benefit of Mr G.S. It will save him emailing me to moan that I've once again missed out covering a local event

Long Overdue Event Update Saves Local Website

I hope Mr G.S is happy now. I was sorting through some offline webpages for Burgess Hill Uncovered and discovered that I had an unfinished report on the 2008 Summer Festival Parade. I spent 10 minutes trying to think of some novel comments for the photos and uploaded the page. Hopefully this will mean that Mr G.S gives me another six months grace before he again suggests that BHU ceases to exist.

This blog entry needs padding out, it's a bit too short for my liking. So here's a treat for you. It's a photo I randomly took in St Johns Park some years ago. It features a woman that likes to accessorise with the colour yellow.


If you'd like to appear on the blog, all you have to do is walk through St Johns Park with some striking fashion choices. Our camera hidden in the statue of stability will do the rest.

What's a Civic Dinner? And Why?

A Civic Dinner? For VIP's???? During the Burgess Hill Bonfire Night???
What a load of nonsense.

This is Burgess Hill, not Haywards Heath, we are not a stuck up town. Why would our wonderful Town council chairman Christopher Thomas-Atkin choose to spend his own money on a 'Civic' dinner? If these guests weren't of the calibur of Noel Edmonds, Peter Andre and Willie Thorne, then such a dinner is a waste. Who was the chairman really trying to impress? Last time I checked, Burgess Hill isn't bidding for a major sporting event.

Some may be baffled by this particular blog entry, but I am playing catch-up since I escaped the country. I almost choked on my lemon curd and cream covered scone when I read about the cute little dinner hosted by the town council chairman.

One woman that managed to get her usual column inches was Publicity Pru (Moore). Of the Bonfire Night she said "It was a terrific spectacle and our visitors were very impressed at the standard and visual impact of the event. The chairman was very pleased to have such high-profile visitors witness what great things Burgess Hill can accomplish"

These VIP's must have been Katie Price and Jodie Marsh if Pru was speaking so highly of them. Perhaps they gave her tips on how to get more media attention.

Haywards Heath put Burgess Hill to shame.

Readers, I may just have to move away to Haywards Heath. They do things better there, no really, they do.

On Saturday, it's their town day. Taking place in Victoria Park from 12 noon they have a HUGE amount going on. For a full list of whats on offer, you can take a look at the timetable on that rubbish copycat Haywards Heath Uncovered website

The highlights include Dancing, live music, sports demonstrations, martial arts, miniature railway, fairground rides, fireworks AND the Eco Fair, poached from Burgess Hill.

I am DELIGHTED that Haywards Heath are putting on such a heavyweight event, it may lead to the Burgess Hill Town council taking back control of our local event, the Summer and Christmas Town days that we have are old and STALE, it's been rinse and repeat for the past SIX YEARS.

The event needs to come back to St Johns Park. Sod all this 'ooooo we can't do it there because someone might get hit by a cricket ball' It was never a problem in the past. It was moved in part as greedy out of town traders on the festival committee wanted it in Church Walk in order to try to get more business to their crappy cafe that closed down as it was crap. It was moved as the new people running the festival committee wanted to make a change so they could say 'We did that'

Sometimes I get sad when I realise that I live in Burgess Hill. Today is one of those days that I am sad.

Ducks are an endangered species

Confusion ahead this Saturday.

Taking place from 12pm-4pm is the 5th Burgess Hill Scout Group's annual Duck Fair at Janes Lane.

However, also taking place from 12pm-4pm is the West End Meadows Fun Day, an event organised by the town council. (information here)

This has to be a big blow for the Scouts. The Duck Fair is a fundraiser for the group, and their efforts may be compromised by the town council putting on a big event on the same day, at exactly the same time.

Was there any communication between the two groups? With big family events being rare in Burgess Hill, it's criminal that there are two taking place at the same time.

Why has this happened?

Gimmie 5 Olympic Open Day 2010

Gimmie 5 Olympic Open Day 2010? More like GIMMICK 5!

Readers, Mid Sussex District Council are at it again, only this time, Freedom Leisure, the company that run the sports centres in the district have also put their name to this pathetic idea.

I learnt of this event from the Summer editon of the Mid Sussex Matters magazine that dropped through the BHU office letterbox this week.

There are 5 Olympic rings, and it just so happens that there are three sports centres and two civic halls in Mid Sussex, that's a total of 5! To keep the 5 theme going, you can go to one of the sports centres and take part in 5 events, for 5 minutes.

It gets even worse with the pushing of the five gimmick. The activities include taking 5 shots at a basketball hoop, completing a 5 shot rally in badminton, perform 5 seat drops on a trampoline and a 5 minute drama presentation.

This event is supposed to encourage people to participate in sport. However, who is really going to bother to leave the house on the weekend in the Summer to partake in just 5 minutes of activity?

One of the photos to go with the article was of a man playing golf, clearly not taken at Beech Hurst gardens. One of MSDC's great ideas for increasing participation in sport was to CLOSE the Pitch and Putt without consulting the public.

If you're mad enough to take part in this gimmick-fest, then you can find the event taking place on Saturday 24th July for Burgess Hill and East Grinstead, with Sunday 25th July the chance for the people of Haywards Heath to make their way to the Olympos sports centre to waste 5 minutes of their lives.

Unsurprisingly, the FREE Burgess Hill Street 20 cricket event that's running throughout the Summer (and lasts much longer than 5 minutes) was NOT advertised in the magazine.

Clueless, absolutely clueless.

Burgess Hill Street 20 Cricket

A new cricketing concept has come to Burgess Hill.
Every Wednesday this Summer you can go along to Cyprus Road car park between 4pm-9pm and take part in 'Street 20' cricket. Teams consist of 6-8 players with each side batting for just 20 balls. It's a game for all ages and is a FREE event, which is very surprising considering that Mid Sussex District Council are connected with it.
For more detailed information and to see some photos of the game in action, read our Street 20 report on Burgess Hill Uncovered.

We've also put together this short promotional video as we think it's an event that the community should really get involved in.

Pensioners Taught How To Find Porn On The Internet!

Yes, that's right, as this blog post title reads, pensioners will be taught how to find porn on the internet.

According to the freebie paper 'The Citizen' a series of free 'Silver Surfer' events will be held at the public libraries in Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill.

The article includes the following:

"The taster sessions will include a tour of the most popular parts of the Internet, and give participants the chance to practice and ask questions"

The Burgess Hill sessions are taking place this Friday between 9:30 - 4pm. Each session will last 55 minutes.

I'm very tempted to pop down there to see what genre of adult sites the older generation find appealing.

Festival details revealed, but what year is this?

Last weeks Citizen newspaper carried news about this year's Burgess Hill Summer Festival.
The parade will be themed on the World War Two Battle of Britain. According to the Citizen report, its the 70th anniversary of the event. We can expect all parade walkers and floats to adhere to this theme, although won't it be a little boring if everyone is the same? At least when people were invited to come dressed as characters from books we had a bit of variety.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful to those that fought in the war, they already have their yearly day of remembrance in November, but it's supposed to be a fun event. Additionally, how easy is it going to be for the various community groups to get hold of World War Two paraphernalia?

Once again (just like every year) vintage and classic cars have been invited to take part in the event. I get the feeling that the organisers are fans of old cars and ask them to come along for their own personal satisfaction. Now, I've been to some of these parades and from what I can recall, it's been the same cars every year. zzzzzzzzzz.

Last year the parade started off with a mascot race, this is the race that included the Crystal Palace mascots from South London but chose not to invite Burgess Hill's own Gordon the Gorilla so if you're wondering why Mr Burgess Hill Uncovered is a little down on the event, that's one of the reasons for you.

This blog entry's title included the words 'but what year is this?' I ask this question because of the archaic process that you have to go through if you want to take part in this years festival.

To get hold of an application form, you have to send a stamped addressed envelope to the festival secretary, once you receive this application form, you'll need to fill it out and post it back again. That's a total of three stamps. Have we gone back a decade?

Why don't the festival committee upload the application form to a website? People interested in taking part in the event could simply download the form, print it out, write on it, and post it back. That would save the cost of two stamps and a lot of time. Why can't the Burgess Hill Town Council website host the form? Better still, why doesn't the festival have its own website? It would only cost around £30 a year. It would also mean they can put all the festival details on it. Last year the local press had to keep publishing the phone number of one of the organisers if you wanted to know more information on events taking place during festival week.

We are now in 2010, and if you're not online, then you're not relevant.

Moan over ......... for now.

Burgess Hill Fairtrade Fair

On Saturday, I ventured into town for the Burgess Hill Fairtrade Fair. The event was being held in the Martlets hall.

Now for me, I associate the word 'fairtrade' with cocoa beans, and of course, cocoa beans make chocolate. So at a Fairtrade fair, I was expecting to sample many baked goods, sadly, this was not to be the case. There was one table with some chocolate and wine on it, but no baked good in sight. If I was an exhibitor, I'd have shown what lovely chocolate brownies can be made using Fairtrade ingredients. I'd have showcased my three varieties of cakey, chewy and fudgey brownies. It could have been a real money spinner for someone.

The lack of cakes really was a disappointment, I really didn't care for the jewellery, beads, fabric and other things that only women or effeminate men would like.

When I was in the main hall, there were only two other men looking round, they were old and probably dragged along by their wives. I think the partners of the other women looking around were outside the building, probably looking at the market stall that claims to let you have satellite tv on your computer without a subscription.

I spent a grand total of 4 minutes in the hall before fleeing back to the foyer where tea and coffee were being sold. Also available were a few baked goods!!! These cakes claimed to have been made with Fairtrade ingredients, you had to pay for them though. I really was tempted to purchase a cake, there were some nicely designed boards advertising the coffee morning, but there were no prices listed. What an error. The thing with baked goods is that they are usually either very cheap or very expensive. I didn't want to have to ask the price as I'd have looked really cheap if I had then balked at paying £2 for a lump of cake. I doubt I was the only one to be put off by the lack of pricing.

All was not lost though, I exited the building, walked 5 metres, turned 90 degrees to my right and purchased 2 bags of sweets for £1 from the HUGE market stall that sell an enormous selection of classic sweets.
I chose some toffee bon bons and the bubble gum flavoured fizzy bottles. I doubt whether any Fairtrade ingredients were used to make these sweets, but the consolation was that they were lovely!

Once back at the Burgess Hill Uncovered offices, I asked my cleaner what she associates with Fairtrade, I was surprised that her answer was 'cotton'. All this time I thought it was primarily about chocolate.

Clearly Burgess Hill needs a new festival, one that showcases the baking talents of the local community. We have Burgess Hill in bloom, we have the Burgess Hill Christmas lights competition, so why not the Burgess Hill Bake-Off? It would be an event that so many people could get involved in. Those without gardens would finally feel 'catered' for (pun intended).

Lets make it happen. If needs must, we'll have a charity benefit from it.

Burgess Hill Fairtrade Debate

Tonight at the Martlets Hall, the Fairtrade Debate took place. I didn't go.

BBC newsreader George Alagiah was due to host the event. The panel was made up of such well known political heavyweights: Serena Tierney, Liberal Democrat Candidate for Mid Sussex; Katy Bourne, Area Chair East Sussex Conservative Women's Association; and David Boot Labour candidate for Mid Sussex.

It's a Sunday night, Dancing on Ice is on the telly, and yet the organisers expect people to be flocking to the Martlets Hall to see a bunch of low profile people debating Fairtrade.

Now, how can you have a debate on Fairtrade between three political people? If it were a debate between Mr Cadbury, Mr Nestle, Mr Mars and those three minor political names, then it could be interesting. Surely the three panelists were all going to be singing from the same hymn sheet?

Was David Boot going to say he doesn't give a toss about Fairtrade because he only likes Cadbury's chocolate? Was Serina Tierney going to share with us all her love of coffee from Macdonalds? Of course not!

The General Election is due to be announced very soon. Was Sunday's event set up to benefit Serina Tierney's public profile? If she spent an evening speaking passionately about Fairtrade and how she'd storm the HQ's of the various chocolate makers dressed as a cocoa bean in an attempt to get a better deal for the people in Africa, South America or wherever it is that chocolate comes from, how could you not be impressed? It could be a vote winner.

Serina is yet again set to be Nicolas Soames nearest challenger to become MP for Mid Sussex, she needs to steal 3000 of Big Nic's voters in order to take the seat. Surely she pulled a rabbit out of the hat tonight in order to win some people over?

According to the blog of Andrew Hicks, Lib Dem Town Councillor. A whopping 100 people attended tonights event. I'm sickened that there are 100 people locally that don't like to watch Dancing on Ice live on a Sunday night.

Coming up this Friday, its the Acoustic Fairtrade concert with Phil Beer, Miranda Sykes, 3 Daft Monkeys, Rob Halligan & Gareth Davies-Jones.
Who on earth are these people? They are not household names to the handful of people that I quizzed. It's £14 to go and watch this showcase of folk music.
Why is folk music connected with Fairtrade? Why can't it be pop music? More people would buy tickets for a pop band, surely?

If you attended, or are planning to attend any of the events during the Fairtrade festival, let me know what you thought of it. webmaster@burgesshilluncovered.co.uk

Gordon the Gorilla snubbed for Burgess Hill event.

Saturday June 6th was town day in the Burgess Hill Summer Festival program. This occasion includes a parade through the town centre which this year carried the theme of science, discoveries, and innovation.

Occording to the Mid Sussex Times website the parade opener was a mascot race run down Church Road featuring, among others, Eagles Alice and Peter from Crystal Palace FC. Burgess Hill is part of South London, who knew?

Getting to my point, where was the invite for Gordon the Gorilla? How ignorant of the organisers to not invite Gordon to participate. Having a mascot race without Gordon is like Pancake day without Jif Lemon. Gordon has enjoyed his share of media coverage over the years as well as being a predominate part of the Burgess Hill Uncovered website.

So why was Gordon excluded? Surely it couldn't be because Gordon represents a website that isn't afraid to point out some of the shortfallings of Burgess Hill, could it?

If that is not the case, then I'd love to know the reason why festival organisers didn't send an invite Gordon's way.