They’ve been busy down at the community centre, refurbishing the bar area. Wow. What an improvement! It’s now a tastefully decorated and welcoming place – the lighting is bright but in a way that doesn’t look unfriendly or garish. The colours are muted and clean looking. It’s so much better than before – the committee and all those involved have reason to be proud of their efforts.

There are other parts of the building which need refurb work and repairs – and that is being scheduled as we speak. In the meantime, a temporary entrance will make sure the newly-finished bar area remains open for business. It’s a great start, as these photos from their open evening tonight will hopefully show..

I see the church tower is having a few problems. The Parish Church is a prominent landmark in Fakenham and a major contributor to life in the town. So… I think it deserves a bit of support by attending the ‘Headline News in Flowers’ Flower Festival in October and donating a few bob. Details are in this Fakenham & Wells Times article…

Just in case you weren’t aware – If you were planning an event in the Fakenham Community Centre, you’d better know… 

If you’re a Facebook user, you may have noticed that new posts on my blog haven’t been making their expected appearance on my FB wall. It’s because a WordPress plugin called Wordbook had died. It just decided to stop working for no apparent reason.

I’ve now installed a different plugin which should do the same job, plus a little more. Wordbooker is its name and I’ll have a play with that one now. If you’re reading this on FB, it actually works!!!

This blog was first started at the beginning of October 2009, coming up to a year ago. I thought it would provide me with a way to promote the town with a more personal touch, as well as being a vehicle for my interest in WordPress. You may remember that it evolved from the site at FakenhamWeb.co.uk which has now been ‘retired’ after running since 1999.

I looked at my webstats today and was genuinely surprised at the figures I saw (I haven’t been keeping track of the stats as it isn’t a business site). I didn’t realise it was quite as popular as the numbers suggest…

It started off with 258 visitors in its first month and that has been increasing steadily. During August 2010, it had 772 unique visitors, resulting in an amazing average of 80 visits a day!

The stats throw up some weird and wonderful search phrases being used to find the site. I wonder who it was who used Google to search for “how do i meet men from swanton morley barracks” and surely the person looking for “free wine samples” was getting a bit desperate!

However, despite the blog’s apparent popularity, the story is still the same as I found on the old website… NOBODY WANTS TO CONTRIBUTE! Apart from one post where people got involved and discussed the town at great length, the comments are very few and far between.  Are you shy?

 Creake Abbey Farmers’ Market has won first place in the prestigious Eastern Daily Press Norfolk Food Awards.  The monthly market at North Creake, attached to Creake Abbey Studios, came first in the dedicated  Farmers’ Market section.

The judges said “A fantastic location in north Norfolk with an idyllic setting. This market offers an abundance of locally produced and sourced food products and gifts. The stall holders are only too pleased to share their passion and knowledge and there are lots of opportunities to try before you buy with well presented stalls“.

The market is held on the first Saturday of each month (except in January). Around 30 stall holders attend, with fresh local meat, produce, cheeses, cakes, bread, preserves, ales, juices and plants.  They’re holding a ‘Christmas Shopping Feast’ on 4th December – sounds like it’s well worth a visit!

With  Creake Abbey Farmers’ Market on 1st Saturday and the Fakenham Farmers’ Market being held on the 4th Saturday of nearly every month, our area’s well served. We have few excuses for not being able to buy quality local produce whenever we need it!

Fakenham has started to address some of its issues now, I think. People are beginning to focus on improving our town and the first signs of coordination between the local organisations involved is becoming apparent.

Kick Start Fakenham have made their presence felt with an impressive Fakenham Fair, with the aid of the Fakenham Area Partnership. They’ve proven that they mean business and can organise an event on that scale - which bodes well for an even bigger community event or maybe even a full-scale carnival next year.

But what next? The town needs to progress further and we need to consider what direction to take.  Comments on an earlier post by a visitor to our town highlighted some of the negative aspects he’d seen. The many replies to his comments seemed to culminate in the opinion that although it was easy to spot and point out problems it was difficult to find a way to address them.

So do you have any ideas? What would you like to see the various organisations in Fakenham concentrate their efforts on? Are they doing anything wrong or completely missing a trick somewhere?  There’s the Town Council, The Area Partnership, The Parish Church, the Kick Start group and the Chamber of Trade – all trying to do stuff for the town we love. Give them some feedback!

I often get asked whether I repair computers or clean systems of viruses. The answer’s no – I used to do that kind of thing many moons ago, but now I just concentrate on the internet side of things. However, there are a couple of local services I recommend. One of them is the business next door to mine in Norwich Street. They’re called LANForce.

They’re an internet cafe and network gaming centre, but provide PC repairs, maintenance and upgrades too. Graham oversees the gaming & cybercafe side. The PC techician, Andy, knows his job inside out. What’s more, their services are not expensive, by all accounts.

Anyway, the point of this post is to let you know that they’ve changed their business hours. They’re now open from 10am Monday to Saturday. That’s a fair bit earlier than before – they didn’t used to open until 3pm (they are open late into the evenings, playing online games).

So… do you need a PC sorting out? Give Graham and Andy at LAN Force a call on 01328 862212 – they’ll do a decent job for you. Tell ‘em Steve sent you, if you like!

 Fakenham’s theatrical rockers STONE RUNNER will be headlining at the Blakeney Harbour Rooms on Saturday FRIDAY October 1st (Sparky got his days mixed up!).
The band, featuring ‘Bloomers’, ‘Nick the Badger’, ‘Sparky Baldano’ and ‘Spider Biggles’, will be on stage at 8.30 and will perform an energetic 2 hour set of classic 70′s rock covers and self written songs. Admission on the door.

I got this notice through from Ray Cossey and I think it’s worth posting on…

NORFOLK & WAVENEY
PROSTATE CANCER SUPPORT GROUP
Reg. Charity No: 1108384 www.prostatesupport.org.uk

FREE P.S..A. BLOOD TESTS FOR MEN OVER 45
FAKENHAM COMMUNITY CENTRE
23rd. September
We’ll be funding up to 250 free tests that evening (from 7pm) ….so here’s your chance to check on the health of your prostate …so don’t miss it!
YOU MUST PRE-REGISTER FOR A TEST AND SHOULD APPLY IMMEDIATELY by sending an A5 sized
stamped & self-addressed envelope to:-
N&WPCS,
3 Skedge Way, Blofield
Corner, Norwich, NR13 4RY
or you can e-mail to:-
nwpcsg@hotmail.co.uk (typing “PSA test application” in the Subject line)

This will be the third Norfolk testing session we have arranged over the past 18 months and, of the over 430 men tested, we know of at least 12 men we have given blood test to who have since been diagnosed with prostate cancer and are have undergone, or are now receiving, treatment for their condition. Men with a family history of prostate cancer or breast cancer are more likely to contract this cancer, which claims the lives of some 11,000 men annually in the UK.