The War Memorial in the town centre. We all know where and what it is, but let’s spare a second to remember what it actually represents…

On Thursday 11th November at 11am, representatives from Fakenham Town Council will be leading a community ceremony to commemorate Armistice Day with a period of reflection and silence – remembering all those servicemen who have lost their lives in conflicts around the world – on the anniversary of the end of hostilities in the Great War.

It’s a subject in our minds constantly these days, as the UK’s service personnel – including many from this region - are currently engaged in active duty in difficult conditions in the Middle East. Rarely a day goes by at the moment without a reminder appearing on our TV screens and in the newspapers and I think as a consequence, public support for our Armed Forces is probably at a bit of a high right now.

It would be lovely to see a good turnout of support at the ceremony, which is to be completely informal and open to all. It will be market day in the town and I suspect there will be lots of people who do join in – they’ll be made welcome, I’m sure. I’ll try to get there myself  to take a few photos for this website if I can.

Of course, the Royal British Legion will be holding their own ceremony in the Market Square on Remembrance Sunday too, with their own traditional march and wreath-laying. If you can’t make it on Thursday, pop along on Sunday morning to pay your respects with them if you can.

Remember, remember it’s the 6th of November – tomorrow (Saturday 6th) is when you’ll be able to see the annual Fakenham Fireworks Display at Fakenham racecourse, courtesy of Fakenham Chamber of Trade & Commerce.

Gates are open at 5pm and the display starts at 6.30. Price is £15 per car (max 5 persons) on the door. There’s food and fairground attractions, with North Norfolk Radio helping the entertainment along. This year, they’re supporting Help For Heroes and other local charities.

It’s usually pretty spectacular – enjoy the evening!

I attended a Kick Start Fakenham meeting last night – the first one I’ve been to for ages. The meetings are much more formal than they used to be, with a definite agenda and structure to them. Although the informal nature of earlier meetings was friendly and comfortable, I think it has improved with this change – they covered a lot of issues in an hour and a half!

There’s a fair bit going on at Kick Start. Carnival plans, fundraising ideas, festivals, commemorative areas being planned for the community and a lot more besides. They’re actively representing themselves on other town agencies too – the Area Partnership, Town Council and Chamber of Trade will all have Kick Start representatives from now on. It’s all coming together nicely.

Hopefully, I’ll be helping them to get a website up and running soon – they’ll then be branching out from their Facebook page so that information about what they’re doing for the town is more widely available. That’s why I was there last night.

Online information: That’s another area which will hopefully become more ‘joined up’ in Fakenham in the near future too. Watch this space!

The Chamber of Trade’s Bonfire Night Colouring Competition attracted around 1200 entries from various local schools. When judging was over, they had the great idea of brightening up one of the town’s empty shops by plastering them inside the windows.

I think they look brilliant!

Although I spread my custom round several eateries in town, this is my favourite sandwich shop in Fakenham – Fresh4You in Millers Walk. I invariably pop in at least a couple of times a week for a sarnie for my lunch or a late breakfast and a cuppa. The reason I like it? Because it’s always spotlessly clean and eye-wideningly bright. The staff are always pleasant and helpful too – once I dropped a cup of tea on the way out and it seemed as if I’d actually done them a favour, they were so dismissive of the mess I’d created!

This is ‘on the record’, folks: I would heartily recommend their bacon baguettes – they’re scrumptious. The standard ones at £2.99 have 4 rashers inside, which is complete bacon-overkill (being a wuss, I can’t cope with that so opt for a 2-slice version). Their coffee machine looks like the Starship Enterprise dashboard, but produces the perfect Americano although I’ve cut down on coffee and usually get a Fairtrade tea – a really nice cup of Rosie. Overall, 10 out of 10.  Take note, other shop owners…. this is exactly how to do it!

See you in there?

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..

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!