In the Autumn 2015 edition it’s been another hugely successful year for the Badger Farm Pre-School. They have been providing a very professional and popular service to pre-school children of the local community since the early days of the Community Centre. Staff have seen children grow to adults and parents who in turn bring their own children to the group. It’s also been a good year for the Community Association. Increased bookings have enabled us to carry out some essential maintenance including redecoration of the Battery Hall and the outside of the building.

Get ahead with your Christmas shopping! Winchester Country Market will hold their Christmas Fayre at the end of October with a lovely range of arts and crafts and the usual selection of pickles, jams, marmalades, delicious homemade cakes, cookies plus Christmas cake. All homemade, home produced and hand crafted to help make your Christmas special.

It was a very busy and enjoyable summer for members of Oliver’s Battery WI, celebrating the Centenary well and truly at Buckingham Palace. They are now looking forward to some interesting speakers on Preventing Alzheimers Disease, the Changi Quilts and the History of St Cross.

Oliver’s Battery Primary School pupil Owen M reports that “Oliver’s Battery Sports Day 2015 was an amazing success! Everyone participated as much as always and made it a great event. Key Stage 1 – This year, R,1 and 2 put on a brilliant show for us all to enjoy and treasure. They participated well and took on all the challenges no matter how hard they were! Key Stage 2 – Now for Key Stage 2, they persevered well and did the best they could to put an end to another fantastic Sport’s Day at Oliver’s Battery School with a series of challenges, including the yearly Year 6 doughnut race, one lap of the running track and a half!”

With the shorter days, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust will be holding some of their evening meetings at the Community Centre with talks on The New Forest Non-Native Plants Project, The Wildlife and Flora of Bandhavgarh and Conservation and Wildlife at Titchfield Haven.

At Stanmore Primary School author Helena Pielichaty had all the children in the school hall roaring with laughter when she read an extract from one of her Girls FC books in which a statue loses a vital part of his anatomy due to a badly aimed football. At the end of the summer term the children in the school council arranged for an assault course to be built on the back field. Using items kindly loaned by the Territorial Army, the children paid 50p in aid of Save the Children to wriggle through camouflage nets, leap in and out of tyres, run along benches and aim bean bags at soldier targets.

The outline planning application by Linden Homes for the development of 350 homes on land at Pitt Vale bordering the village of Pitt has been the focus of Oliver’s Battery Parish Council’s attention. The new children’s play equipment at the recreation ground continues to be well used but it has recently been subject to an act of vandalism.

Here at Oliver’s Battery Plan, we are right in the middle of writing the Community Survey. It’s taking rather longer than we had thought – it’s even more challenging than we had anticipated! However, we will be getting it out to residents as soon as possible. A copy will be delivered to every household, together with instructions on how to fill it in and how to return it. The more people who send back their copies of the Survey, the better, so make sure you get yours filled in and returned.

Our local councillors discuss Pitt Vale, New Ward Boundaries, Estate Management, Badger Farm Road and Badger Farm Planning Permission.

Our MP, Steve Brine, would be honoured to hear from you if you have views, and especially personal experiences, related to the Assisted Dying Bill. Regarding the proposed development at Pitt Vale he “sometimes wonder which version of NO our circling developers do not understand but it only serves to stiffen our resolve.”

At Oliver’s Battery Pre-School the little ones had a jam-packed summer term with sponsored obstacle course, sports day and annual outing to name a few. They also took part in an educational walk around Oliver’s Battery, visiting the shops, church and ending up at the play park.

Living Streets is the national charity that works to make streets safer and more attractive so that people find walking more enjoyable and do more of it, which benefits their health and the environment. Living Streets is promoting walking in schools, communities and workplaces across Hampshire. At the start of the Autumn term 2015, Oliver’s Battery Primary School will take positive steps to improve walking rates by joining the exciting Living Streets Walk once a Week (WoW) scheme. This rewards children for walking to school at least once a week with collectable pin badges. Later in the month, Oliver’s Battery Primary School pupils will also carry out a school route audit to identify any barriers to walking that may exist locally. Living Streets would like to hear the views of parents and will be running a street audit with adults in the area too.

In her Computer Corner, Ann chats with the “Windows’ Technical Department” and finds out how these scammers try to trick you to get access to your computer.

In Natures Notes you can learn that in prolonged dry weather blackbirds will take slow worms because their preferred diet of earthworms becomes unavailable. Earthworms tunnel deep into the ground to find more favourable conditions and will, if necessary estivate by secreting a protective layer of mucous then rolling themselves into a ball coming to life again when conditions improve.