Page 40 - Phonebox Magazine October 2015

Getting Back on Their Feet!
Olney-Newton Link
Rachel Lintern
but unfortunately suffered in the emergency. They have started again and have already planted 10,000 suckers and would like to plant 10,000 more. Some fruit will go to the local juice factory and some will be sold on the markets.
Many thanks indeed for all your support with the Preschool. There is a lot more help needed so please keep those donations coming! Our next event will be Quiz Night on November 20th. See you there!
9th February 2016
will send them to Lesley and she will choose 3 sweet recipes and 3 savoury recipes and, again, with the help of local chefs they will cook all six and a panel of judges will pick a winner. This will take place in the marquee between 10. 30 and 11. 30 and the prizes will be presented by Lesley Waters.
Prizes for the runners in the main race will be presented immediately after the race and at the the end of the Shriving Service held in St. Peter and St. Paul Parish Church.
The Pancake Day Raffle is being organised and we are looking for some really good prizes which will be published next month, any businesses in the town who would like to sponsor a major prize please contact us at olneypark@hotmail.co.uk. The draw will take place in the evening of Pancake Day in the Church Hall when we have the link up with Liberal, Kansas to find out who is the International winner. Entry forms for the main race will be available to anyone who is 18 and over (no upper limit) and has lived in Olney for more than 3 months, from the NatWest Bank from the 1st week of January, completed forms should be returned to the Bank.
More information on the arrangements for Pancake Day will be in the next few issues of the Phonebox, but please put the 9th February 2016 in your diary now and join in this very special day in the Olney calendar of events. Pancake Race Committee
Afew months ago the Olney- Newton Link were asked if we could fund a Preschool/ Day Care Centre in Newton to
assist families affected by the Ebola crisis. It is the women in the community who need help with the children as Newton is a typical Sierra Leonean community and relies heavily on subsistence farming. Much of the crop planting and harvesting is done by the women. This short item of news from SL describes what has happened in the last 12 months.
Because Ebola is a disease passed by contact, farm work was avoided. Most farming here is subsistence so relies purely on human power. Groups are employed to cultivate and harvest but through fear of transmission, quarantine rules, illness and death of course this didn’t happen and harvested products couldn’t leave areas due to lockdown rules. The results were all cities were struggling to get wholesale items for market.
Even when goods did arrive money was not there to buy. Only bare essentials were purchased, people using rehydration fluids as food substitute. Farmers too ran out of money to service their micro credit loans. All of this means cultivation has stopped, no seeds can
Pancake Day
The 9th February 2016 may seem a long time off but preparations are well in hand to keep the tradition going in the town and to build on the successful day we had this year. We are very fortunate that our main sponsors Francis
Jackson Homes Ltd have agreed to support Pancake Day in the town for another five years, and we are very grateful. Dupont have agreed their sponsorship again for next year and will be providing the marquee and all that goes with it and also the service of the celebrity chef Lesley Waters.
Lesley has agreed with hopefully the help of local chefs to cook breakfasts from 8.30 to 10 a.m. in the marquee, accompanied by a free early morning glass of Proseco. We will publish more details of this as the months progress. We intend with the cooperation of the schools to bring forward the start of the Children’s Races by half an hour to start at 10a.m. This will allow more time for Lesley’s second input into the day.
This is to run a competition to find the most delicious Pancake and Filling, with Dupont providing prizes of bakeware for the winner and runners up. This is how we hope it will work: Recipes for your favourite sweet and savoury filled pancake should be sent by post or e-mail to Viv Evans, The Stone Barn, Olney Park, Yardley Road, Olney MK46 5EJ or email olneypark@hotmail.co.uk by the 19th January 2016. We 40 Phonebox Magazine
be bought, land is not being prepared and real food hardship is expected.
Post-Ebola farmers need micro credit on favourable terms to buy seeds and tools, subsidies to kickstart economy, assistance in school fees for village communities and outsource markets to give real stability.
Our photographs this month are of a Pineapple Plantation which is run by the women of Newton. It was begun 2 years ago