Local news, information and help. Wherever you are located, welcome!
Providing support for the village, surrounding areas and beyond.
The CCRG
Coddenham Community Response Group
Our services continue to include:
- This dedicated website: www.coddenham-parish.uk
- A dedicated support email: support@coddenham-parish.uk
- A support phone number: 01449 760313
- A ‘Have Your Say’ comments section, if you wish to share comment, concerns or encouragement.
- You can also comment on individual website posts or share them with your social media network.
Your Community Website
Starting out in March 2020 and in September the same year becoming the Coddenham Community Response Group (CCRG), we have built Coddenham’s first ever community website as a platform for communication and engagement amongst the people of Coddenham, the surrounding areas and around the world. It provides current local news, a calendar with details of events, classified advertisements, sound bites, history and opportunities for everyone to have their say.
It’s hard to believe that it is four years since the CCRG was founded and the pandemic that bought us together, is behind us.
The CCRG is a collaboration between the Community Shop, Coddenham Centre, St Mary’s Church/PCC, the Day Foundation and the Gardemau Trusts. The Country Club and History Club are associate members. It has been a fruitful relationship, and both CCRG as a group and its constituent organisations have won numerous awards, both local and national, over the last two years. In March this year, we were pleased to welcome back Coddenham Parish Council to the Group.
From co-ordinating and mutually supporting the activities of its members in helping the village cope with the pandemic, the group has, pleasingly, evolved into a forum where its members and their stakeholders can discuss and plan events for better times.
Following last years Jubilee celebrations and this year’s Coronation work is continuing on a Coddenham Community Plan, started last year, which with residents, will start to map out a vision for the future. More details are now on this home pages. Press the ‘Shape the Future’ button!
A summary of some of CCRG activities since March 2020 can be found here (MS.Docx), but here are a few highlights from the last 12 months:
- Lord Lieutenant’s Award for Outstanding Community Service (shop)
- Re-launch of Baby and Toddler Group (Church, Coddenham Centre, Gardemau)
- Grants for educational purposes and to help struggling families (Gardemau)
- Runner-up, National Business Awards for Localisation (shop)
- Carbon Charter, tree/hedge planting, car chargers for Coddenham, switch to renewable energy and runners-up in Greener Suffolk Awards (Coddenham Centre).
- Funding for various community causes (Day Foundation)
- Commencement of the digitisation of Coddenham history (History Club).
- Community Centre of the Year and Most Active Community Awards (Coddenham Centre)
- 500th post on Community Website (All)
The Coddenham Community Response Group.
The Latest NEWS from Coddenham
For a full list community information news posts please see the websites NEWS SECTION The Coddenham Community Shop, St.Mary’s Church and the Coddenham Village History Club all have dedicated pages. There is also a link to The Coddenham Centre and a page for The Coddenham Country Club.
Christmas at Coddenham Community Shop
The amazing Christmas windows are in place thanks to our very talented volunteer, Helen. So it must be time for Christmas Shopping!...
CHRISTMAS is Coming to the Coddenham Centre!
Our Indoor Christmas Market will be here on the 1st December! All the details be found HERE
East of England Co-Op Band – Christmas Concert
Co-Op Band Christmas Celebration Concert at St Mary's Church Sunday 8th December at 2.30pm. Tickets for this popular event are selling...
CCRG – Member Profiles – The Latest.
From time to time, we feature profiles of the members of the Coddenham Community Response Group. The latest is Coddenham's oldest charity,...
North Bosmere Benefice Notice Sheet
The North Bosmere Benefice Notice Sheet for 17th November can be found here The service at St Mary's on 17th November is Morning Prayer at...
Order your Turnbull’s Turkey at Coddenham Community Shop
Christmas is coming at Coddenham Community Shop! Local - just 3 miles from Coddenham - Turnbull's Turkeys and chickens can now be...
New History Club Talk
The Coddenham History Club welcome back the always entertaining and informative CHARLIE HAYLOCK. Full Details HERE Please note this talk...
Thank You Ravi
On Friday 25th October volunteers and customers gathered in the Community Shop to say 'thank you' and 'farewell' to Ravi. Ravi has run the...
Update on Benefice Recruitment for a new Rector
Following the retirement of Rev. Philip Payne in July, the North Bosmere Benefice has been in a period known by the Church of England as...
Christmas is Coming!
Have a look at the Coddenham Centre.... HERE!
Coddenham in the BBC News
A growing collection of links and articles where Coddenham is featured in the BBC News
Our Green Spaces
See the Suffolk Wildlife Report and Management Plan for our Green Spaces.
Coddenham Classifieds
Click the ad for more information or here for the classified listing
Community Engagement 2023
More of, the story so far…
Last year was a busy year for CCRG members (it always is!), but we can look back on some significant milestones.
Perhaps the most important has been the finalisation of the Coddenham Parish Community Plan, based on the results of last year’s survey of every household in the parish. This identified five key issues for residents: Roads/Traffic (of course), an ‘Alternative Village Hub’, Energy Conservation and Recycling, Green Spaces and Footpaths, and Housing.
Identifying issues is all very well, but pretty pointless unless we can try to do something to address them. CCRG members thus asked people from the parish to come forward to join working groups for each issue. It’s been gratifying to see the response, with lots of villagers stepping up to help tackle the problems which concern them most. All the groups have started work and are producing their first results.
Making progress on all the big issues needs support and co-operation from bodies such as Mid Suffolk District Council and the County Council, and initial contact with them has been positive. We’re particularly grateful for the help we have had from District Councillors John Whitehead (now a Coddenham resident!) and Dave Penny (who also lives locally, in Hemingstone) and our County Councillor, Matt Hicks.
As you would expect, achieving real, visible improvements in some of the working group areas, eg housing, will take time, but each group has been asked to identify some ‘quick wins’ so residents can see some progress in the coming months. We appreciate that communication is very important and that people get their information in different ways. We are using the community and Parish Council websites, the Ten Village News, email circulation, Facebook and posters and flyers. Big issues may also require the occasional public meeting. As the Parish Council is leading on the Plan with the support of the CCRG, it regularly features on the agenda of PC meetings, which everyone is encouraged to attend. We must at this point pay tribute to everyone who has done an immense amount of work over the last two years on both the Survey and the Plan itself. The drive and expertise have been invaluable.
We must also mention the awful flooding experienced in Coddenham and elsewhere in October. As a parish, we suffered less than many – this time – but accelerating climate change makes such events ever more likely. Luckily, the new Parish Council recently decided that, for the first time in a number of years, it should have an Emergency Plan for the parish and an Emergency Planning Officer. Led by the Parish Council and The Coddenham Centre, CCRG members are working on an Emergency Response Plan, setting out the risks we are most likely to face in the coming years and how we will respond to them. This is being done in collaboration with both District and County Councils. For example, The Coddenham Centre has now been designated by MSDC as an Emergency Reception Centre and, had the need arisen (fortunately, it didn’t, but we came very close), it could have been used during the floods to temporarily house those made homeless. Let’s hope we never have to use it.
The Community Shop continued to play a key community role, despite a struggle for volunteers, celebrating a 100 years of Heritage with Roy & Anne Gudgin and the support of the History Club; the Country Club started to review its future strategy, the Coddenham Centre hosted the Coronation celebrations and made further enormous strides with renewable energy and contribution to Coddenham’s ‘Most Active Community Award’ for 2023, the Day Foundation and Gardemau Trusts continued to provide tireless collaboration and support while St Mary’s Church prepared for a new appeal for its wonderful Grade 1 building.
It’s important to point out that CCRG is only an informal group, a collaborative forum of all the village organisations. Its members are all volunteers, nominated by their respective bodies, and its work is the sum of the efforts of those bodies. Member groups all have their own priorities and constraints but, where it makes sense to work together, CCRG is the mechanism by which we do so. The awards won by members, by Coddenham and by CCRG itself over the last three years, would suggest that the system works, and that others think so too!
No doubt the coming months will present more challenges, whether from climate change, economic difficulties or global instability, but there’s much to look forward to: summer 2024 sees the return of Open Gardens and Scarecrows and possibly the Fete, our new revamped Nature Trail will be open and it’s the 80th anniversary of D Day!
The Coddenham Community Response Group.
Coddenham Cares
A regular item on all matters environmental in Coddenham.
More community info
The Coddenham Community Response Group Terms of Reference
The CCRG originally came together because of a community wish to see a local organised response to COVID19. We have built upon that exciting collaboration along with many more volunteers who are helping to provide services and community support. We also liaise with Mid Suffolk Council and Suffolk County Council.
We meet approximately bi-monthly or on demand, with notes on all our meetings available on these pages or by request. We welcome representatives from the community either personally or through this website. We are a collaboration that exists solely to serve the community, avoiding political or personal agenda, always striving to provide the best we can, together.
Our scope and intent is covered in our Terms of Reference and can be found here.
The Coddenham Community Response Group and the Environment.
Early in 2021 we agreed it was in the interests of the community to promote an awareness and response when we could to the environmental emergency. There is no intention to ‘preach’, but to simply support initiatives and share learning on what we can contribute as a parish, to the national movement for a zero carbon country.
The Coddenham Centre and the Day Foundation already have initiatives in place and other members of the group are developing their own awareness and environmental agendas. We have added a dedicated page to this site to report on progress and publish features on the environment. If you have any proposals or news of your own ideas, please get in touch by emailing support@coddenham-parish.uk.
More community info
Community and local history
Check out the History Club pages. Articles from hundreds of years ago, to the present.
CCRG Member Profile
The next in our CCRG member features is The Coddenham Gardemau Charities
Previously
We’ve previously shared accolades, including the BBC Radio Suffolk ‘Making a Difference’ Award, BBC interviews about the village and always cheered each other on. Our volunteers be they in the shop, on our help line, distributing newsletters, working with the Church or Coddenham Centre or maintaining our website, have all played a positive and invaluable part in our all working together.
We are members of the Suffolk Good Neighbour Network and committed to ensuring the Environment was added to our community agenda. In 2021 we had our First Birthday which we celebrated in a newsletter here.
Share this resource.
Please share www.coddenham-parish.uk for all the latest news and links to all your community organisations.
The Coddenham Community Response Group 2023
The Gardemau Trust
Five charitable funds started in the fourteenth century.
The Day Foundation
A vibrant local charity forever linked to Coddenham.
Drone footage of Coddenham Flooding
Courtesy of the BBC Suffolk Drone Service
Drone footage of flooding in Coddenham, Suffolk, shows the impact of Storm Ciarán.
The aerial views, captured by Suffolk Drone Services, highlight the flooding across fields and roads by the A140. See the BBC article on the flooding here.
Devolution
And what it means for or county.
Car Share or Need a Lift?
Local Volunteering Openings
Around & About
Updates and information from around the area.
See the most recent post: CHRISTMAS is Coming to the Coddenham Centre!
Updated: 17/11/24
Have your Say
Got an opinion, compliment or community concern?
CCRG Meeting Minutes & Notes
Notes on all your Coddenham Community Response Group’s (CCRG) meeting are available in the downloads section.
Rolling Calendar
Rolling calendar for this years major event in Coddenham.