Cllr Roy Gerstner – Community Activist

Last nights ‘Friends Of Whittlesey Library’ meeting was again very well attended, we reviewed on events that the ‘Friends’ had put on over the past year.
Planning ahead for the coming year will include:
A possible ‘Photographic competition.

A Coffee and Cake stall at the Library on Straw bear Saturday 13th Jan 2018 10am – 12:00

13th Feb ‘Alice in Cuckoo Land’ – more details to follow.

Friday 16th March Quiz Night – which as usual will include a Fish & Chip supper – more details to follow.

More plans to be discussed at Januarys meeting – 09th Jan 2018

Having driven all over the world without too many issues or problems, I and many others agree, that ‘if’ you can get out of Whittlesey in one piece – you’ve cracked it.
Today for example, being ‘blocked in’ by a Big People carrier, I could not see to get out of the parking space by Sunshine Café, after several minutes of manoeuvring back and forth I eventually got out, a short ‘friendly’ beep’ was met with Road-Rage abuse….and gestures –
If this was my Dad or Grand-Dad I would be truly ashamed.
Blue Citroen People Carrier Reg SV16 YVM – if the owner has issue with identification I am more than willing to show him and the Police the rest of the Dash Cam footage.

A very well attended New Queen Street Surgery PPG (Patients Participation Group) meeting last night, which was the AGM.
A great deal has been achieved by the group in the past year and fantastic engagement with both the Surgery and Patients.
I am one of the original members I believe it is an excellent ‘interface’ between we the patients and the Surgery and Practice Manager.
We do on occasion have the senior doctor – Gary Howsan pass by the meetings, which he did last night and thanked all those who make the PPG a success.
Whittlesey NQS PPG is one of the best attended and most active of those in/around Peterborough

Sign in ‘Freemans the Butcher’ window – taken today 28th November.

Farewell to another well known shop in our town, but all maybe not lost – just yet.

I wonder ‘who’ may be taking over ‘Alices’ old shop – and for those on Faceless Book… it is NOT McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks or Subway – at least NOT in this unit.
It maybe…or it could be, or just possibly be….

Reply from Amazon…The real Amazon.
Thank you for writing to Amazon.com to bring this to our attention.
Your message has been forwarded to our security department, and we will investigate the situation. Please note that you may not receive a personal response.
In all likelihood, the message you received was not sent to you by Amazon.com.
We strongly advise that you *not* send any information about yourself back to this individual (especially your credit card number or any personal information).
If you have already submitted any personal information to this person via e-mail or on a potentially fraudulent web site, you may wish to contact Customer Service for ssistance. To send an e-mail to Customer Service, please visit www.amazon.com/contact-us
In the future, if you are ever uncertain of the validity of an e-mail, even from us, don’t click on any supplied links–instead, type our web site address “www.amazon.com” directly into your browser and follow the regular links to Your Account. Many unscrupulous spoofers mislead consumers by displaying one URL while taking the visitor to another.
By typing in a well-known address you can avoid this trick. Also, please be assured that Amazon.com is not in the business of selling customer information.
Many spammers and spoofers use programs that randomly generate e-mail addresses, in the hope that some percentage of these randomly-generated addresses will actually exist.
If you are trying to contact us about something other than a spoofed e-mail message, please contact Customer Service for assistance.
To send an e-mail to Customer Service, please visit www.amazon.com/contact-us/
If you encounter any other uses of the Amazon.com name that you think may be fraudulent, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
Thanks you again for taking the time to notify us of this situation.
Sincerely,
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http://www.amazon.com/

Thanks to SR for sending us the ‘Spam’ Amazon email – See below..
Date: 25/11/2017 6:38 To: Subj: Account Identity and Usage Confirmation

Dear Amazon customer,
Every six months Amazon makes integrity checks related to his Online customers and their accounts. How they use the account or if the account is still used by the customer.
If the customer account is not used for a longer period of time (more then 1 month) it will be disabled of by Amazon Team and then removed in the next two months.

To validate that you use this Amazon account please use the following button.

Additional Information’s:
The procedure for disabling the account according to the Terms and Conditions of Usage, will take place in 24 hours after this email was send.   – The verification procedure invoked requires a very short time for the customer.   – The generated button above is active for 24 hours only. If during this period the customer does not make the validation of his online account the account will be disabled.
What does a disabled account means:   – The user will not be able to purchase products from Amazon or from partner stores that post product on Amazon.   – All deliveries will be cancelled for the user.   – The user will not be able to sel or advertise his products on Amazon site.   – Once the account is disabled the user will not be able to create or use another account in his name. Thank you for your understanding and apologize for any inconvenience that this may create. Amazon Customer Service Team.

Please note: This email was sent from a notification-only address that can’t accept incoming email. © 2017 Amazon.co.uk, Inc or its affiliates.
All rights reserved. Registered office: Leadenhall Court, 1 Leadenhall Street, London, EC3V 1PP, United Kingdom.

The above is a ‘Spoof’ e-mail Do Not repeat Do not click on any attachments if you received an e-mail similar to the above.

Black Friday/Cyber Monday – Christmas around the corner – Amazon is doing MEGA business (Not me at present)  – I received from a correspondent this morning…
Please keep a sharp lookout for these scams –
People in Whittlesey – yes – here are being scammed by the day…..

Just a note re scams,
We received a spam email purporting to come from ‘Amazon’
It was a very good facsimile of a genuine Amazon email and could have fooled a less astute person.
My radar was alerted by the heading which started “Dear Member” – always a give away, but the cruncher was the senders email address.
“From:Amazon.co.uk [valid0000040@online.co.uk]”.

I find this is a good way of deciding if the email is genuine and suggest you tell your readers to examine the senders address.
I have forwarded the email onto Amazon….

I was somewhat taken back yesterday whilst entering Hunstanton, to find that yet another Supermarket is arriving on the outskirts of the ‘Small Town’ – Lidl is building a medium size Supermarket.
I also noted that there is now a Morrisons as well.
Hunstanton has a permanent population of around 6,000 / Half the size of Whittlesey, I dare say the population increases somewhat during 7 months of the year.

So Hunstanton will have a Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons and Lidl all managing to compete with one another – Kings Lynn with a population of near 150,000 is 16 miles away.
So is it the Peterborough effect!!! – we being 7/8 miles from our nearest hub with all major players present or is it that ‘Supermarkets’ can not see Whittlesey as a potential place to do business.
Not so long ago, several hotel chains, Travelodge/Holiday Inn Express/Premier Inn were all approached to find if Whittlesey was on their possible build plan – at present none are interested.

I like Whittlesey the way it is…maybe not everyone agrees – I am not a big fan of the Co-Op – whose prices are high and quality sometimes questionable (many agree) – and they now taking over NISA – may mean that ‘some’ changes’ may happen in the future.
We have some very good shops, run by local people – we have a business forum with 55 members (not all businesses) and on the whole a safe environment to do shopping and best of all – FREE Parking.

All we need now Cllr Dorling – Is for some FREE electricity to charge up our Electric/Hybrid cars….wouldn’t that be nice.

Maybe I was just a bit too quick off the mark, all has been explained in detail.

I would imagine that ‘some’ of those taking part in the ‘interviews’ – will ultimately be selected as candidates to actually stand un the May 2019 elections.

My terminology in Saturdays post was slightly out – this has now been corrected which as you know I am more than happy to do….

We’ve started the process across Fenland and East Cambridgeshire of inviting members who are interested in standing in the May 2019 elections to put their name forwards.  The first stage in the process is interviewing potential candidates to assess their suitability as potential candidates.  Last week we had the first of these interviews – no doubt there’ll be many more over the next 12 months.

I stand corrected in my article yesterday re – Conservative Group.
I am informed the No selections have yet taken place for Conservative candidates for the 2019 local elections.
Therefor I am wondering and I am more than happy to take any advice – what people were being interviewed for at March on Friday/Saturday…. I am puzzled….!

Planning :- At WTC’s planning meeting last Monday, besides the disappointment in the withdrawal of planning for St Mary’s Hall, another applicant was recommended for refusal for a 3 story, 6/7 bedroom property near the pumping station behind the Delph Garage.
Besides being with a ‘Flood Zone 1’ the application is totally out of character with the rest of the area.
A very good presentation by the Chairman of Trustees CAB Rural Cambs.

Policy & Finance:- An indication of what is proposed to Full Council – The Whittlesey precept for the year 2018-19 be held at this current years level.

Neighbour Police:- On Tuesday I had a very good hour with our local PCSO’s with their update on what’s happening in our area.

Business Forum Meeting:- Wednesday – An interesting talk from guest speaker ‘Kista Webb’ from Calm Accounting about the changes to Data Protection in 2018.
22 members attended.
The Business Forum plan a Trade & Community Fayre 18th May 2018 more information coming and visit BF Website http://www.whittleseybusiness.co.uk/

The Wisbech Effect:- See my post on Wednesday 22nd below…

Neighbourhood Watch Meeting:- Friday – 11 members attended and NO major issues to report. The usual anti-social problems in/around Town Centre and Manor Field.
Good news in respect that with evidence from CCTV, some ‘offenders’ have been identified and with help from Sir Harry Smith Community College. The ‘offenders’ have been visited by the police – Strict words of advice has been delivered and no further issues.
However issues concerning the Flower Beds in front of the Manor entrance – being targeted again, has not resulted in identifying the culprits.
The updates from the Chief Constable in the ‘new’ model of Policing in Cambridgeshire.
The NHW (Whittlesey) Website is now running smoothly – lots of information.
https://www.whittleseynhw.org.uk/

Selection of candidates for the Conservative Party:- Friday & Saturday the selection of would-be candidates for Fenland District Council takes place, these shortlisted will probably be the candidates for the next May 2019 elections.

Of course I won’t be selected as I am not a member of ‘any’ political party.
– I am and have always remained ‘Independent’

Coming this Monday 27th November:- AGM of New Queen Street Surgery PPG (Patients Participation Group). 7pm at the Surgery – open to all.
Tuesday 28th:- Meeting of The Friends of Whittlesey Library (FOWL) 7pm at the Library – open to all.
Wednesday:- Meeting with Special Constables (RG)

Lots of events coming to our Town during December –
See ‘Fens Magazine’ & ‘Discovering Whittlesea’ for more details.

On-Line shopping presents some marvellous experiences, but it is the biggest ‘crime’ now in the UK – it doesn’t matter how often I, many others, the police tell people about on-line safety – hundreds get scammed every day.
Check the web address
Always check you’re on the correct website. Criminals can set up fake websites that have a similar design and web address to the genuine site.

Is it a secure connection?
Web pages you enter personal or financial details into should display a locked padlock sign and have a web address that starts with https. This means your connection to the website is secure. 

Phishing
Don’t click on links or attachments within unsolicited emails. The number of online shopping related phishing emails increases significantly during the holiday period. 

Bank transfers
65% of Action Fraud reports during the 2016 Christmas period were linked to online auction sites. Don’t pay for goods or services by bank transfer unless you know and trust the person. Payments via bank transfer offer you no protection if you become a victim of fraud.

There will be a Whittlesey Neighbourhood Watch meeting:-

Friday 24th November 2017 @ 7pm

Whittlesey Town Council Offices (Grosvenor Road)
Side door – up the stairs.

I believe after reading the Chief Constables e-letter (Previous post) NHW has a very big role to play in helping support our community, neighbours and the police in keeping potential crime as low as possible.

I promote Neighbourhood Watch as not being just a ‘Good’ Neighbour, but being a ‘Better’ Neighbour for our Town & Villages.
If you wish to contact me my details can be found on the top toolbar.