Front Cover The picture on the front cover shows a familiar summer scene of combining wheat with Borley Church in the background. It is in this Churchyard that Robert Andrews and his wife Frances are buried. The Andrews portrait is the very well known one, painted by Thomas Gainsborough in about 1750.

Magazine The cost of producing this magazine, in colour, is over £1,200 a year and this cost has, for the last two years, been largely covered by the advertisements that we carry. Prior to 2009 the cost for the black and white magazine was considerably less and was borne by the CSCA, but this did weigh heavily on our small annual income, and could not continue when we decided to upgrade to colour. Some of the articles would have been meaningless with photographs in black and white.

I would therefore encourage members to use the services of our advertisers all of whom are known to me, and most have been used by me.

Advertising is vital to the CSCA and if any Members have their own businesses that can advertise in the future do please get in touch. Furthermore if you can influence any friends who have businesses who can be persuaded to advertise do please let me know. Cole & Son (Wallpapers) are aware that they have received orders as a result of their advertisements in the Magazine. The advertisements will be on our website for at least five years which gives a potential exposure to a large number of people.

Advertisers
Bates Wells & Braithwaite have acted for me since about 1967. That should say enough!

The NFU have been my insurers for about ten years and have proved very helpful and charge a competitive premium and have met the few claims I have had without a quibble.

I have enjoyed a pint of Greene King for at least the last fifty five years, and I remember being given my first IPA when I was helping with the harvest in 1956, aged 15. After a long day stacking or loading sheaves of corn onto a trailer, drawn by a Suffolk Punch, or an old grey Ferguson tractor, it was pure nectar! In those days there were six people stacking or collecting sheaves, and a crate of Greene King always appeared in the early evening.

As I have not moved house for a long time, Savills have not been able to help me but their reputation is well known.

Seago & Stopps are my accountants and have proved very reliable and do not charge the earth for a relatively simple tax return.

A & G have been servicing all my garden equipment for several years and they have proved to be very reliable and charge a competitive hourly rate. (This I have checked out) They have agreed to offer a discount to CSCA Members who are listed in the Magazine. You need to tell them you are a CSCA Member when you go to see them.

Charles Stanley have been my Stockbrokers for a considerable time and their performance has been well ahead of the FTSE index. They seem to identify undervalued companies that then become takeover targets, whilst investing in a wide selection of good performers and blue chip companies. The service is very much geared to knowing their client and having a dedicated team to be on hand whenever one makes contact.

Mark Dawson

WEBSITE AND EMAIL ADDRESSES

Visits to our website www.colnestour.org continue to increase with the year on year numbers up 50% in 2010. Up to 1,000 people, visit the website, every month, a large proportion coming from overseas, particularly the USA. In the last year, the most read item has been the updates on the pylons. From the magazine, which is on line, the article on Coggeshall Abbey was the most visited.

I currently have the email addresses of 284 Members. If you have email and have not heard from me on, for example, the pylon issue, then I do not have your email address. If you are one of these, and you are on the internet, can you please let me have your email address?
info@colnestour.org. Your email address will not be given to anyone else.(I have been asked for the list, but the answer will always be “afraid not”) All emails are sent Bcc, which ensures that your address does not get passed to other Members, and therefore become open to any virus that they may get, and then get sent back to you.

I have, what I am told, is the best anti-virus program from Esmart Security, which I hope will ensure that I do not pass on any viruses.

Important issues such as pylons need to be acted on and we need members to write to the respective public bodies stating their views why our countryside must be protected. We cannot communicate with the Membership during the year other than by this means. Therefore, if you have recently become an internet user or are thinking of doing so, please let me have your address. I am sure there will come a time when it will be almost impossible to be without the internet as the Banks seem determined to do away with cheques, and no doubt will then do away with statements, other than sending them via the internet. As we get older, we will no doubt, resort to ordering our weekly shop via the internet! No-one is too old to learn!

Mark Dawson