FULMER NEWSLETTER - Fulmer Village

HOW AND WHY THE FULMER NEWSLETTER WAS STARTED
Up to 1986, when the two St James’ Churches were merged, Fulmer Church had been
independent for 375 years with its own incumbent Rector and its own Parochial Church
Council. The mouthpiece of the Council was a magazine called ‘Fugelmere’ which
enjoyed a wide circulation within our Parish and among members of the congregation
who lived outside its boundaries. Merrie Rushton was the Editor over a considerable
period and she felt it important and appropriate for the Church members to be aware of
what was happening in the environment in which the Church was situated. I was the
Chairman of the Parish Council at the time and warmly endorsed this view.
Consequently, for each issue I wrote a page entitled ‘Notes from the Parish Council’
highlighting the main issues facing the Council at that time and the steps being taken to
deal with them. In this way Fulmerites were constantly informed on what was going on in
their midst. When the merger took place, ‘Fugelmere’ was discarded and in the first issue
of the new combined magazine, Fulmer received little notice. This was a matter of great
concern to the Parish Council as over many years Fulmer had built up an identity of its
own which was very precious to it. For a small Parish it sponsored a surprising number of
organisations, be they religious, educational or social in which the pub played a major
part, sporting, Scouts and Girl Guides, humanitarian and so on. Out of these had come a
high level of community spirit which shared itself in the many successes in the Best Kept
Village Competition, Fulmer Day, the Silver Jubilee Celebrations, Remembrance Sunday
and other events. Was this identity to be lost because it no longer had a mouthpiece?
I discussed this with my colleagues on the Parish Council and we decided that the
appropriate response would be to initiate a twice-yearly Newsletter to be circulated to all
residents in Fulmer Parish giving organisations and individuals the opportunity to report
on their activities. We hoped that the majority of articles would be written by Fulmer
people or those involved in the activities and report from the Church, our County and
District representatives, Parish Council itself, the Schools and the Sports’ Clubs – all
regarded as essential for each issue. There would be a Personalia Section covering Births,
Weddings, Deaths and in the case of the latter we would encourage next of kin to write
tributes to the dear ones they had lost.
So the first issue of the Fulmer Newsletter appeared in July 1997. It was not launched with
a fanfare of trumpets – between us we had little experience in magazine editing but we
were anxious not to engage professional expertise (even if we could have afforded it!), as
essentially the Newsletter had to be home-spun as it has remained. To some extent we
were being experimental – a survey of some newsletters indicted that they were in tabloid
form with tabloid prose, giving facts but none of the background, which had given rise to
those facts. Within reason in terms of length, we have not inhibited our contributors and a
wide variety of articles and reports have resulted, at times, being moving, and often
humourous. The first Editor was myself, assisted initially by Valerie Foa; it passed to
Ronnie Lamb and now Susie and Ronnie Simkins who have introduced an excellent new
format. To all residents I would say that the Fulmer Newsletter is the story of the
community life of Fulmer – Your Story. For a small population, it is a rich story but it can
only be sustained through the next 25 years if everyone is prepared to play their part in
enriching it further.
EDWARD GUINNESS