If you have any queries, any information or an event you wish to publicise or know about please contact
our Village Correspondent - Jonathan Neville on 07836 675369 jneville@hempstead-norfolk.co.uk

Hempstead Parish Council Meetings Agendas & Minutes
Parish Clerk: John Stibbons - 01263 577397 hempsteadpc@gmail.com

Help our local toads!
Each spring, during February and March, toads, frogs and newts return to local ponds to breed. Most ponds, including newly installed garden ponds, are likely to be used by frogs and newts but only a few are used by toads, who are faithful to their birth pond. There are several ponds in our group of parishes that have been used by generations of toads, to which they migrate up to a mile or more at night to breed, then back again to their ‘home patch’.
Toads are not fast movers, and this can make them particularly vulnerable to road traffic on migration to and from their pond – as well as crossing roads, they often use stretches of roads and tracks as it’s easier for them to crawl along these than through thick vegetation. Also, male toads will often sit in roads where they can see around them, waiting for a female to grab and hitch a lift to the pond, where they are in ‘pole position’ for fertilising her eggs.
Rookery Pond, near Green Farm west of Hempstead village, is an important breeding pond for toads. Each year local volunteers help thousands of toads to get safely across the road near the pond. Volunteer patrollers don’t need to be available every evening, they work in pairs and usually do one or two 90 minute ‘shifts’ a week on a rota, between dusk and the first couple of hours of darkness, when the weather is suitable for toads to move (relatively mild and damp).
If you might be interested in becoming a local toad patroller at Hempstead, please contact Tim Venes - timvenes01@gmail.com  tel. 07876 322406 to find out more.

You can also help by:

• Being aware of where toad patrols take place during February and March, watch out for warning signs, and drive carefully near these, to help both the toads and the patrollers (there are also patrols nearby at Edgefield, Selbrigg Pond and North Barningham).

• Develop ‘toad awareness’ if you are driving on rural roads at night, especially in February and March, but also any time over the spring and summer, as toads still come out to hunt at night when migration is over. They’re most likely to be out in mild and wet or damp weather. If you drive reasonably slowly and watch the road carefully, you can see them on the road in the car headlights and hopefully avoid them with your wheels.
  Not all local ponds with breeding toads have a patrol – please also be especially careful in early spring near Pond Hills, Hempstead and Plumstead Hall Farm up to Baconsthorpe.

Thank you for helping our local toads!

North Norfolk District Council's
Appraisal & Management Plan for Hempstead
Please do your views and comments and they will be placed on the
Hempstead Conservation Comments Page

We at The Mindful Life Group Charity are delighted to have now received funding from the Norfolk Community Foundation to provide free online mindfulness courses to support adults 65+.
We are hoping that this information could be circulated in a newsletter or email to your community.  I have a small poster if you think this might be helpful for communicating the message?
Here is some background information about the course:
The Mindful Life Group is offering online mindfulness courses that are fully funded to support older adults in Norfolk. The course is led by a clinical psychologist who is also a mindfulness teacher.
The course is based on the mindfulness-based stress reduction course developed by John Kabat Zin but has been adapted for this population.
We have had really good feedback from participants, and we have found that it improves peoples' attention and memory, as well as reducing loneliness, low mood, stress, anxiety and chronic pain. Many participants have found it simply helps them deal with day-to-day stresses.
We currently have two courses beginning in June which involves one weekly meeting online for 2 hours over 6 weeks with the option for participants to extend their practice with their group.
The course start dates and timings are as follows:
6th June 2024- 1-3 pm every Thursday for 6 weeks
10th June2024- 10am -12 noon every Monday for 6 weeks
Places are free but limited to around 15 for each course
There is more information on our website where participants can make an enquiry and to book :  www.the-mindful-life.com
Raechel Schoder
Clinical Research Assistant
The Mindful Life Group CIC

Hempstead_church and its parish are a member of the Matlaske benefice of seven churches in the Holt Deanery within the Diocese of Norwich. If anyone is interested in becoming a member of the PCC please contact Airlie Inglis - 01263 577440

If you have any notices or information you would like listed on this page,
I would be pleased to hear from you.
By all means or telephone 07836 675369