Appraisal results

The ‘most professional parish appraisal show I have ever seen’ was the verdict of Anton Nath from Oxfordshire rural county council! All the results from the 2001 survey of residents were displayed as a series of colourful posters at the exhibition held at Crowmarsh school on 6th and 7th March.

To see the all of the posters, click:

In addition, practically every club, society and charity in the parish prepared their own poster on their activities and children from the school showed their work on the history of Crowmarsh.

A map in which visitors were invited to put pins to show where they lived revealed that the show had attracted people not only from all over the parish, but also from Wallingford and some outlying villages. In one of the nicest moments, Faith Ponking, possibly the oldest living resident born in the parish, walked over to some visitors looking at photographs of old Crowmarsh, and called out proudly ‘here’s a bit of old Crowmarsh’!

A section of the display area was given over to visitors making additional comments about what they think should be done in the parish. This was an important feature to gather even more evidence of what it is that is concerning the residents. Click here to see the compiled list of all the comments.

The attention will now turn to putting together an action plan with the help of the parish, district and county councils. Andrew Johnson, who led the appraisal, quoted one famous former Oxfordshire resident by saying ‘this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning’!