Beckley & Area Community Benefit society Limited (BACBS)

The Abingdon Arms

The Abingdon Arms is fully open after a very long wait! Again, many thanks to Suzy, Alex and team for staying the course and making sure that the Abingdon Arms is again a welcoming focus in the village. Despite the last five weeks having to be outside, the pub has been busy with lots of diners and drinkers, braving the cold weather under canvas! The menu remains innovative and varied (https://www.theabingdonarms.co.uk/menus ). In addition, they are still offering picnic baskets for consumption in their garden or elsewhere. We look forward to a fantastic summer of lazy afternoons in the pub and its garden. We are currently investigating ideas and quotes for wheelchair access to the garden from the car park, so everyone can enjoy this amenity.

The COVID rules currently are:

• Groups of six, or two households/bubbles of any size, can meet indoors, table service only. Remain seated and wear a mask when entering or leaving or going to the toilet. Social distancing of 1 metre still currently in place.

• Outside – groups seated outside may have up to 30 people.

• Every customer aged 16 and over must check in with NHS test and trace or provide contact details.

• Takeaway pints allowed.

More than a Pub Programme - https://bacbs.org/events

May 17th onwards, we hope, sees the return of live, indoor events in the pub. We are very excited about that, though appreciate some may still be a little nervous of crowds indoors. So the talks will also still take place on Zoom, although we strongly encourage those that can to support the events in person – for the sake of the speakers, our social wellbeing, and of course because we want to support the pub in every way we can.

The Abingdon Arms Pub Quiz

We are deeply grateful to Andreea Melania of Woodeaton who took the initiative to organise Zoom quizzes during the pandemic and ran most of them herself. It was a huge amount of work – and huge fun for its many participants. Thank you, Andreea.

On Wednesday June 2nd at 7.30 pm the quiz will be back home in the pub, generously hosted by Peter Burt, and will continue regularly on the first Wednesday of every month. Suzy has kindly reserved the whole bar area for the quiz, but as we are only allowed a maximum of six people, seated, per table, you will need to arrive in good time to secure your place. First come, first served!

Sunday evening talks

If you would like to watch previous Sunday evening talks, please email If you would like to watch previous Sunday evening talks, please email info@bacbs.org with your request.

Last month’s talk, 'Saving Elephants in West Africa' was delivered by Dr Susan Canney, a Research Associate at Oxford University's Department of Zoology and Director of the Mali Elephant Project. Susan spoke about her work with desert-adapted elephants in the Sahel of Mali, threatened by vanishing food and water resources and by increasing human contact, including poaching. She explained how discussion of the elephants' plight with local people, and with the more distant owners of vast cattle herds competing with the elephants for water and destructive of their habitat, has resulted in environmental protection, new employment, and effective monitoring and protection of the elephants by local people.

Susan stated that her principal aim is to find ways in which humans and nature can thrive together and it seemed evident from her talk that her imaginative, sensitive, persistent leadership is bearing fruit, along with a great talent for raising money for the project.

Upcoming talks

About Jenga. Sunday June 27th 6:30 pm A talk by Leslie Scott, designer of Jenga and many other games.

Leslie Scott was born and raised in Africa, and educated in Kenya, Sierra Leone, and England. One of the world’s few professional board game designers, she is the creator of the blockbuster game Jenga and a founder-director of Oxford Games Ltd. When not based at the Mpala Research Centre, a 50,000-acre wildlife conservancy in northern Kenya, Scott and her zoologist husband live on their own small wildlife haven, a 100-acre farm on edge of Otmoor.

Marlborough's Blenheim Campaign of 1704. Sunday July 11th 6:30 pm A talk by Tim King, retired soldier of 30 years’ service and serious mountaineer, and resident of Beckley. At Sandhurst, cadets were taught military history as a way of making them understand the basic principles of warfare. Those early years started a life-long interest in military history and the psychology of military command.

When the childless Carlos II of Spain died in 1700, The ‘Sun King’, Louis XIV had to decide whether to accept the throne of Spain and its possessions for his grandson Philip or allow the Austrian empire to have it instead. Either option would upset the balance of power in Europe, so war followed immediately.

The War of the Spanish Succession lasted from 1701 to 1714. It pitted France and Spain against The Grand Alliance that included England, Austria and Holland. Louis XIV’s armies were huge and hard to beat. The campaign of 1704 that culminated in the Battle of Blenheim and the story of how two men proved that the French were not invincible.

There will be no pub talk in August, but we will resume with talks by two Horton-cum-Studley residents: the painter and sculptor Nicholas Mynheer in September, and Susan Burge on ‘Plants, magic, and medicine’ in October.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING POINT AT THE ABINGDON ARMS

The EV charger in the pub car park has been installed and is available for use. To use it you need first to download the Vendelectric app for your phone (https://vendelectric.com/app) and then payment can be made by credit/debit card.