The Orwell Bulletin

A Prize Winning Quarterly Publication by the Orwell Parish Council

Orwell Past & Present is fortunate to have a significant source of readily available historical material in the past issues of the award winning Orwell Bulletin. Consequently, many of the articles included on this site are credited as first having 'seen the light of day' in a particular issue of the Bulletin.

The Orwell Bulletin was first published in 1976

The Orwell Bulletin was first published in 1976, at the instigation of the Orwell Parish Council, who arrange for one free copy to be delivered to each household in Orwell and Wimpole.  Additional copies may be purchased from the Editor at 55 High Street, Orwell, (when first published, at 10 pence each, but currently at £1.50).  The first edition contained eight pages, one of which advertised local businesses, but by 2012 the Bulletin had grown to seventy-two pages, including twenty pages of advertisements.

Early editions of the Bulletin were edited by an Editorial Committee set up by the Parish Council; over time that committee evolved to become a single editor, namely Peggy Miller who was the Editor for fourteen years, during which time the Bulletin became a cornerstone of village life. After a short interregnum when the Bulletin was edited by Gordon Lines and Mitch Thomson, Sue Miller (not related!) became the Editor in 1994.

'this newsletter will bring us all together'

The first edition set out, in a message from the Parish Council Chairman (C D Bullen) that the overall aim of the Bulletin was to meet the following aspiration " the Parish Council is well aware of its responsibilities in looking after the welfare and interests of the people of this Parish at all age levels, in this rapidly changing financial and social environment and we feel this newsletter will play no small part in bringing us all closer together to enjoy the natural and, in some cases, man-made amenities of this historic village of ours."

  

 

The Bulletin has won several awards during its life of over thirty years. In 1983, and again in 1988, during the editorship of Peggy Miller, it beat over forty other Cambridgeshire village publications to win First Prize in the Village & Community Magazine Competition, sponsored by Cambridge Building Society and the Cambridge Evening News.  Peggy's prize for the 1988 competition was a flight from Marshall's Airport.  

too successful, banned for three years!

In the same competition during the (ongoing) editorship of Sue Miller, the Bulletin was Highly Commended in 2003 and 2006 and won First Prize in the Small Community class in both 2007 and 2008, for which our Parish Council received a total of £1,000 in prize money. For being too successful the Bulletin was banned from the competition for three years from 2009!