🎸 Win Tickets to The Story of Guitar Heroes

Good morning, Wycombe!

We’ve reached that point in September where I’m researching Halloween costumes (K-Pop themed 😑), and working out if it’ll be warm enough for a final summer BBQ on Saturday.

Of course it will. Hot dogs conquer all.

Big week in Wycombe:

🍻 Oktoberfest kicks off
🖼️ Painting class on the High Street
🎸 4 tickets up for grabs for The Story of Guitar Heroes

Plus the opening of Wingstop, a brand new art exhibition, pottery studio launch, a free yoga for anxiety course, and the 3 Peaks Challenge.

🎨 Figured Out — Free Exhibition by Two Wycombe Artists 🖼️

Tessa Taylor and Hannah Lyn both live and make art right here in High Wycombe, and their brand new exhibition puts the town’s people and places front and centre.

The work is both observational and personal — an invitation to see our town through someone else’s eyes for a while.

🖼️ Impressionistic oil paintings by Tessa, inspired by childhood memories, nature and everyday moments
🎨 Gouache paintings by Hannah, exploring natural forms, open spaces and light

Opens Saturday and free to visit all week.

📍 We Make Wycombe, 1-2 Cornmarket (next to Costa)
📅 Sat 19 & Sun 20 Sept, 1-4pm | Tue 22 Sept, 2-4pm | Wed 23-Sat 26, 11am-4pm | Sun 27 Sept, 11am-1pm
📻 Hear Hannah and Tessa on Wycombe Sound, 12-1pm tomorrow

There’s also a drop-in map-making workshop alongside the exhibition, Tues 22 to Sun 27 — all ages and families are welcome to come and explore making with mixed media, inspired by historical and modern maps of the town 🗺️

Homegrown culture, made right here in Wycombe.

👉 See the full details

Editor’s Highlights

🍺 Oktoberfest

📍 The Walled Garden | 🗓️ Sat 19th – Sun 20th Sep, 12pm–5pm
A family-friendly Bavarian bash with German sausages, beers, live music (2–4pm) and face painting.

🪓 Bronze Axe Casting Workshop 

📍 Wycombe Museum | 🗓️ Sun 20th Sept, 10:30am 
Go back to the Bronze Age and cast your own solid bronze axe head — choose from three styles, including the one used by Ötzi the Iceman. Watch a live pour at 1,000°C, then break, quench, clean and polish your own to take home.

🔥 English Wine, Fire & Fish 

📍 Peterley Manor Farm | 🗓️ Fri 18th September, 7pm 
A relaxed evening of fire-cooked seafood and English wine — seasonal small plates paired with five wines.

🥾 Chilterns 3 Peaks Challenge 

📍 Princes Risborough School | 🗓️ Sun 20 Sep 
Choose a 7, 10.5 or 18.5-mile route through the Chiltern Hills, family and dog-friendly, in aid of Rennie Grove Peace Hospice Care.

Wellness Moments

🔮 Autumn Equinox: Create Your Own Oracle Deck 
📍 Whiteleaf Yurt, Great Missenden | 🗓️ Sat 19th Sept, 10am–5pm 
A full-day equinox immersion of shamanic sound, forest bathing and guided making — you'll leave with your own handmade seasonal oracle deck.

🧘🏻‍♀️ Yoga for Anxiety – Free 6-Week Course
📍 Central High Wycombe | 🗓️ Starts Fri 18th Sept, 6pm 
A free, beginner-friendly yoga course for 13–18 year-olds run by YES Wycombe, aimed at easing anxiety in a small, supportive group. Spaces are limited — register here or email [email protected].

💻 Neo Agency - Wycombe-Built Websites That Work 🚀

Neo is High Wycombe’s very own web design agency, building sites that perform, rank, and keep working long after launch.

⚡️ Full design & build, maintenance, security and SEO - all under one roof
📈 Packages that scale for startups to established businesses
🕐 Questions answered in 15-minutes via their support hub
🚨 Emergency? Their 24-hour WhatsApp goes straight to a real developer
🔍 SEO built for Google and AI search

Don’t just take our word for it - Neo built a new site and online shop for The Front Room Coffee Lounge:

Your website should be selling for you while you sleep. Neo makes sure it does.

👉 Get your free quote

Get Creative

🎨 High Wycombe Painting Club – Outdoor Painting Session
📍 High Street | 🗓️ Sat 19th Sept, 12pm–2pm 
Grab a brush and join the second High Wycombe Painting Club session — no experience needed. £10pp, all materials included.

🪡 Introduction to English Paper Piecing (EPP)
📍 Refresh Shop, 16 Church Street | 🗓️ Sat 19th Sept, 10:30am 
Discover this traditional hand-stitching technique, where fabric is wrapped around small paper shapes and stitched together into patchwork designs.

🏺 Pot Painting 
📍 The Front Room | 🗓️ Sun 20 Sep, drop-in11am-3pm
All materials provided. On your own or with friends.

Entertainment

💿 Vintage Vinyl & Pre-Loved Pop-Up 
📍 The Front Room | 🗓️ Sat 19 Sep, 10am–4pm 
A day of browsing vintage vinyl and pre-loved finds.

☕ Speciality Coffee & Chocolate Tasting Evening 
📍 Peterley Manor Farm | 📅 Fri 18th Sep, 6:30pm 
A guided coffee cupping with Origin Coffee paired with hand-crafted chocolates from local chocolatiers Rumsey's — plus an espresso martini and a take-home choc selection.

🎵 Motown Night with DJ Becky
📍 JB's Bar | 🗓️ Fri 18th Sep, 8pm–midnight
A free Motown night with DJ Becky spinning the classics.

🎸 WIN Tickets to The Story of Guitar Heroes 🎸

Five decades of guitar legends, 35 authentic guitars, one night at the Swan — and we've got two pairs of tickets to give away this week.

🎶 The UK's No.1 guitar anthems show, back for its 10th Anniversary Tour
🎸 Hits from Hank Marvin, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Brian May, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Slash and more
📍 Wycombe Swan
📅 Sunday 11 October 2026, 7.30pm
🎟️ 2 pairs of tickets up for grabs — 2 lucky winners

How to enter: Reply to this email with your full name by Wednesday 23rd September. Winners are picked at random and notified by email — if no response by Sunday 27 September, we'll redraw.

👉 Enter the giveaway — just reply to this email
🎫 Or book tickets now 

🔎 Family Fun Finder

⛪️ Lighthouse Live
📍 St Michaels Church, Hughenden | 🗓️ Sun 20 Sept, 3pm
A free monthly event for children and their families with fun, games and a shared tea.

🛝 Playtrain SEND Session
📍 Playtrain | 🗓️ Mon 21st Sept, 3:30pm 
A relaxed play session for children with special educational needs and disabilities, their families and carers.

☕ Family Catch-up Café 
📍 St Anne's Church, London Road | 🗓️ Sat 19 Sep, 10am–12pm
A free drop-in morning for all the family — toys, stories, craft activities, tea and cake. No booking needed.

🤱 Bucks Joyful Mamas – Parent Cafe 
📍 High Wycombe Library | 🗓️ Today, 10:30am–12pm
A free drop-in cafe for expecting and new mums (and those trying to become mums) — grab a cuppa and have your say on what support your community needs.

🪵 KraftinWood's Closing Down Sale Continues 🪵

Robert Bishop has spent 25+ years turning native and exotic woods into one-off pieces. He's a Registered Professional Turner and ready to retire — but everything in the gallery has to go first.

Everything is reduced.

🪵 Hundreds of wooden bowls, hollow forms and vases with liners, in a range of woods, shapes and sizes
🎨 Original artwork in oil, watercolour, resin and ink
🐦 Mounted wildlife photography and Raku-fired ceramics
📍 Kraft Village, Grafton Street, HP12 3AJ
🗓️ Mon, Tue, Fri & Sat 9am–5pm | Sun 12–5pm (closed Wed & Thu)
🅿️ Free parking on site

Every piece is one-off — once it's sold, that grain and shape won't come round again. Once Robert's cleared the shelves, that's it.

👉 Visit their website

Council Catch-up

🏛️ Who decides your planning application is changing, noted by Full Council, Weds 16th September — From 31st October the government's National Scheme of Delegation hands most routine applications, including householder extensions, to planning officers alone, and scraps the call-in power of ward councillors, town and parish councils. Councillors objected across party lines but had no power to refuse. Planning committees are holding extra meetings before then to hear call-ins already in the system. Wycombe's cases go to the West Buckinghamshire Area Planning Committee.

🗺️ Over 8,500 responses to the new Local Plan: The main Regulation 19 consultation has closed. Cabinet member for planning Peter Strachan said in Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting that every response will get a reply.

💷 Have your say on next year's council tax: Bucks’ budget consultation is open until 11.59pm on 18th October. Of every £100 the council spends, £39 goes on adult social care, £21 on children's social care and £15 on roads and transport — useful context next time someone asks why the potholes aren't done.

🏗️ Of note in the planning inbox: 

• Oakridge Baptist Church applied to demolish its Oakridge Road building and replace it with a three/four-storey block — a new church below, 22 affordable studio flats above.

• Approved: permission in principle for six homes behind 83–93 Mayhew Crescent.

• The former Chiltern Taps on Oxford Road has permission to become a co-working space.

🏥 Another £25m for the Wycombe Hospital rebuild: The government has put a further £25 million in, taking the total to £45 million. The new six-storey building will house cardiology, stroke and theatre services plus a bigger endoscopy unit. Groundworks should be finished by the end of the year, with the steel frame next. Funding for the phases beyond this one still isn't settled.

🌳 A Traveller site goes to committee: Officers are recommending approval for four pitches on Green Belt land at Ladys Mile, Kingshill Road. A petition against it has 671 signatures, though the report finds that policy allows Gypsy and Traveller sites in the Green Belt where unmet need is evidenced. West Bucks planning committee decides on 23rd September.

🏠 Have your say on homelessness and rough sleeping: The council's consultation runs until 25th October, with a drop-in in Wycombe on Wednesday 23rd September.

Sports & Activities

⛳️ Ladies TRY GOLF Day
📍 Hazlemere Golf Club | 🗓️ Sat 19th Sept, 1pm 
A taster session for women and girls curious about golf - all equipment provided.

Community Notes

📚 Donate your old books to Scannappeal Got good-quality adult or children's books gathering dust? Drop them at the bookshop in Wycombe Hospital — every sale goes towards funding life-saving medical equipment. Open daily 8am–7pm.

🌍 Recycle Week 2026 – Make Your Vote Count 
📍 Eden, next to Customer Service | 🗓️ Fri 18th Sept, from 11am 
Vote for your favourite local environmental charity — Grow Together Bucks, Chiltern Rangers' Wye Project or Refresh — with the winner scooping a £500 donation. Scan the QR code while you're there for a chance at a £50 shopping voucher too.

The Wycombe Wordle

Six guesses. Five letters. One Wycombe connection. Let me know if you get it!

🟩 Right letter, right spot
🟨 Right letter, wrong spot
⬜ Not in the word

👉 [Play here]

That’s a wrap for this week’s Pulse!

Have a fabulous weekend — but before you dash…

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See you next Thursday,
Steph