news in brief

Spittal Scouts tour lifeboat station

SCOUTS from 2nd Berwick-upon-Tweed (Spittal) recently came along to Berwick lifeboat station to learn about the vital voluntary role of Berwick RNLI in saving lives at sea.

Scout leader James Munro brought the youngsters along to the boat house to raise awareness of the roles of the emergency services and the work they carry out in saving lives, such as the RNLI at sea.

After a tour around the station the Scouts boarded the all-weather lifeboat where they received a talk and demonstration by mechanic Phil Patterson.

Computer scam warning issued

NORTHUMBERLAND Trading Standards are warning residents that a computer scam is still going on.

Fraudsters claim they have identified a fault with a consumer’s computer. The computer users receives a call from companies, often based abroad, saying they have been made aware of the problem by the computer’s operating system.

They offer to repair this by accessing the computer remotely which can lead to disclosure of personal passwords and other security protection.

County’s roads compared in survey

The public’s views on Northumberland’s highways and transport services will soon be compared with others across England, thanks to the National Highways and Transport Public Satisfaction survey.

Northumberland County Council is one of nearly 70 local authorities to sign up to a standardised survey that will ask members of the public exactly the same questions, whether they live in Rothbury, Reading or Rotherham.

The survey, which is being run for the fourth year, is the result of months of hard work between the National Highways & Transport Network (NHT) and regional Highways Service Improvement Groups. It enables local authorities to compare results, share in best practice and identify opportunities to work together in the future.

The questionnaire will be sent to a minimum random sample of 4500 Northumberland residents in July.

Electric car charger at Haggerston park

Haggerston Castle is to be the first holiday centre in the UK to benefit from a quick charge point for use by the ever increasing number of electrically powered vehicles on the roads.

The new unit, to be unveiled today (Thursday) means it will be possible to travel from Newcastle to Edinburgh, re-charging at the holiday park, which is conveniently located next to the A1.

It is part of the ‘Plugged-In Places’ initiative to establish electric vehicle recharging points in key strategic locations.

Paid Online Surveys : Frugal Mom

We receive a lot of emails from people asking us about Survey Scout.  FrugalMom can no longer recommend Survey Scout .  When we originally reviewed this program several years ago, it was what it claimed to be.  We signed up and used the program before recommending it.  Today the quality of the companies that they promote seems to have gone downhill.  I know that one of the concerns that many people have is wondering if Survey Scout is a scam. that are not rip off’s or scams.  I have a small listing of good online survey companies here on Frugal Mom (see below), however, there are many, many more out there, many of them are scams or disappointing at best.  It takes work and research to find reputable online survey companies, but its a lot easier to find the scams, rip off’s and spam sites. We’ve included our top picks of survey companies that are not scams, below. There are free online survey companies and paid. Some folks are against paid survey companies, others recognize that some of those paid companies offer substantial added value for a one-time fee.  We fall into the latter camp, although being cheap (I mean frugal) we tend to look harder at the ones that don’t require money.  That said, out time is valuable and there are companies that have done the work and give you a great deal of benefit for the fee.   Two In researching this paid online survey company the terms “ultimate reference”, “premium source”, “most authoritative site” and others just kinda jumped out at us!. This site doesn’t promise anything others don’t, they just seem to deliver. And if you don’t like the product, they really give you your money back (good luck on that with many of the others). They offer a free 8-day course on how to make money with online surveys by email, which is really great if you are just getting started in the business. “  Important message: You won’t get rich with paid surveys and mystery shopper jobs. I don’t want to give you false hope. If you are looking for a way to become a millionaire overnight filling out online surveys, this website isn’t for you. But… If you give it a minimum amount of time and work to get on track, you will develop a handsome stream of income like I did Another very reputable site is Cash Surveys Only.  We like the word picture that “Cash Surveys” creates (cash is good!