June 1999 - Editorial

NEW FOOTBALL PITCH?

How about doing away with the Village Hall car park, and replacing it with an all-weather football pitch, with a large fence all round to protect neighbouring property?

This is one of a number of suggestions that have been made to the committees running the Hall, as the next stage in the development of it. Various other ideas put forward were, to build an extension to house another badminton court, to add on another bay to the existing building for a permanent stage, or a play area at the side of the Hall for the young children who go to pre-school there now.

Any other ideas? Now is the time to put your proposal forward. The Community Association, at its Annual General Meeting, at the end of May, agreed to consider these suggestions, and any others that people feel would be worthwhile improvements that could be made to the Hall.

The Association will discuss and evaluate proposals, and give people the opportunity to have their say. If you have ideas, you will need to put them forward as soon as possible. This magazine is widely distributed around the village and is ideal to let people know what is happening, and ask them to come forward, if they have something to say.

This is obviously an early stage in the whole process, and a lot of work is still to be done. Ideas will have to be evaluated, detailed proposals made, costed options put forward, and the viability of each or all will be considered. The project selected would then have to go through a general discussion process, receive the necessary permissions, specific plans drawn up, estimates, and so on.

This year’s AGM also gave the Association the opportunity to look back at the activities that took place in the Hall over the last year. Particular thanks were made to Alan Jackson who runs the lottery in the village and looks after the hanging baskets around the Hall itself, to John Beavan who edits and manages the Marigold, and to Al Christmas and his team of helpers, who have run the village quiz for over ten years.

MAINTENANCE JOBS

This summer we will take the opportunity, as usual, to use the summer break in the Hall’s busy schedule, to arrange as many maintenance jobs as we can. There will be another cycle in the painting plan, as we decorate all the rooms between the two major halls. This means that the entrance hall, toilets, committee room, kitchen, dining room and chair store will be painted and papered..

If we can finalise arrangements in time, we would also like to resurface the floor in the Marigold Room. It may not be possible for a contractor to carry it out in the time available, but if possible it is on the ‘to do’ list.

We intend to make sure the Hall keeps its ‘Rolls Royce’ label, as one of the best village halls in the county.