July 1998 - Editorial

IMPROVEMENTS TO THE VILLAGE HALL

We are always looking to make improvements to the Village Hall and this year is no exception. We have a few plans to smarten it up and make sure we keep this valuable asset in first class condition.

There are two painting projects, which may have been completed by the time this newsletter is produced and distributed around the village. The first is the next phase of the regular internal painting schedule we have developed. This time it is the Marigold Room’s turn to be refreshed. It is a few years since it was built and the time is just about right to fill in the plaster cracks and repaint the room. This should have been completed during the quiet summer period, making it ready for the new booking year, which starts in September.

The second painting project is the exterior of the Hall. This is a job which is only done every few years and, as it is some years since it was last painted, we felt it was important that it was done again this year. It will involve the woodwork below the roof and the doors and windows being treated with protective paint, and we hope it will last us for another few years. This job can be scheduled any time before the winter sets in, providing we have enough dry weather for the painting to be done.

The floor in the main hall inside the Village Hall is to be examined again this summer. We arranged for a new surface to be put down last year during the summer break, and, to maintain the quality of the floor, it will be monitored again to see if another protective coating would be worthwhile to produce a longer lasting surface.

Outside the Hall, the car park is to be spruced up by overpainting the parking lines with new paint. This will improve the looks of the car park, and make it easier to see where you are parking. It will also set off the Village Hall better, and generally improve the centre of the village.

The disabled parking space near to the Hall entrance will also be picked out by means of yellow lines hatched across the parking space. This is a larger parking space, which was placed deliberately next to a ramp from the car park to the footpath that leads to the Hall’s main entrance. This should only be used by cars with legal disabled parking permits and should not be used by anyone else. We are all able to walk a few more steps from any of the other spaces. But for a disabled person, it is considerably more effort to move the greater distance, from another parking space and they need to be able to use the ramp to gain access to the footpath up to the Hall entrance.

We are hoping that we can successfully provide new letters for a new Village Hall sign. We have been frustrated in our attempts to have this done for some time now, but we hope the letters will soon be finished and the new sign put up. We are having them made locally and, as soon as they are available, we will arrange a volunteer session to put them up on the wall.

If you have any other suggestions for improving the hall, please let me know. As I mentioned earlier, we are always looking to making improvements and we will be pleased to consider any ideas you may have. I can be contacted on 300185.

DON’T FORGET…..

…..the annual Sutton Six and Fun Runs will take place again this year on Sunday 20th September in and around the village. It will also involve the Village Hall, as usual, as all the runs will finish in the Hall car park and the Hall will be used for refreshments and for other facilities.

The personnel organising the runs will be the same as usual, but the names have changed. CEPAC (Chester and Ellesmere Port Athletic Club), who have organised the runs for the last few years, have merged with Whitby Heath Athletic Club, and called the new club West Cheshire AC.

The race has this year been included for the first time, in the Cheshire 10K Championships, and West Cheshire are hoping that this year’s race will have a bigger turnout than ever. In addition to the main race, there will also be an Open Fun Run, which anyone aged seven years or over can enter.

So we look forward to welcoming our old friends now from Whitby Heath AC.

INTERNET

How many of you are interested in the Internet? How many of you know what on earth it is? How many people in the village do a nightly or weekly trawl through the World Wide Web?

What do you think of a web page for the village, or the Village Hall, or for your activity group, giving you the opportunity to tell the world (literally) what you are doing and inviting them to join you? Could we all come together and provide one for the village with secondary pages for the activity groups, facilities, perhaps including businesses, places of interest and local history - a sort of on-line Village Guide? Could Guilden Sutton be the first to do this and link into the IT equipment promised for all schools as we move towards the Millennium? Could this be something that we would want to set up as part of the Millennium project?

I have contacted a couple of sources and there are pages already set up by Chester City Council and Cheshire County Council, which we may be able to latch onto and use existing facilities. On the other hand, you may be an expert in this sort of thing, or be looking to set up a project for this, and would be happy to involve the village in it. If so, please contact me on 300185.

HALL BOOKING ARRANGEMENTS

If you would like to book the Village Hall for an event, please contact Judith or Alan on 301835, on a Monday or Thursday evening between 7pm and 8pm.