A very successful year for the Hall
At the Annual Parish meeting held on 11 April, the Hall committee presented their report for the year. It has been an excellent year for the Hall with the committee pulling together to secure funding for some substantial improvements and some new trustees joining to launch a whole series of social events that have provided some great entertainment and raised money! Going forward the committee has further plans for improvements and events at the hall as well as completing the Heritage project with a dynamic video which we look forward to sharing with the community on our new projector!
"The village hall has had a busy year as it tried to attract new business and carry out renovation work following 18 months of disruption because of Covid.
In June, the Hall succeeded in winning a grant of just under £7000 from the National Lottery to set up a Heritage centre in the Hall. This was a joint application done with the village’s heritage group. Having received it, the Portakabin has been renovated to turn it into the hub for the heritage centre and a range of wall materials for the Portakabin and Hall commissioned. The centre is now open three mornings a week for anyone interested in the parish’s history or wanting to trace their roots. The village school has also been bringing classes to the hall to learn about local history. Angela Weatherill deserves a huge thank you for all her hard work in bringing this project to fruition.
In the hall, a newly established entertainments committee has been set up to organise a monthly event to bring in more people to the hall and to build up our profile in the area. So far we have seen pig racing nights, band nights and quiz nights. A murder mystery evening is planned for later this month and there are more bands books in the months ahead so please come along. All events have had good attendances and there have been great takings at the bar. Many thanks to Rob Poole, Angela Birkby and Christina Howitt for their organising and please do come along. You will have fun!
On the subject of events, the Village Hall has also just received a £400 grant from Breckland Council to put on a Coronation event. We are planning a right royal knees up on the Sunday afternoon of May 7, the day after the Coronation, with plenty of bunting, food and the bar open. Admission is free but will be ticketed so we can control numbers and amount of food bought.
Beyond these one-off events, we have regular clubs coming in such as yoga, creative and dancing. The bar is open on Friday evenings and every other Sunday and we have a very successful café on Wednesdays. A big thank you to Angela Birkby and Alan Willer for putting in such hard work to organise these and tend the bar.
To try to improve the hall and bring in more people, renovation work is going on to update the hall. This is an uphill task as we are not funded by parish taxpayer’s money unlike the Community Hub. At present, rewiring work is progressing and we have just installed a new projector and screen and hope to add to this with speakers in the not too distant future. This will allow for a better sound system and we hope will lead to the setting up of a film club or at least film evenings. While we carried out major renovation work before the pandemic to rebuild the kitchen/toilet and bar area, the main corrugated roof on the hall needs work to do as it is old and lacks insulation. We are currently getting quotes for replacing and then will be seeking more grants to try to pay for the renovation.
Finally, if anyone has a club or an event that they would like to hold at the Hall, we would be delighted to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook or carbrookevillagehall.co.uk.
