I am going to start as I always do as I feel this cannot be said enough. The aim of the management committee is to turn the village hall into a thriving community space by improving facilities and offering the parish ways of coming together. However, we realise that we cannot do this without the help and support of the local community, and so I want to begin by thanking everyone on behalf of the committee who has helped contribute to the success of the hall over the past 12 months. I am aware that many have given up their time to support it and that there is not space to mention all. But a huge thank you to everyone. The hall, like other village organisations, is run by volunteers and its success is dependent on positive community involvement.

The year has been a busy one. The entertainment committee led by Rob has been fantastic in organising some great village events. Music evenings with the help of Terry, the Christmas Bazaar and the hugely successful VE day village event was at the heart of things but new events such as Foodie Friday with Norfolk and Better’s food truck were also a big hit so expect to see more of them. Meanwhile, a number of new regular users from Jujitsu to a tutoring group have joined the Hall which is great to see.

Our efforts continue to try to improve the hall. Thanks to local volunteers who upholstered and repaired the chairs, we now have more comfortable seating in the Bar with more on its way. Outside the Hall and with the help of the Parish Council, we have put in fencing, improved the entrance and put in EV charging. The bottle bank and other bins have now finally been moved from directly outside the entrance and now gives us an opportunity to make the exterior look more attractive and install better signage. Watch this space.

The weekly coffee morning and the bar on Fridays and alternate Sundays give the community the chance to come together and so are an important feature of Village Hall life. I would like to thank Lynsey and Ivan and their helpers for running of the coffee morning and to Alan but more on him later.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped over the past 12 months and given up their free time for nothing to support the hall, and I would again particularly like to express my gratitude to the committee here. But before I finish, there are two people I would particularly like to thank as they are standing down after many years helping the hall.

The first is Debbie. Debbie has been volunteering for village organisations for almost thirty years. She helped organise the playgroup when it was based here in the village hall, she then moved to the parish council and eventually became its chair and then joined the committee of the village hall ten years ago when it was in dire financial straits. In those early days, she worked tirelessly to get the hall back on track helping with grant applications and organising events. For the last decade, she has been the Hall’s IT Queen keeping us online and the community updated and, more recently, she has been a principle user of the Hall with her very popular yoga classes. I have worked alongside Debbie on various committees for the last 20 years and cannot thank her enough for all the work she has done for the village. She will be much missed.

The other person is Alan Willer. Alan needs no introductions from me as everyone in this room has met him. He has stood behind the bar for the last ten years serving the community pints with a smile. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, he has had to make sure the pipes are clean, the fridges are working, the glasses are sparkling and, most vitally, that the beer and the all important toffee vodka are on order. All of this takes a great deal of time but Alan has done it without complaint for the last ten years. In that period, Alan also volunteered himself as caretaker of the hall and could turn his hand to pretty much anything. As someone commented on Facebook, it is going to take five people to replace Alan and the committee cannot thank him enough for all his hard work and dedication over the last decade.

Ed Buscall

Chairperson