08/12/2020
DAMERHAM VILLAGE HALL
CHAIRMAN’S ANNUAL REPORT NOVEMBER 2020
I don’t need to tell you that this has been a very strange year for all of us and an incredibly quiet one for the village hall. It is the first time in the history of our village hall, either the ‘new’ or the old one, that it has stood unused for months on end. As I write it is once again closed. Hopefully only for the month of November.
The covid pandemic has meant we have not been able to host any of the annual village events.
It seems an age away, but we did have the Christmas Get Together back in December 2019, we are eternally grateful to the Sherwood and Bouskill families for so kindly donating our Christmas trees every year. It is so sad that we are unable to hold this popular event this year but we will be decorating the hall windows and hopefully there some will be lights outside too.
We managed two Jumble sales early in the year, one for Tea & Chat & one for village hall. Our thanks to Cathy and her helpers. The Potato day was just squeezed in a few days before the lockdown started in March and has become an extremely popular annual event. During September and October, we were able to host Pilates and Badminton with reduced attendees, but these sessions are also currently on hold.
We have received, this year a donation from the Coffee Pot. We also received £500 in the form of a grant from the Parish Council. Our grateful thanks.
A new concrete path was laid on the south side of the hall, the fencing outside the committee room replaced and the clock tower received a much needed make over. Thank you to M.J Parker Bldrs but especially to Jack for the excellent work carried out. We are indebted to Harvey Cracknell who very generously donated all the timber for the new fencing and gates and to Eddie Robbins who supplied all the metal work for the job. We have also replaced the larder fridge in the kitchen.
All the planned weddings were of course cancelled this year but ten have been rebooked for 2021.
Sharon our Secretary, Sarah Holt our treasurer have continued in their roles and of course Mike has continued looking after the hall and its surroundings. Thank you to them and to all the committee members.
We are not able to hold our Annual General Meeting in November, but we hope to reschedule as soon as we are able.
We managed to secure the NFDC Business Support Grant at the beginning of lockdown which meant we were able to continue with our aforementioned improvements.
I do hope we can all have an enjoyable if somewhat muted Christmas and hopefully 2021 will bring a covid vaccine and we can move forward with many of the events which have been suggested thanks to ‘Think for Damerham’. So we think positively for the future!
Carolyn Armitage (Chair)
