Report to the Annual General Meeting by Katie Lindenbaum - Chair of the Old Village Hall Trustees

I am pleased to see you all here this evening and to welcome you to the Old Village Hall Annual General Meeting and present my report on a very positive and active year.

It began last May with the offer of a grant from The Big Lottery Community Fund of £264,000; the culmination of a protracted 2-stage application. It was the best news we could have had and brought with t the certainty that Old would one day have a new hall and changing rooms.

The reality gradually sank in as over the coming weeks milestones were established, targets set and contracts signed. I still occasionally and with incredulity, check the number of ‘noughts’ on the grant offer to make sure it really is over a quarter of a million pounds!

With monies already raised, we now had £330,000 towards the new hall. However we still needed to make progress towards providing the match funding from the sale of the old hall site and planning permission continued to be elusive. However new planning officials at Daventry District Council brought greater openness and co-operation, assisted in this process by the planning department at Berry Bros. land agents, Kettering. Eventually, in the New Year our architect, Peter Timlen, obtained planning permission for three houses on the site. The tree preservation order on the beech tree was lifted with the provision that this was to be replaced by another species on the triangle of land behind the War Memorial, which the planners considered to be in the public domain, rather than on the site of the new hall.

The old site was put on the market in early March with a guide value of £300,000. Although there has been quite a lot of interest, no-one has as yet made us an offer. Like so many, we are caught in the downturn in the property business. No one said it would be easy and we can now only be patient, hoping that the right person will come along.

In the meantime, we continue to apply for additional funding to close the gap. We were awarded £3,120 from the Grass Roots Fund towards the extension car park and £2000 from the Garfield Weston Foundation. Other applications amounting to £50,000 are pending the results of which will come through later this summer.

Turning to the new hall, planning permission for the revised plans was renewed last summer. We appointed a Project Manager to work with our Architect. Detailed plans are underway which will form the basis of a bill of quantities and the building tender process can be initiated.

We continue to run events and services in the old hall. The short-mat bowls and cycle clubs are as always, our most regular hall users. We had a very good audience for ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ produced by New Perspectives Theatre last December and were pleased with the support for our first film show from Central Screens, Leicester of ‘Mamma Mia’. We would like film screenings to become a regular fixture in the new hall, a moderately priced ‘cinema’ within walking distance of many.

Fund raising events included the summer pig-roast, Pimms and jazz evening. The annual wine tasting and supper last September, bonfire and fireworks in November, race night in January and spring dance with ceilidh in March.

I hope you all found something to take part in and enjoy and would like to say thank you most sincerely to many villagers for their staunch support for all these events.

I hope you already have in your diary the date of the Summer Pig Roast , with Latin American group supported by Northants Touring Arts on Saturday June 27^th. Tickets are already on sale.

I would now like to thank my fellow trustees for all their unstinting hard work throughout the year; to Katie Summers for her huge support as Vice-Chair and Secretary, Margaret Gill who patiently continues to look after the hall bookings, Anne-Marie Cook who, as treasurer keeps our accounts on the straight and narrow. And thanks to everyone for typing, managing the website, advice on building and design and running so many functions , cooking clearing up, selling tickets and for their cheerful hard work.

It has been 10 years since the project to build a new hall began in 1999. I hope that this Autumn will the first foundation being laid and the fulfilment of a dream.

Thank you.