The last 12 months have been a period of continued consolidation for Beech Village Hall.
Firstly, progress on the Hall itself has been as follows:
- As many of you may be aware, and certainly can see, we now have in place the acoustic tiles in the Main Hall and in the Bar Lounge. The feedback being that this has made a great deal of improvement to the sound levels in the hall.
- New taps in the loos.
- The noise inhibitor system is now in operation in the Main Hall.
- We now have a portable skittle alley for use at the hall or for hire.
Regarding Phase II – the upgrading of what is known as the Annexe – that being the old toilets and store room.
- The old gents is now a storage facility and the ladies is now a new unisex toilet facility. This part of the phase is yet to be completed – still requiring completion with new sanitary ware, a hand drying unit and hot water.
- The Meeting Room itself is now in use and has been used for art classes, as a play room and sundry meetings. The room does however suffer from damp and it is something that will need to be addressed in due course.
- The Recreation Ground continues to be under-used and the Management Committee awaits the outcome of the Parish Plan to see what ideas the residents have put forward to utilise this facility more.
The essential bookings needed to cover our costs have continued to be good. Beech Village Hall is now a very popular venue for regular and private bookings and many of our regular users have already taken up bookings for 2012 and in some cases wish to book 2013.
Just a reminder here that Beech residents booking the facilities for their own use receive a 25% discount off of the hourly rate (booking forms can be found on the Beech Village website), but it is advisable to get in as soon as you can. The Trustees are very keen to see more of the Village Hall used by the residents.
Our social programme throughout the year has continued to be well attended. These have included our Annual Fete and Hog Roast, quiz nights, comedy evenings, Valentines dance, jazz on the green picnic, craft fair, bonfire night, cricket tournament and the infamous Christmas parties.
The Social Evenings, held on the last Friday in the month, have continued to be very popular. Thanks here to Stella Charman who has co-ordinated the food volunteers. We do need however need more volunteers to produce the food for each evening if we are to carry on catering the event, so please let us know if you are prepared to give it a go.
Continuing with the them of ‘Your Village Hall Needs YOU’
As I mentioned in my report at last year’s AGM, with success comes new problems and here I make a plea again for help in the running of the Beech Village Hall complex. We urgently need volunteers to act as caretakers and make regular checks on the condition of the facilities. Ideally this would be daily, probably first thing, and would take between 15 and 30 minutes – reporting anything that requires attention. A rota of volunteers would be ideal.
So if you think you can help please let us know.
The Management Committee’s time and efforts is becoming more and more directed to the tasks of planning and control. It is therefore vital that our social calendar does not suffer and we need people of Beech to get more involved in the social side of Beech Village Hall.
In order to ensure that the standard and variety of the events does not diminish, a plea here for residents of Beech who feel that they could contribute some of their time, along with their ideas, to volunteer to join the Social Committee. Please let the new committee know of anyone willing to help.
All the social events can be found on the Beech village website www.beechvillage.org.uk.
It would help the organising committee enormously if we had as many residents’ e-mail addresses as possible so that we could keep the village up-to-date with what is going on. Those of you who have no objection to this please forward your e-mail address.
Many of you will be aware that as a result of our application for a new Premises Licence, forced on us as a result of the extensive alterations to the Village Hall, we had a number of conditions imposed on the Licence in order to “prevent public nuisance” when granted in May. These conditions were as a result of a number of objections to the application from neighbouring households. An appeal against these conditions has been lodged and the case will be heard in Courtroom 01 at Andover Magistrates’ Court on Monday 28th November from 10:00 am.
Examples of two of the conditions set are:
- All external doors and windows shall be closed except for access and egress, when regulated entertainment is taking place after 22:00 hours.
- No alcohol shall be consumed outdoors after 22:00 hours.
The Management Committee feel that these conditions are unjust and fail to see why they were imposed when no justified public nuisance complaints have been received since the new complex has been in operation and other neighbouring village halls, in similar environmental positions, do not have such conditions attached to their Premises Licence.
Finally I would like to thank again my Committee who have made my job as Chairman so much easier through their hard work and many of the residents of Beech for all their help and support during the year.
Peter Cox
Chairman