Annual Parish Meeting 2023 Parish Hall Chairperson's Report
Stoodleigh Parish Hall Chairperson’s Report for Annual Parish Meeting May 23
Since the end of the Covid restrictions, the village hall has certainly come back to life and the village has enjoyed many events where villagers have been able to meet up and chat over coffee or enjoy many different events
Dog Show
Stoodleigh Family Fun Dog Show was welcomed back last August after a few years of absence due to covid. It was a joint effort with both St Margaret’s Church and parish hall working together to provide a great event. We were spoiled with beautiful weather and enjoyed seeing many visitors join us from inside and outside the village. A particular thank you goes to Jeannie Knowles for fulfilling the role of judge so expertly and to Geraldine Talbot and Penny Norman for their much needed organizational skills.
Autumn Fair
The annual Autumn fair saw a wonderful array of stall holders enticing people with their lovely produce, along with cakes and coffee, soup and hotdogs being served from the hall café! Children brought their pumpkins and had face painting and activities in which to take part. The garden club offered a lovely variety of plants etc to keep us all inspired and busy. Thank you once again to the numerous people who worked hard to bring this event about, who donated raffle prizes, or cooked up lovely food for us to serve and then helped clear up at the end.
Christmas Tree
At the start of December 2022, we enjoyed a good old singsong, mulled wine and mince pies for the ‘lighting up of the Christmas tree’ outside the village hall. This was a great way to welcome in the festive season and was enjoyed by many. A particular thank you to John and Mandy Widdowson for supplying the tree and helping to put it in situ, to the keyboard player keeping us all in tune on the night and to the ladies dishing up yummy things from the kitchen. Thank you also to Dick Sibley and Westridge Veterinary Practice for their much-appreciated support for the event. Villagers gave generous amounts of food and money at this event which we were able to donate to the Tiverton food bank and CHAT in time for Christmas.
New Kitchen
During the past year, after great consideration being given to how the hall facilities might be best improved with the amount of money available, it was decided that refurbishment of the kitchen would make it more functional and enable a wider variety of events to be offered at the hall. To this end, we met with kitchen designers and various fitters to see what might be achieved. The parish hall committee discussed the various options and a plan was finalised.
A new kitchen was installed into the parish hall kitchen during January and has brought about a remarkable improvement to the hall’s catering facilities. The project went very smoothly but was certainly not without its challenges. We have yet to purchase another commercial dishwasher to replace the rather problematic first machine. Additional equipment for the kitchen will be added in the coming months.
Spring Walk
Our village walk at the start of March, was followed by the most delicious lunch and was another great day. People and dogs joined together for an enjoyable 5 mile walk around the outskirts of Stoodleigh, expertly guided by Phil Talbot. It was great to meet up with the ‘non walkers’ for lunch and for the new kitchen to be put into action. Thank you to Phil for leading the walk and to and to everyone who contributed their wonderful cooking, time and energy to create such an enjoyable event.
Easter Fair
The Easter Fair in April saw a regular stream of visitors. Funds were raised for the hall and a great time was had. Thank you to our wonderful stallholders showing us their talent and the brilliant items they offer, the community volunteers and garden club members who helped us - on the stalls and in the kitchen. The Stoodleigh Easter Egg Rolling Competition 2023 was won by Isobel. Thanks to everyone again who worked so hard provide soup, cakes and goodies and to all the other folk involved in making this occasion so successful. Thank you to Geraldine Talbot for keeping everything so expertly organised and running smoothly.
100 Club
I would like to say a particular thank you to Christine Palfrey for her hard work during the last year in running the 100 club on behalf of the village and for helping to raise much needed funds for both the hall and for the church.
Maintenance
The exterior redecoration of the outside of the parish hall in the last year, along with new gravel to the parking area has given the hall an exterior face lift. Thanks go to Roger and Chris Hill for their hard work, very reasonable prices and supportive attitude towards the hall and committee members. Thank you also to Geraldine Talbot for overseeing this work.
I would like to thank every one for the time and effort given up to keep the hall well maintained.
Thank you
I would like to finish this report by thanking the parish hall committee for their time and efforts over the past year. In particular, I would like to thank Geraldine Talbot, our secretary (and main stay) for her continual hard work and commitment to the Parish Hall and for keeping all things running smoothly. Thank you also to Jan Russell (our treasurer) for keeping our figures and finances in order and for sticking in there when battling with energy suppliers and insurers!
We look forward to the future year in the village hall, to new ideas and input along with our regular events for villagers to enjoy.
Vivienne Menear