The Village Halls Centenary

Alumni

1st. November 2021, at South Luffenham Village Hall

The programme of events is shown on the left here (click to open in a new browser tab) and you can watch the proceedings in the videos below.

Presenter notes and transcripts are also available in OUR LIBRARY

As It Happened

Here are the individual contributions from the day:

Galleries

Here’s a selection of photographs from the day. The photographers were Martin Beaton and Paul Dixon:

The Hall

The Presenters

Groups

Tea & Cake

The Conversation

The event was live broadcast on Facebook and we had a lively chat there during the proceedings. Participants included: Helen Akiyama, Alison Brown (Cambs), Nora Corkery (Devon), Cliff Andrews (Beds), Rural Community Action Nottinghamshire, Gemma Ccb Pearce (Berks), Connecting Communities (Berks), Paula Batchelor (Lincs), Janice McColm (Tees Valley) Louise Curry (Northumberland), Adrian Hinchcliffe (Longhouton), Nicola Woodhouse (Staffs), and The Village Halls Podcast (https://thevillagehallspodcast.com/)

Below there are some highlights of all the conversations we’ve been having around the event. We’d love to hear more from people about what the Village Halls Centenary Event meant, what stood out or really helped. Or else who you ran into from way back, or who you met face to face for the first time?

From Michael Dower

Michael Dower took time out to send us a comment during the tea break:

“Thankyou for a lively and moving event, with mention of so many great actors whom I knew, Patrick Abercrombie, Jack Longland, Stafford Cripps and John Cripps. My grandfather Charles Trevelyan funded the Village Hall in Cambo, Northumberland, and gave it to the local community. Sir Toby Weaver, son of Lawrence Weaver, was my uncle. It is great to see my friends David Clark , Louise Beaton and Deborah Clarke in action. I salute all village hall committees and volunteers.”

Michael Dower

With this thoughtful reply from David Francis a little later:

“The Dower/Trevelyan dynasty has made a valued and significant contribution to rural life, locally and nationally. Thank-you Michael”

David Francis

Some Thank Yous, and a word from South Luffenham

“Thanks for a great and enjoyable session. Well done to all involved. Makes you proud to be part of such a vital network of support.”

Alison Brown

“Hello from Quatt Village Hall .. What a great get together and fab looking cake .. Thank you for all the support through this period .. we couldn’t have done it without you (Deborah) and Shropshire RCC (Graham). .. See you for village hall week next week.”

Quatt Village-Hall

“…if you go on our FB page – South Luffenham Village Hall – there are photos – not quite the same but we’re very proud of our hall ☺️”

Tracy Steward (South Luffenham Village Hall)

And we are very proud to have been hosted there – Many thanks South Luffenham!

A personal Reflection from Peter Newell

“I was very pleased to be able via Zoom to share in this centenary event. All the presentations were excellent.  David Clark’s coverage of the history of the Village Halls Service was particularly apposite. This made me recall my own days as the Village Hall Adviser in Wiltshire (1968 – 73) when I was thrown into this whole new world of rural community development. The Village Hall work provided a wonderful insight into such a wealth of village community life – an excellent way to learn about the county and individual villages, albeit often on very dark Winter evenings!  This stood me in very good stead for my subsequent work in the county. With the invaluable support of the Village Hall support team at the then National Council of Social Service, I always felt part of something much larger and very important, both locally and nationally. This was enhanced by the annual county village hall conferences which we initiated at that time and which were always very well attended with seventy or eighty attendees.”

Peter Newell, 14/11/2021

Let’s capture tomorrow’s history today! Your thoughts can be added as a comment (below) or else you can e-mail the alumni group at alumni@acre.org.uk