As you are aware it is coming up to the beginning of my third year as chairman and I hope I have helped navigate us through covid even with so much still to learn and take in. Having been pleased that at last we found someone to take on the petanque court and re start the club it was a blow to have such a short season before covid. Despite this, thanks to the ECA (who strictly speaking are the umbrella group for petanque) we have managed to access more funding for court restoration and David Wakefield is organising the work.
After our initial disappointment over grants from NFDC for closure we secured several grants and restart funding which I believe will see us through to being fully open again and hopefully once again self funding. We’ve lost some groups but gained some others including private hire.. We have had many new enquiries as a result of Pennington hall closing and others putting up their rates. Sadly a lot of these are not for time slots we have available but it seems there’s a large demand for venues post covid and it would be irresponsible not to take any we are able to accommodate in order to be financially responsible. We have managed to rent the garage to Milford Youth football who lease the field from the parish council.
Children and petty vandalism seem to be an ongoing issue, since lockdown eased we have seen more mindless vandalism to fences, littering/smashed bottles, and drug dealing in the car park and Greenmead Avenue entrance.
The redecoration plan was put on hold and is now rescheduled for October alongside a refit of fittings in the toilets by happy chance this meant we didn’t have to worry about damage to finishes caused by covid secure signage and prompted us to think of ways that in the future we can have signage or decorations that won’t mark or damage painted surfaces.
We have had a change of volunteers, Mel has stood down as vive chair, Alan is due to leave the village on the 27th after over 10 years on the committee, some of it as chairman before David Ironside. Jenny our treasurer has had to stand down as treasurer due to family commitments but Linda my wife has stepped in for now until we can return to normal. She’s bringing us up to date with internet banking which has become essential due to the way hirers want to pay these days but HSBC has taken over 2 months to mismanage the entire transition without a satisfactory conclusion. Our thanks go to all, especially Alan who has pitched in wherever necessary without question.
Toby Sears