Grand Harvest Opening for the Newly Refurbished Village Hall

It was tight - but opening the newly improved Village Hall for the annual Harvest Market was a magnifcent achievement for the great many people who pulled together, ground-force style, to get it ready after this Summer's latest round of improvements.

It was a spectacular event, with stalls of homemade jams from local fruit, bread and cakes, tradecraft goods from around the world and local meats and cheeses. The Hall was full for lunches and teas and children enjoyed making fruit skewers whilst their parents stocked up. Overall, the event raised around £1,100 and saw at least 150 visitors through the doors.

There had been hitches with work in the Hall over the Summer, with the inevitable delays, and there are still some outstaning bits of work to complete over the next few months. However, the Harvest weekend and a family birthday party saw the building back in action and tested out for 'snags'.

Improvement work this year focussed on the back room, toilets and kitchen. Step into the new kitchen and you will notice a very big difference! The new kitchen was designed by a group of experienced local caterers. We decided to completely replace the old units, rather than move them, gives the new facility a very modern clean feel and should mean that it stays that way well into the future.

The toilet facilities have been moved and modernised and a new private back room will, we hope, provide opportunity for new usage opportunities.

Some extra work did have to be carried out as part of Phase 2 that we hadn't anticipated,such as strengthening a beam in the kitchen roof, and this may drive the costs slighly over budget. As ever, we are very grateful to the many local people who have and continue to support the Hall's improvement programme and make personal or fundraising donations to help us meet these expenses.

A sincere 'thank you' also to those who run groups in the Hall, who have had to find alternative accomodation over the Summer.We very much hope that you will think it worthwhile as you enjoy using our new facilities!

We are still looking at upgrading the fire prevention system and are waiting for planning consent to adapt the back of the stage for RATS - which will hopefully soon be in place.

Ribchester Village Hall (and the adjacent Roman Museum) will have it's 100th anniversay in 2014. Our aim, as ever, is to ensure that the Village Hall is a warm, safe, up-to-date and welcoming venue for the whole village (and many others) to enjoy, especially in this landmark year. Bring on the celebrations!

In pictures

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