Is it really that long since I wrote on this blog? Shame on me!
Here, rather later than planned, is the latest instalment. We had our AGM at the end of May and ended up with a rather smaller Committee – just ten of us now. It rather put me in mind of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians. Somebody said that the reason we can’t keep/attract people is that it’s all a bit po-faced and not much fun. Point taken, but we now have a sizeable budget (take a bow, Rob!) and are an officially registered charity so we, the trustees, could be called to account by the Charity Commissioners if things go pear shaped. Since none of us fancies a visit from the CC SWAT team, we tend to take it very seriously…
Harvey Vallis, our acting chairman, gave an excellent summary of the situation in his annual report (which should be coming soon to a website near you, God and BT willing – see below), describing our achievements over the past 12 months and the challenges facing us in the coming year . Under the latter heading, we have the big question of what to do with the primary school building behind the Main Hall where Peter Faulkner has had his coracle-making business for the last 11 years or so. He’s stopping work so the building needs to find a new use. Before that, it will have to be completely refurbished so we’re getting a surveyor in to tell us what needs to be done. It’s a lovely building and it would be a shame to see it fall into rack and ruin. Any ideas what it might be used for? Let us know at leintwardinecentresecretary@gmail.com. I have noticed that there seem to be quite a few houses for sale on the High Street at the moment. Could it be that they’ve decided to reroute the Hi-speed 2 railway line through the village and haven’t told anyone? In that case, would they need a very nice little waiting room? Coffee bar? Engine shed? And while I’m on the subject, we could do with some more tenants in the offices. Do you know anybody who might be interested? If so, get in touch with the wonderful Karen Foote, a woman who is so industrious, she appears to have about 39 hours in her day.
Other than that, we seem to be having a few technical glitches with the website, but it’s hard to sort them out when your internet conks out every 3 minutes. Does anybody else have these problems or has BT got it in for me? Maybe things will be better when we get high speed broadband – whenever that is.
Re-reading the above, it all sounds rather downbeat but in fact, things are going quite well and we have the open gardens, always a very enjoyable event, to look forward to next weekend. Plants, Pimms, croquet and a model railway (if I can get the thing wired up in time. Indeed why am I sitting here writing this when I could be going cross-eyed, trying to shove fiddly bits of wire into minuscule sockets?)
See you there
Terry Clough