Their conclusion was that an increase for casual hirers from £12 to £15, and for regular users from £9 to £12 an hour, would still leave the hall as one of the best value venues in the area, whilst providing a welcome small increase in annual income. These changes will take effect immediately for new lettings, whilst existing hirers would continue to pay their current rates until such time as their contract ended (most regular hirers are on a rolling contract so the increase will not affect them at this time).

The Management Committee also discussed the need for greater parent representation, any parent interested in supporting Dell Lane HQ (rather like a School PTA) would be most welcome – at this time we are not looking for Officers, so no worries about any long-term commitment! We’d welcome anyone willing to help with the occasional cleaning, decorating, leaf sweeping and general tidy – inside and/or out depending on the weather.  Just get in touch if you’d like to help.

The cost was £1,176 – money that could (and should) have been spent on facilities for the Brownies, Guides, Cubs and other youth organisations for whom it was donated in the first place. Although insured, the replacement cost was no greater than our excess, but we fitted a more robust fence this time hence the increased cost. The fence itself does not secure the building, it simply acts as a front boundary and is required by our deeds.

Hopefully we have seen the last of this mindless and senseless destruction of our property.

Our thanks to John Symes of Grove Contractors for his helpful advice.

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We were therefore delighted to be offered some ‘garden games’ from Big Game Hunters, a firm in Oxfordshire specialising in large scale Jenga, Chess etc. We chose a set of large dominoes, and these are available to all the youth organisations meeting at the hall, either for indoor or outdoor use.

Maybe one day we’ll have a look in the store and see if there’s anything there we could smarten up and get back into use!

Thanks to Big Game Hunters for their sponsorship!

On the weekends of 24th and 31st July our front fence was cut with wire cutters – this achieves no practical result as the fence does not secure any part the premises; it is purely cosmetic.

The Police have been advised of each offence and we have discussed and agreed changes which should help stop a recurrence or, if it does happen again, to identify and stop those responsible.

We have no idea who might be doing this, nor what purpose there is beyond pure vandalism. Any information from members of the public would be gratefully received – if you do see anything suspicious please do not hesitate to call the Police.

We hope you find the changes helpful – there is some ‘tidying-up’ still to be done, but that will take place without interfering too much with the day to day site operation.

The first task was to clear and level the majority of the area, then to investigate the condition of the soakaway(s) believed to be underneath. We didn’t get very far with that – the drains from the Ranger hut proved to have a very large root running through them, and the condition of the pipes themselves was very poor, with many cracked joints. We cleared what we could from the drains, then sealed them up again – we never did decide where the gutters from the back hut drained to!

The firepad and the path down the side of the back hut were re-laid (level!) and transitions included from the new grass to the existing paths; a back retaining wall installed and a new fence too, and a ‘child friendly’ tree found to look over our activities. As soon as the artificial grass is installed we will have an all weather activity area available 365 days a year. Our thanks to M&M Gardens for tidying up the trees, Braithwaite Paving for their usual very helpful work on groundworks, and NoMow for the artificial grass.

We’ve now made the final decisions about the grassed area to the rear of the Hall. The work will be finished towards the end of June, when we shall be able to enjoy a flat and largely level area of soft green artificial grass (I think many will be surprised at how nice this is), a lowered and resurfaced pathway and firebase, new railings at the back and trimmed trees. The grass is expected to last 20 years, after which it will probably fade in colour, not fall apart!