Text of 'Thank-you' speech by John Sullivan at the Jubilee Hall Re-opening event...

Ladies & Gentlemen,
Words cannot express how happy I am to see you all gathered here to-day to celebrate the re-opening of our wonderful Village Hall - and I know I am expressing the feelings of all the Jubilee Hall Management Committee when I say this.
What has been achieved over the last eighteen months is remarkable.  One way or another we have raised some £90,000 and almost a third of this was raised within our small community of 750 people.  So you-the people of Winsham are the first people who must be thanked. You supported our events, you have also supported our Jubilee Hall Lottery, and you have given money through the precept and by gift.  Above all, Winsham as a whole has demonstrated what a wonderful community we have and how fortunate we are to live here.
I should also give thanks on behalf of us all to the people and organisations that have played an especially significant part in our project.
Lets start with the organisations -The Winsham Parish Council, South Somerset District Council, Defra, Wyvern Environmental Trust, Awards for All, Community Chest, Area West, various Utility Suppliers and Clarks Shoes.
These organisations have provided the about two-thirds of the money and we are very grateful for their support. I must say that one of the  gratifying things has been the support and help, without exception, that I received from the staffs of these organisations in preparing Grant Applications. I think that some are here to day, and I thank you. I would also say how impressed ( and sometimes exasperated) with the rigour with which they protect the (usually) public purse!
We would also like to thank the groups within the Parish who took the time and trouble to help raise money. The Ki-Aikido Club, The Art Club, The Parochial Church Council, The Horticultural Society and the impromptu Drama Group who organised the wonderful village concert last spring  and the Street Fair.(Mothers Union/Adventurers),Bethany’s Fund raiser,Mike Richards StreetFair Stall, Nick’s repairs to the piano, Stella ( I must mention-Stella-we have been friends  since Jan & I came to the village some thirteen or so years ago-and I cannot tell you how valuable her knowledge of our community has been to the project)
It is also appropriate here to thank the School, the Winsham Sports and Social Club and Thorncombe Village Hall who helped accommodate the groups who were temporarily displaced while the hall was closed. Thorncombe Village Hall has also been very helpful to us in sharing their knowledge and experience and we are very grateful to them for this. It is a fine example of inter-village co-operation.
I would also like to thank David Holmes and Clifford Lee for the generous way in which they have made Leigh House available to us for three Fund raising events over the last eighteen months. And thanks to Dave Woodland who contributed generously and made an even more generous offer, which we did not need to take him up on- I am tempted to add-‘Yet’. I must also thank Paul Smith for his generous donation of the two prefabricated House Martin’s nests. (It’s nice to know that affordable housing is not just limited to Western Way!) I must also thank Terri & Tony for their generosity, and Anne Bevis for supplying and managing the refreshments we will be enjoying in a few minutes time. Nor must I forget Mike Richards, our Village Post Master, (and of course Debbie) who has helped with the Village Show, and of course all the people who contributed to the Winsham Jamboree. Mike is still helping with the sale of tickets for the Jubilee Hall lottery in the Post Office. You will have noticed that he is here to day, and he will be delighted to sell you a few more!
But there are also other people that I should mention.
Rod Wells along with Keith Portsmore were the authors of the original Survey report that first drew our attention to the problems with the Hall floor and ceiling, and the whole long list of other problems.  Both are Chartered Surveyors, and they made no charge for this 30-page Professional report that would normally have cost several thousand pounds to produce.
Rod then went on to become the Project Manager, and helped by Colin Langridge (and his son, Joe!) Steve Weller, Russ Haggard, Simon Preston, Ken Banks, Simon Hebditch and others too numerous to name, they have brought the project to a successful close.(And what a team they were - the care and quality of their work has been tremendous-as of course many of us who has got them to do work in our own homes will know – but somehow it seemed to go further than that) . And Ken Butler who did the PA & Loop system.(Ad.lib-how nice it is that so many live in the village or  very close)And Charlie Hawker who donated and made our magnificent new Notice Board.( Thank you Charlie-you have really done a super job).(Russ Haggard, by the way, is continuing with the Jubilee Hall as Janitor, and with his now detailed knowledge of the Hall, this is a really valued acquisition)
I would also like to thank Sarah Gleadell, who found time from her very busy life to be Committee Secretary and the driving force behind many of the fund raising events - a lady of indefatigable energy and tremendous experience, and Phil Kershaw, our Treasurer, who often brought us back to earth when we sometimes took off on flights of financial fantasy. And Roger Beer who is Vice Chairman and who among many other things was the impresario who staged the epic Duck Race at Ammerham. Thanks also to the other members of the Committee who have been so supportive - Marjorie Fowler, John Loaring, from whom we will be hearing more later and of course Norman Good, Roger Barrett and Jacqui George who between them have done so much to support the project by contributing ideas, time and behind the scenes organisation.
A really wonderful team. Thanks also to Sue & Jeremy Leighton for their efforts on Fund Raising and to Kate Langridge for her help and advice as part of the décor team who have created the wonderful effect we see around us.
I must  make special mention of Sandy Wells. The Hall owes so much to Sandy.  She is the Booking Secretary, but over the last few months she has been far more than that .She has climbed ladders, complete with hardhat to take photographs of the most inaccessible spots. She has been Rods ‘right hand’ and general assistant, tearing off all over Somerset to locate bits of down pipe, and many other things beside. She has done so much; it is impossible for me to do her efforts justice. In the last few days she has spent what must have been all her waking hours in getting a hundred and one different details together to ensure that we were ready for this event. She is also responsible for the fine exhibition of photographs we see here to day. I urge you to look at these-they to give a comprehensive view of the work that had to be done, and the sheer volume of the effort required. (Ladies & Gentlemen please join me in showing your appreciation of Sandy’s efforts.)
To all these, and all the people of Winsham, just too numerous to mention, who have played their part, many thanks.
Now to the future.
We now have a thoroughly modern hall. A good floor, modern, state of the art lighting and a  PA system that includes an induction loop for the hard of hearing. We are also to be the first in South Somerset to have a Broadband service in a Village Hall, and through this we hope to be able to offer a public access Broadband facility. More about this in the next two or three weeks. We have also developed the old Kitchen into The New Meeting Room, which will also be a Parish Office.  With its tea & Coffee-making facilities it may well be useful for small meetings and if we can organise it, into an Internet Café.
The good news is that we now have a village hall in which we can take pride.
The bad news is that if we are to maintain the standard that we see to day we will have to adopt a regular maintenance programme, and that will cost money.
More good news is that hire charges will remain the same to our existing and village users. We will seek to achieve the additional revenue by ensuring that the hall is always fully booked.
This will be a considerable challenge. To achieve this the Management Committee will have to become more pro-active in organising events. We may well be sponsoring events ourselves, and we will be looking to stage more drama and music events, and I am pleased to announce that Stella Abbey has joined the Management Committee to oversee this part of our activities.  These events will provide good value entertainment for our community, giving it a richer social life. Importantly they will also earn us money that can help with Hall maintenance and development.  We also hope that our greatly improved Hall and facilities will also attract more wedding parties and other celebrations.
Even with success in this direction, it is inevitable that we will need to promote other fund raising events, and this means a continuation of your financial support. We will be continuing this year with our mid–summer frolic at Leigh House, which is proving to be very popular, even when it rains! David and Clifford have very kindly agreed to this for which we are very grateful, and I hope that you will all come along.
Finally, and very importantly, there is our Annual Lottery, which has been running for years, started by Janet Smart.
We have tinkered with it - changed the prize structure so that you can now have a chance to win twenty five pounds as a first prize each month, with second prize of £10 and a third prize of £5 - all for just £10 per year.
This is a very practical and low cost way of helping the hall.Tickets are on sale here today, and I hope you will all buy one. And if you have already purchased one from the Post Office, then why not buy another one and double your chances of winning!
So thank you all once again, for your generosity and your support. My apologies if I have gone on a bit!.
It is now my pleasure to introduce you to Eileen Zoers, Director, Village Halls at the Community Council of Somerset.  I first met Eileen one freezing November day in 2004 when Phil Kershaw and I trekked across the Somerset Levels to a Funding Fair in Bridgewater.  Since then she has been an unfailing source of help, encouragement and ideas without which we might not have been here to day. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Eileen Zoers………
Thank you Eileen.

It is now my pleasure to introduce you to Sylvia Seal, SSDC District Councillor and Portfolio holder for Leisure and Culture. Like Eileen, her support has been vital to the successful completion of our project. We are very grateful to her to take time out from her very busy life to share in our celebration to day. Ladies & Gentlemen, Sylvia Seal… 

Thank you Sylvia.
We now come to the part of our celebration for which we have been waiting for nearly eighteen months. John Loaring, who will re-open the Hall in a few moments needs no introduction from me, except to say that John is the representative of a long line of Loarings who have been involved with the management of the Jubilee Hall. 102 years ago , a Loaring was sitting in this very hall making the decision along with other members of the Parish Council to accept the full gift of the Jubilee Hall to the village from the estate of the recently deceased Lord Bridport. Since then the Loarings have been part of the management of the hall, as far as I can see , almost continuously. There can be therefore no more appropriate person to declare the Jubilee Hall re-opened. John come and join us…….

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25th Sept. 2019