8 November 2018
From a Chairman's point of view, 2018 has been both a positive and negative year for the hall.
So let's start with the positives.
The hall continues to be busy. There are of course the activities that take place organised by Pathhead organisations such as the Pathhead Music Collective, the Pathhead Players, the Tynewater Churches & the Pathhead Youth Project. We have a range of different regular activities increasingly focused on fitness and well being. We now have keep fit, Yoga, Meta-fit and Clubbercise classes. It is also good to see regular bookings for children's parties.
This year our social calendar this again included the Horticultural show, the Pathhead Play and Pantomime and we continued our venture into cinema with a Mama-Mia Night, Grease Night and a Rocky Horror Night. All these consisted of film, dressing up and a disco.
The hall continues to maintain a small profit which continues to be a major achievement. I would like to thank our Treasurer, Brian Christie, for all his good efforts. Hopefully his discussions with utility suppliers have concluded - and concluded in our favour! Thanks also go to Mike Johnstone who has I think learned new Microsoft skills to produce the minutes as Secretary. Jackie continues to do a sterling job taking bookings.
Last year we asked for new members to the committee and it was gratifying that so many people joined. This has brought a great deal of energy to the committee and we continue to have a laugh at our meetings. One positive from this injection of support has been a renewed effort to fix some of the faults and issues with the fabric of the building that needed attention. I would like to thank the committee for all their efforts. We are also very grateful to David Richardson and his amazing band of volunteers who late last year painted the front of the hall for us.
I'd like to especially thank Matt Elliott for his work on our new website. This is so much better than the one the Chairman used to maintain.
I mentioned a year of positives and negatives. One issue has been some incidents of vandalism or misuse. Another is the difficulty we have had in getting tradesman to quote or do work. I am therefore even more grateful to the committee for their work to fix things.
The most worrying to me as chairman is that, despite the efforts of our committee and others, the attendance and support for events from within the village is quite low. Everyone who attends events, whether the films we do, the Pathhead Plays or other entertainment remarks on how much fun they have. However, we are often struggling for audiences. Sadly this continues a trend we noticed last year. The committee have advertised our events in different ways, but we are at a loss as to how to increase attendance.
The hall was set up to support the health and wellbeing of the village and with support of a larger committee, we would want to redevelop parts of it or add new facilities. We also need to consider some significant refurbishment work, not least of which is the floor. All this would require grant funding, however without the support of the village for the events we organise, we would not get funding. I said last year that if we want a vibrant village, we believe the hall and all that it brings to us must be supported. I would ask the wider community, and perhaps people who don't use the hall, whether we could do things differently to attract more people in.
I would like to thank the all committee members for their support and efforts, and community spirit! I hope they will all stand for re-election and continue to support the hall. I will stand for re-election as Chairman, but having been involved for a few years now, I think it is appropriate for this to be my last year on the committee - or at least I should take a break!
Neil Dumbleton
Chairman
