Village raises the roof to keep hall ship shape

TWELVE months after launching an ambitious fundraising campaign to re-roof a much-loved village hall, residents are delighted to have achieved their target and had the work completed as well.
Summerhouse Village Hall was opened 56 years ago and has been the hub for the community ever since. In normal times the hall is a popular venue for children’s parties, wedding receptions and a place for local clubs and groups to meet.
After nearly six decades the felt roofing, which had been patched and repaired on numerous occasions, was well past its best and leaks were occurring on a more regular basis. Last November, villagers launched a campaign to raise about £20,000 to enable them to re-roof the whole building. Just 12 months after hosting their first fundraising event – a retro disco – the work has been completed, despite eight months of coronavirus pandemic.
Barbara Braithwaite, chair-woman of the village hall committee, said: “We’re over the moon. Fundraising snowballed with the disco and afterwards we had a quiz night, which raised a phenomenal amount of money.
“Andrew Wrey did a great job with grant applications and we have had generous grants from the Foyle’s Foundation and Bernard Sunley Foundation. Once we got the first big grant it gave us confidence that we could raise the money. We have had a lot of individual donations and lots of community fundraising activities. We did have a few more leaks before the work was done and had buckets catching water underneath on a few occasions.”
Fellow committee member Yvonne Stonehouse said: “I was quite a funny experience at the disco last year.
“We had laid out the tables with bowls of crisps and someone asked why they were soggy. It turns out the roof was leaking above them. It just highlighted how important it was to get the work done.
“We could have reopened in July but we wanted to wait until the roof was done. DGB Building Services did a fantastic job and it took just under two weeks to do the work. It should have been done in August, but they had to work around the weather.”
With the roof newly tiled and insulated villagers are now focussing their fundraising attentions on upgrading some of the interior.
Ms Braithwaite said: “We still need funds to update the interior of the hall including the heating system, electrics and kitchen to make them environmentally friendly and more economical to run.”
The hall has been closed since the start of lockdown in March and will remain closed until next year.
However, there has already been an enquiry to book the venue for a wedding reception in 2022.
Ms Braithwaite said: “We’ll start with more grant applications and hope we can be successful so we can get all the work done before it is opened again.”