CELEBRATIONS GALORE

            Our tenth Anniversary celebrations continue apace. The spring Art exhibition, organised by the indomitable Angie McCall, was a wonderful event. Yorkshire artists put on a superb show, which was much appreciated by local people and visitors.  The week long exhibition raised over two thousand pounds for Hall funds.

            Our most recent fund-raising venture, organised by our extremely energetic “Dance*Tastic” expert, Sioned Allan, and supported by the Andrews-d’Alquen family, was a new undertaking for the Hall – a “Zumba party”. All those who attended had a very exciting and lively evening shedding lots of calories on the dance floor and replenishing them immediately with Nick’s extremely tasty tapas. This superb effort raised well over three hundred pounds towards the upkeep of the Hall.

            The Memorial Hall is such a wonderful local venue where hire charges remain extremely competitive. We have declined to increase these over the past three years, despite inflationary rises in our maintenance costs, in order to ensure that local people and charities are able to use the facility which belongs to them. This has meant that we have hosted some excellent weddings and family parties in recent months. We have a huge, clean, modern hall with good lighting and sound facilities, a newly refurbished catering kitchen and a superb floor for dancing. Many local people are still amazed at how cheaply the Hall can be hired for their special events.

            However, in order to maintain this  facility long-term, the Hall does need the support of Pickering residents. We receive no grants and we are reliant on a small band of enthusiastic, hard working volunteers who give freely of their time to ensure that Pickering continues to have a modern community hall. We are always in need of more volunteers, more raffle prizes, more cake-bakers, more weed-removers, more chair-stackers and more people who would like to organise fund-raising events. If you feel you would like to make a contribution, however small, we would love to hear from you.

            We are looking to some very exciting autumn events. On Saturday 15th October we will hold our usual “Wartime weekend British Restaurant and Soup kitchen”, where superb value home-made soup, sandwiches and cakes will be served from 10.00am until 3.00pm. In the evening we welcome the inimitable concert party “Miscellany”, who have agreed to return yet again with a brand new show for the evening performance. The “Fantastic Forties” style entertainment features live music, comedy, sketches and, of course, the customary community singing. The performance will take place from 7.30pm, and there will be a licensed bar and raffle. 

            Concert tickets, still priced at only £10.00 have already almost sold out . This is our biggest fund-raiser of the year and we are desperate for more people to help with the “Wartime Weekend”. In particular we need: people to help with table clearing and washing up, musicians who could play during the day and donations of cakes and raffle prizes. Anyone interested in taking part or supporting the Hall in any way, please contact the Hall any weekday morning between 9am and noon, (telephone 01751 477522) or ring 01751 477913 and speak with our secretary,

Mal Danks.