There was an impressive turn-out at the Memorial Hall last night for the launch of Project Parwich. Val Stevenson began the evening by giving a presentation on “The Journey So Far“. After giving us some useful historical background on the rebuild project, Val went on to explain the committee’s strategy in more detail, and to give us some context for the approach that is being taken. In particular, she stressed the importance of our needing to demonstrate that a new hall will offer the potential for increased usage, from a wider range of users.
Having already secured a development grant of £23,500, we are now four months away from our next deadline: the submission of our application for a grant of £500,000 from the Big Lottery Fund‘s Community Buildings Programme. As applications for this programme are no longer being accepted, the message was clear: in terms of a full rebuild, it’s now or never.
If the grant application is successful – and we have every reason to feel confident that it will be – then a further £255,000 will still need to be sourced from elsewhere, in order for work to commence in Summer 2009. Although the fund raising group (led by Brian Beasley) is working hard on this, there is still a role for the rest of the village to fulfil. This was expanded on further by Patti Beasley, who explained the aims of Project Parwich.
As many of you will already know, Project Parwich is a twelve-month fund raising campaign by the village itself. The idea is to raise as much money as possible, while having a good time in the process. This will have the additional benefit of demonstrating that we are a self-organised community, who are taking an active and lively role in making the Memorial Hall project a successful one.
Last night’s suggested events included an auction of promises, a “millionaire’s night”, a 10k road run and a party/disco. There will be many more to follow. Ruby Hickmott is our official Events Organiser, who will be keeping a list of volunteers and putting together a calendar of events. (You can e-mail Ruby, or phone her on 323.) Everyone is encouraged to get involved, whether by planning their own event or by helping out at the many events that will be taking place between now and mid-2009.
The third and final speaker was Steve Riley from Marsh Grochowski Architects, who talked us through some of the current ideas for the new Memorial Hall. Although Steve was keen to stress that the building plans were still very much at a draft stage, he was able to give us a fairly detailed glimpse at the sort of building we might expect to see. (more…)
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7pm Pet Show in the Memorial Hall Car Park 
best singing dog; most unusual pet; largest pet; smallest pet; smallest pet; rangiest rooster; prettiest pullet; fastest carrot eater.
PARWICH.ORG 
