## Digswell Village Hall report. 9th September 2025 

## Bookings. 

The last few months have involved communicating the change of hire rates to all regular users and this has gone smoothly. Casual hirers are quoted a rate at the time of booking and we still apply that rate even after the rate has increased. Additionally we have changed the front door lock code (as of 14/8/25) and apart from the Karate club all users have still been able to access the hall. The karate club administration changed at the beginning of the year. It was run by Simon Oliver who moved to the USA. He handed over to John Brinda and i met with him and the bookings have been carried on as usual. However I had a message left on my phone last Sunday morning from Simon Oliver saying he couldn’t get into the hall as the code did not work. I call him in the afternoon when I heard the message, and he said that John Brinda was not well and had not passed on the new code. We have 2 outstanding invoices for this group. 

There are 2 other June invoices still unpaid and some from July. I send reminders when emailing the next month’s invoices. August invoices will go out this week. 

Starting in 26th September we have a new regular Yoga class from 12.30pm for an hour. We have had several bookings from Asian families and this means that word is spreading about the hall amongst that community. This has included a booking for the Hatfield Tamil School on Sunday 28th September. 

Total bookings for the past 2 months have been 

July: 81, August 52. Considering that some bookings only run in the school term times August has held up well. 

September is back with a bang with 99 bookings in the calendar. 

## Maintenance 

Using the space created by less bookings in August we have been able to get some work carried out in the hall. 

‘Daniel Moore Home Improvements’ put new sliding doors on the Digswell Players costume cupboards in the dressing room (a job the Players are paying for) and at the same time repaired the floor and entrance to the chair store plus replacing broken window catches on the roadside windows. 

Abbots Heating removed 2 heaters and serviced the remaining 2 heaters plus the Gas cooker. A Gas Safe certificate has been issued. The 2 heaters removed were the one by the stage and one of the others in the hall. The foyer heater was moved into the vacant position on the roadside wall. The old heaters were taken to the recycle centre by Siad Ali. Daniel Moore put new timber into the wall spaces left by the removed heaters, outside and inside. 

Decoration. This week we have Ken Boon starting on the big job of repainting all the white walls and doors in the hall and the ceiling in the foyer. Over time this white paint has come off in patches (people using sellotape) and exposed the old blue colour beneath. Ken also is painting afresh the new timbers placed to fill the holes where the 2 heaters have been removed. 

Digswell Players have had a busy time recently by removing much of the contents of the wooden shed so the platforms for the raked seating could be stored there. A trial set up has taken place and this means that for the first time everyone will have a good seat at the next pantomime in January. 

Peter Holt 3.9.25