I’ve discovered, in my time as Chairman of the Village Hall Committee, that there are two events which bring out the cut throat, competitive nature of the normally calm and placid villagers, - egg rolling on Easter Sunday and a Quiz night. Posters for Village Hall events don’t usually have ‘Sold Out’ notices stapled over them but you can usually guarantee that a quiz- with a curry supper thrown in- will get us searching for the signs. In September tickets sold at an alarming rate and when the numbers reached over 75+ the cooks cried ‘STOP’!

You have to be very fond of someone to agree to help chop 13 kilos of chicken into bite sized pieces and my heartfelt thanks go to those who did – including non- committee member Tracy Whitehead, who clocked up lots of brownie points for dog and chicken minding!    You also have to be very brave, or reckless, to agree to help cook rice for nearly 80 people with the risk of wiping out the village with food poisoning but thank heaven there are such people around  who, as far as I know, didn’t cause any fatalities.

The Quizmaster, John Shackleton, did a splendid job keeping the pace going and the crowds in control and he was ably helped in the scoring by another non-committee member David Powell. Our thanks go to them for giving up their time to come along and support us. Committee members often bring teams and so we are very grateful for non- committee villagers for helping with the serving of food and clearing tables.

I think we are very privileged in Staverton to have such a beautiful, historical church at the centre of the village – but ancient buildings don’t come with modern conveniences making St Mary’s an inhospitable place for visitors attending funerals and  weddings not to mention the village congregation and their children.  One of the quiz questions should have been why the cost of putting in a lavatory in a church should cost such an eye watering amount of money – maybe no-one would have been able to answer that one! The PCC are working hard to raise funds so the Village Hall Committee decided to help by running this event for them and due to the generosity of the competitors, not to mention their wild drinking habits we raised £800 on the night.

And the winners were? The team which included, amongst other MENSA potentials, the vicar and his wife! There’s a kind of poetic logic to that isn’t there? I’m sure Roy and all his congregation will be most grateful to all of you who turned up and joined in the fun! Thank you! And my thanks, as always, to the Committee who are an amazing group of people to work with!

Isy Shackleton
Chair Village Hall Commitee