About three years ago, I was having trouble getting my motivation back. The Kilmersdon Village Hall Committee invited me to rebuild their website. In doing that, I discovered they had an interesting background that showed how things can be done when the community works together.

It is a story of community involvement and perseverance during which time it would have been easy to give up.

You’ve heard of Martin Horler? Well, he produced a fascinating story of how it all came about and the difficulties of making it work. The changing room was a nearby lorry for all the actors – no place to be shy! And, they had to gallop from there to the hall in any kind of weather –you know, soggy Panto’s!

Anyway, I won’t spoil the story, because it is on the website for you to read. Go on, it’s a good one.

The first thing I found was the Hall had not paid its rent for 25 years. That is not as bad as it sounds, and at the 25th Anniversary Party they willingly paid up.

How so? Well, the rent was one peppercorn a year and on that day, Lord Hylton was presented with a jarful of them!It was not long afterwards that we were into the national lockdown for Covid-19. My Ant Army had been doing some of the chores on the website, but one of them turned nasty. He became known as Virul–Ant. Two other members of the Army rose to the challenge and helped to calm things down, the first one being Reluct–Ant who set about apoligising for us having to close.

It was a blow because from then on, we had no income and in common with many other halls, the future began to look bleak.

Came the summer and a change in the rules which meant we could use the hall, albeit in a limited way. The Tae Kwondo group carried on and still meet every week, but they have to work in pairs. When they strike, they are not permitted to shout, “HAAAAA!” Instead, they have to quietly gasp to prevent the germs from flying about.

We have carried on since with the help of Deterr–Ant who took on the job of keeping the hall Covid-clean every week and making sure that users are safe. No one has raised any issues with the Hall. We are pleased our efforts were successful – because of that, the hall has been used regularly by Kilmersdon Gardeners.

The Dance Club has been able to continue and we may have a Zumba Dance group, if they find enough space. The Art Group and the W.I. have not been able to meet, but they will reconsider in the New Year.

We shall be reviewing everything at our AGM near the end of January and perhaps really get going when the virus is under control.There’s more detail on the website and if anyone needs inspiration or suggestions for using the hall, we have listed a number of past events that were successful. See: www.kilmersdonvillagehall.co.uk. It’s worth a visit! Terry Nicholls