THE VILLAGE Club was enthralled by Valerie Stevens comprehensive talk about the Festival of Britain ’51 – bringing back memories for some and opening a new perspective for others.

The fantastic thing is that it took 3 years to go from planning, on a bomb site and land reclaimed from the Thames, to these amazing modern (for the time) buildings – it ran from May to December 1951, then by December it had been dismantled and scrapped!

A THOUROUGHLY delicious & enjoyable Lunch Club was held with lots of chatter – we are really looking forward to the October 24th meal, because it is the turn of the Gentlemen to do the cooking! - their last one was a huge success and we told them we wanted a reprise.

A SPECIAL Village Meeting was held on Monday, when some of Portesham Councillors gave a presentation explaining why the Chesil Bank Precept would have to be raised.

A very good turn out (nearly ¼ of the population) heard the well researched & presented facts (unable to plan for projects etc. because by the end of March the kitty will be scraping the bottom).

A good question/answer session followed – one of which being ‘was it being raised sufficiently?’ - then when the show of hands on ‘we support that our Councillors will discuss & raise the Precept’, it was nearly unanimous.

THE RECENT Rag-Bag collection was a huge success & over £100 was raised for the Village Hall & Church – well done all who contributed (if you have not joined this initiative yet, DO) - I have already started collecting for the next one!

THE CHRISTMAS Bazaar is being held in the Hall on Saturday, 12th November – I know this is a bit early, but you need time to plan what goodies & knick knacks you are going to make AND save your pennies to buy your gifts!

DON’T forget to put Saturday, 29th October in your diaries as it will be the next Village Hall Party and you know you don’t want to miss that - details to follow.