Urgent call for new volunteers

Is the future of our local playing field at the crossroads?

Yes, this does sound dramatic but the reality is that future of this much loved local community amenity is very uncertain.

What do you know about the playing field?

Opened in 1975 it has provided a space for walkers, informal recreation and both cricket and football pitches for competitive sport.  This provision has relied on the goodwill and commitment of a succession of volunteers.

What does it involve?

It requires local people to give of their time generously to maintain and improve the facility and raise much of the funding to pay for this.

 

Why is the future of the facility in doubt?

Worryingly the current committee numbers just three trustees and one committee member.  It is the case that also these volunteers undertake much of the fund-raising and maintenance and they’re not getting any younger!!  Two of the trustees are over 70 and one over 65 years of age.

What do we need?  WE NEED NEW VOLUNTEERS.

People of all ages, of both genders and those with disabilities would be welcome and no previous experience is required.

How can you help?

In addition to the specific roles – chairperson, treasurer and secretary, there are places for members to help with organising fund raising and events, – examples of such activities are the Firework and Bonfire Evening, Pop Up suppers, Race and Quiz nights.  Committee meetings annually total six and usually are held in the pavilion.

Other volunteers  Grass cutting, football pitch line-marking, cricket wicket maintenance, pavilion repair and upkeep, drainage ditch clearance – activities to name but a few! The first three tasks need to be carried out on a weekly basis and the others through maintenance/working party sessions on Saturday mornings – usually six annually.

Do you think you can help? Interested?  Would you like to find out more?  As a first step, why not visit the Playing Field website visit the Playing Field website hdpf.uk and click on the Contact Us in the menu.

Many thanks
The Trustees, Hadlow Playing Field.

January Book Club Review

 

This month we have been reading Anne Tyler’s ‘Redhead by the Side of the Road’, one of the shorter and more bittersweet of her novels but, nevertheless, quietly profound and longlisted for the Booker Prize.

It is about Micah Mortimer:- a man in his 40s, the youngest of a chaotic family of sisters; the only one to go to university and then have a professional job, but who opted out of corporate life and now scrapes a living running a one-man computer repair business and caretaking his block of flats, giving him free accommodation. His family regard him with affectionate bewilderment.
Continue reading “January Book Club Review”

St Mark’s Church News for February 2021.

St Mark’s church news for February 2021.

I suppose this should begin with ‘A Happy New Year to all our readers’!  I think we have all been saying ‘Well it couldn’t be worse!’

As I write, 3 of the new vaccines have been approved for use in the UK, and the Buxted surgery has just started calling the over 70s for vaccination.  Let us pray this will indeed be the beginning of a Happy New Year for us all.  So sadly we are presently in the process of a 3rd lockdown, and that has meant some big decisions needing to be made for our Parish of Buxted and Hadlow Down.

Continue reading “St Mark’s Church News for February 2021.”

‘Gilead’ by Marilyn Robinson – Book Club Review

“Existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined”

 During this lockdown the Book Club has been reading “Gilead” by Marilyn Robinson, published in 2004 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize 2005, often on lists of best or most influential books.
I think that Barack Obama gives one of the most succinct summaries in his interview with the author for New York Review of books (2015) ‘One of my favourite characters in fiction is a pastor in Gilead , Iowa, named John Ames, who is gracious and courtly and a little bit confused about how to reconcile his faith with all the various travails that his family goes through. And I just fell in love with the book.’
It takes the form of a journal and memoir, as written in 1956 and is addressed to the narrator’s seven- year- old son.  John Ames is 76, ill with angina and wishes to leave something of himself to his son.  He has led a lonely life: his wife and baby daughter having died many years ago.  In old age he married a young woman, a wanderer of little education but has wisdom and sensitivity.  Some of the loveliest passages in the book are as Ames watches his young son and his wife together. Continue reading “‘Gilead’ by Marilyn Robinson – Book Club Review”