I am writing this report following a successful event celebrating 100 years of Platt War Memorial Hall. Lasting three days and finishing on Remembrance Sunday, it saw a steady flow of people starting on Friday, culminating on Sunday being extremely busy. We also had, on Saturday evening, a well-attended and very interesting talk from the Crater Locators – an award-winning archaeology team – who discovered the remains of a V2 rocket in Crouch in 2021.

Over recent years Scott Wishart has made many short films which, for this occasion, he joined together and showed throughout the day in the small hall. Thus were resurrected many memories of recent events around our village, including Covid 19 and the building of the Hall and the School.

With the hall doors opening on Sunday morning following our well-attended Remembrance Day ceremony, at which local groups laid their wreaths in remembrance of those from our parish and beyond who gave their lives in two world wars, our hall event got off to an early start and got busier and busier as the day went on.

Huge thanks and credit go to Scott Wishart, who has spent the last 18 months in dedicated and passionate research, compiling so many local news reports and histories of people and events from over the last 100 hundred years, incredibly well presented for all to see and preserved for future generations. In addition to this, he is compiling and writing ten books, one for each decade. The first book (the 1920s) is currently for sale and is available from Scott or a hall trustee at £20.
Entry for the exhibition was free, and the project was funded by Platt Memorial Hall with financial support from Platt Fundraisers and the Parish Council – for which we thank them. In addition, all donations and proceeds from the refreshments and the event will go to the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance Trust; these amounted to well over £300. Thank you to everyone who supported us and helped in the kitchen.

From 1st January, hire rates for both halls will increase, but only for commercial users. Other rates will be held until June when we hope to understand our increased energy costs better.

There will be some disruption in late January for a couple of weeks as we are having both halls and store rooms re-decorated. Our hall is in its seventh year and showing wear and tear. This activity will mainly affect daytime use and not so many evenings. You will be notified if it affects you.
Our next gardening dates are 17th December and 21st January – dependent on the weather. Please join us if you can for light gardening, a chat and refreshments, from 9.30am.

David Vallance, Chair of Trustees, 883422