The construction of the new memorial hall continues with the war memorial reconstruction due to start before the end of April, so it should be underway when you are reading this. As mentioned before, please look at our website to see the photographs which Scott Wishart is taking to show the progress of work going on at the new hall. You will also see some photos of the interior on the back cover of this magazine!

Scott is also working with the school children on some projects which will provide photographs and video which will be displayed in the new hall, including a trip to show them what it would have been like to have been evacuated from home to a place of safety without your parents.

The AGM was held on 29″‘ March with a moderate attendance by residents of the village in addition to the committee members. Although those who have been co—opted in the last year were voted onto the committee of management, as well as all those whose terms of office had expired but who agreed to stand again, we still have  some vacancies on the committee if anybody would like to put his/her name forward.

You may also want to put your names down for the ‘Farewell Tea Party’ being held on the afternoon of Sunday 12″‘ June. We hope this will be very well attended as it coincides with the Queens 90th Birthday celebrations and will provide an appropriate occasion for the whole village to say goodbye to the old hall.

At 7:30am on 1st July, there will be a gathering at the memorial, at which a whistle will be blown three times to mark 100 years exactly from the start of the Battle of the Somme. This is significant because after the opening ceremony at the beginning of September there will be a number of showings of a remastered film of the Battle of the Somme which was shown in Borough Green cinema in 1916. This shows scenes from the battle at which so many lives were lost, including some of those named on the memorial.

The formal opening ceremony on 3rd September with our MP Tom Tugendhat, will now include the rededication of the memorial by the Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend James Longstaff, who has graciously accepted our invitation. We have already contacted a number of those who are related to those named on the memorial, with invitations to be present for this ceremony and I am glad to report that most of those who have been asked have responded positively. Please let us know if you or someone you know has a relative named on the memorial, so that we can extend a formal invitation to attend.

There will be an exhibition about the war memorial, which will run for a week, with information about those whose names are on it and also about the construction of the new hall and the moving of the war memorial. There will also be showings of the film on the Battle of the  Somme which we have been given permission to show by the Imperial War Museum.

At the end of the week of celebration there will be a formal dinner dance on 10th September. Please watch  this space to find out when tickets for all these events will become available.

Sandy Mackay, Chairman of the Trustees