This year's Annual Parish Meeting, held on Tuesday, demonstrated, yet again, how lucky we all are to live in such a great community.
Reports on the last year, from the Chairman of the PC, on the improvements to the Village Hall and from various Clubs and Societies, all indicated how well things are going.
The Guest Speaker was one of our District Councillors, Chris Brown. He reported on the latest developments in the Government's plans for Devolution and Local Government Reorganisation. Re the former Norfolk and Suffolk would be electing a new Mayor to cover both counties in May next year.
The situation re forming new Unitary Authorities to replace the current County and District Councils was less certain. He described the proposals for one, two or three UAs to cover Norfolk. It was hoped that this would be sorted out in the Autumn.
Thursday’s special event at the Village Hall to celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day was a great success with something for everyone.
Stalls provided period games, period foodstuffs and other memorabilia. The bar did a roaring trade and the hot dogs, paid for from the grant received from SNC, went down very well.
The highlights were definitely the speeches, from two of the oldest attendees, Hilda Thomas and Robin Limmer, recounting their experiences during the war and their relief when peace came.
While it was a very happy event, everyone there was constantly reminded of those who gave their lives during the war to make peace possible. This was underlined by the lighting of the Beacon and the singing of “I vow to thee my country”.
Further details of the speeches and some pictures have been added to the WWII item in the
History Section.
Denton Village Hall has gained two new important features.
A set of Photo-Voltaic Panels has been added to the roof, on both sides, together with a Battery to store the resulting electricity. This should cover all the Hall's needs from now on and will, hopefully, earn some income from the electricity exported to the Grid.
The other new feature is a Broadband connection and a Wi-Fi facility for users of the Hall.
Well done the Hall Management Committee.
The next planned improvement will be a Card Reader, connected via Wi-Fi, for payments at the Bar.
Members of the Thursday Coffee Club have been celebrating their third anniversary.
As usual on such occasions a cake with candles was provided, but instead of the usual small piece of cake with a single candle for members' birthdays, this event, held last Thursday. justified a complete cake and three candles.
Further details of the Club's activities can be found
Here .
The annual gathering, in the Village Hall on March 7th, began with an hour for younger players to get some time on the tables with small games and a chance to pick up some of the rules; plenty of enthusiasm on show.
Some new faces turned up for the tournament and from one of these came the words, ‘I think the table is short on your side’, as the ball sailed over the end by a significant margin.
Janet Howman saw off all-comers to win the ladies’ shield, whilst Gary McDonald chalked up a hat trick of tournament wins in the men’s section.
Thanks to Gary and Blake for helping out with the youngsters and to everyone who made it an enjoyable evening.
Special thanks to Annie and Steve Whiteman for organising this great event yet again.
Details of previous tournaments can be found in the
History Section.
Following the recent repairs to Denton’s Village Sign, another one, nearby, has undergone similar treatment. However, this one, located in Broome, received rather more publicity.
On the evening of March 5th it featured on BBC1 during an episode of “The Repair Shop”, with a great local connection. The Sign had been constructed, as part of the Millenium celebrations, by the father of former Denton resident, sadly no-longer with us, Roger Dove.
Unfortunately Dad died before he could complete the Sign so Roger duly took over. A picture of him working on it appeared in the programme. Roger’s great carpentry skills will be remembered, with gratitude, by many current Denton residents.
A report of the restoration project and its featuring on "The Repair Shop" appeared in the EDP on March 11th with a picture of Roger's twin sister, Beverley Hansey of Ditchingham, who organised the project.
