Dickleburgh Village Community Web Site
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To be held at the Village Centre at 7.00pm, contact Mick Logan on 01379 741535 for more details.

THE CONCEPT
Back in 1976 there was some excitement that a dream that started long ago in 1923 would at last be fulfilled when it was reported that the Village could soon have a “choice of two sites for its new Village Centre. The old school was available for conversion, and the parish council had applied for planning permission to build a centre on the recreation ground. The building, which could cost up to £60.000, would consists of a main hall, changing rooms, a committee room and kitchen and toilets, said Parish Council chairman Mr. Ken Everett. “What the village has now got to do is decide between the two, provided this application is successful. Facilities at the moment are limited with a rather cramped pavilion and a reading room which was “on its last legs,” so a village centre is much needed”, he said.

THE START
It would appear that things lay dormant until circa 1984 when activity started to reactivate the project that resulted in work finally starting on the Village Centre in March 1987. So work started, some 64 years after residents first formed an action committee to build one. Ken Everett, Chairman of the Parish Council said he could remember being taken to a gymkhana organized by that committee when he was about 4 years old. “We have got no proper meeting place, and we have needed one for some 64 years,” he said. “There was a committee formed back in the early thirties to build a Village Hall. This is finally it!

Villagers gathered on the 10th March 1987 for the ceremonial turning of the first sod performed by Alda Draper, whose brother Billy gave the land to the village for the new hall. The £65,000 hall was to be big enough to take a badminton court a committee room and a kitchen.

The secretary of the Dickleburgh and Rushall Village Centre Management Committee, Gerald Seaman, said: “A gymkhana committee which was formed in 1923 originally had the idea of building a centre, but it was not until four years ago that we really started in earnest. Virtually every local organization has contributed in one way or other and, after grants from South Norfolk, the rural community and parish councils, the money was soon raised. In fact, we have actually raised more than the £75,000 needed,” he added. One fund-raiser was a buy a brick scheme, which resulted in a five-day Rhine holiday being won by Joyce Kent, of Rushall. Committee chairman Richard Chenery who ran a local coach business, volunteered the prize.

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Being held at the Village Centre. Contact Linda Mobbs on 01379 740106 for more details.

It is thought by many that the Sports & Social Club is part of the Village Centre Management Committee whereas effectively it is a “stand alone” self supporting organization and its association with the Village Centre is that of a tenant. Inevitably by the very nature of its prominence as the main social and events organizer of the Village and its committed use of the Village Centre a high proportion of the Village Centre Management Committee are members of the club and vice-versa!

The origins of the club date back to 1988 created in order to obtain bar licences, not allowed by the Village Centre itself as a registered charity. It was created as a self contained, self supporting unit.

At a meeting chaired by Mr. Richard Chenery (Chairman, Village Centre Management) in 1988, Mrs J Logan and Mrs Floss Biggs were asked if they would take on that task.

They borrowed £600 from the management. Another loan from Mr. & Mrs Biggs, a loan from Mr. & Mrs Logan, also Mr. & Mrs Logan put up surety for a bank loan. The loans total came to £4275. All loans were paid back in full by 1992 and the club was on its own.
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