On Saturday 18th July 2009 Killamarsh Silver Band are presenting a fund raising concert on behalf of the new plans for St Giles Church Hall, it starts at 7.30pm and tickets are priced at £4 and can be reserved by calling me on 0114 2484898 or Chris Lambley 0114 2476504.

The programme will be based around the theme of "flowers" and the concert will also form part of the church’s Summer Flower Festival celebrations. Visitors can see the flower displays in St Giles Church between 10am and 4pm on Friday 17 and Saturday 18 July. The church will be open from noon the following day and 10am to noon on Monday 20 July.

I'm hoping to get some sketches out to the Leader before the concert to show what is being planned for the church hall. A number of years ago the band had some plans produced to improve the stage and rehearsal facilities but we never went any further with them. They have now been developed to include a number of new and exciting features in the church hall. If you are interested in seeing them why not come along to the concert when we will have them displayed for everyone to see. The facilities included follow our survey of local residents at last year's Summer Cultural Festival

Lets hope the building work for the new plans to the Church Hall, go to local builders this time, it was sad to find out that the fence around the cemetery went to contractors outside the county never mind the village

Lets hope they don't do what the parish council did, out of town contractors quoted around £15,000 two local builders could have done it for £11,000 saving £4,000 they did'nt get it very weird decision.

I'm pleased to report that we had a very well attended concert on Saturday night – over a 100 in the audience which gives a good start to the "fighting fund" for this project.  A number of years ago the band received a lottery grant to purchase a new set of instruments and over the intervening years we have set aside a small fund that was always intend to improve our rehearsal facility at the Church Hall.  We have agreed to donate an equal amount to the Church Hall regeneration fund based on the tickets sold for this concert.

Details about the redevelopment was front page news in The Leader and we wanted to get information about this project to as many people as possible.  As well as the existing groups that currently use the Church Hall there are still some times available for other groups that might want to use the exisiting facilities or even some of the new ones planned for the future.  In order to raise the funding required we need to have a mult-use building and locate the need in the village for this.

When the Lottery Fund was first set up it was relatively easy to secure the money – simple description of your project, cost of capital expenditure, can you keep it running and service it after its going? etc.  Now in order to meet the criteria for such a development it has to meet and provide solutions to life's problems – crime reduction, reduction in underage pregnancies, increased literacy, improved education standards, improved health and reduction in early deaths.