January 2012

Happy New Year To You All.

Our Christmas festivities started with our Tree Lighting Ceremony which was kindly attended by the Mayor of Warrington, Cllr Mike Biggin, with carols sung by the St Wilfrid’s Choir and the lights being switched on yet again by Santa’s magic.

This year Santa and his Elf had their very own Winter Wonderland Grotto and Sitting Room in which to receive the children. Over 80 children visited the Grotto and received a gift from Santa before he sat down to a well-earned rest and a mince pie or two…

We have again been extremely lucky to receive sponsorship from Davidsons Scrap Metal of Altrincham who donated a fabulous Hamper worth over £150 which was raffled on the 23 December and won by Dave Sisson.

We again opened on Christmas Day for a couple of hours and it was wonderful to see so many families enjoying a couple of drinks while the turkey was cooking at home. The ‘bottle’ raffle was drawn and miraculously one of the prize winners was ‘Bonny the Dog’ I hope she enjoyed her bottle of wine…

We have continued with our programme of improvements including the Committee Room which now has a practical wood laminate floor plus all the equipment required to make this a super venue for smaller meetings including a projector, screen, white board and flip chart.  Some of the money for this was provided by way of a Grant from the Warrington Charities Trust.

An entrance has been made from the Olde Barn into what was the old cellar to make more storage for tables and chairs when not in use in the function room. We also, at considerable expense, had the floor in the Olde Barn stripped back, sanded and re-sealed to bring it back to its former glory, this will be well received by the various groups and dance groups who use this room.

On Friday 18 November all the Management Committee attended the Rotary Charter Night at the Firgrove Hotel where we were extremely lucky to be awarded a donation of £1000 towards further repairs and improvements to the GYCA buildings.

The quotes are now all in for the proposed work in the gym. This has taken some time as they have all had to be prepared on a like for like basis. Work should start in the next few weeks. This will be carried out, as far as possible, with little or no disruption to the groups who use this facility.

Over the past few months a new class running in our Gym by Matthew Ruffley of Cheshire Fit Camps have been ‘Getting fit for Charity’. They managed to raise a marvellous amount of £350 which will be used to purchase new badminton nets for the gym.

Unfortunately we are still waiting on the outcome of our Wren Grant application for the replacement of the gas heating boilers. In the meantime, we have upgraded the heating controls and now have a state of the art programmer where we are already seeing the savings in our monthly gas bills. This is not only a money saving exercise, but also improves our green credentials massively.

The next step will be the replacement of some more of the windows in the centre with upvc.

We have seen two members of staff promoted in the last few weeks of 2011. Angela McCabe and Steve Broadbent have been promoted to Duty Bar Stewards and are in charge of running the bar staff and bar operations on a day to day basis.

Part of their remit is now to think of new ways to encourage new customers to come in and enjoy our facilities.  To this end they will be running celebration evenings in the bar for the Chinese New Year on Friday 27^th January when we will be showing a film and serving Chinese Dim Sum snacks.

They will also be running a St Valentine’s Day Massacre evening in the Olde Barn on Saturday 11 February, please watch the notice boards and on here for details.

We held a Christmas Quiz in December with a guaranteed prize of £100. The plan is to hold more themed quiz nights on a Wednesday, initially on a monthly basis. Here again please watch the notice boards for information.

Our next Social event is the Burns Night Celebration and Ceilidh on Saturday 21 January from 7.30pm.  This is a fabulous night with a two course hot meal and tot of whisky for just £12 or 6 for £66.  Be sure not to miss getting your tickets for this event as it’s always fully subscribed.

Saturday 7^th January sees the start of our ‘In on the Night’ raffle which will be drawn on Saturday 28^th January, where one lucky winner will leave with a cheque for £500.  See notice boards or here for details.

As in other years we are now already starting to plan our Beer Festival for May and celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

If  you are not on our e-mail list for updates on events, but would like to be, or you are on the list, but wish to be removed,  please contact Pauline on 01925 268633 or e-mail pauline.mcmanus@grappenhall.com

Our newsletter publication is kindly sponsored by Davidsons Scrap Metal Dealers – a downloadable copy is available by clicking here

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