I like to be active, and I’m not very good at saying no to people and therefore, quite soon after I moved to Brindle, I was asked whether I wanted to join the village hall management committee. It was sold to me as a good means of getting to know people and I’d be helping out the community as well. I said yes, and the all the promises made were quite true: I did get to know some lovely people and all for the price of half a dozen meetings a year. But gradually, I became more and more involved, and soon I was helping out with the hall maintenance, planning and selling tickets for fund-raising events, and many other things. Before long, the position of committee secretary came up, and I took on a new role. After two years at this, I became chair of the committee, at which time it was becoming less enjoyable and more serious.
As mentioned, I am not good at saying no to people and for similar reasons, neither am I good at delegating. Consequently, I ended up doing a lot of the things myself that I should have delegated to others, such as dealing with the council entertainments licences, ensuring the health and safety was up to scratch, and hiring contractors to do maintenance or repairs. What had started as a pleasant interest had fallen into the category of a chore, and I wanted out. I had difficulty in finding someone to replace me as chair, and my only option appeared to be to resign from the committee altogether, which I did in 1993. I got my life back once more, although at this point, my family was placing greater demands on my time.
I didn’t learn my lesson, however, because in 2003 I was asked to re-join the committee and, of course, I said ‘yes’. I became the treasurer of the re-named Brindle Community Hall Management Committee just as the fundraising to build a new hall was gaining momentum. By 2006, the old hall had gone, and was replaced by a beautiful community hall which opened at Easter. I had a very busy year writing cheques for eye-watering amounts of money (the whole bill was some £240,000) and ensuring that the accounts were approved by the Charities Commission before I could relax. This time round, I had an exit plan, and signposted very early that I would leave at the 2010 AGM in November.
A matter of weeks later, I was asked to help out with the management of the St Joseph’s Parish Hall, and once more, I couldn’t say no. I was approached because of my experience in managing village halls, and, having just resigned from one committee, I couldn’t use the excuse that I didn’t have the time. I did seem to be a ‘one-man-band’ with this job, though, and I struggled along for months, desperately trying to offload the job, with little success. It took quite a while, but eventually, I managed to sidestep much of the responsibility of the role. I remain on the Parish Hall committee and I should still attend regular meetings and help make decisions regarding pricing, maintenance and the hiring policy, but the day-to-day running of the hall is someone else’s job. I am also a member of the church Finance and General Purposes committee, although I’m still puzzled as to how I landed that role. One day, I’m sure that I’ll be free of these things, but I am becoming less hopeful with the passing years.
