MINUTES OF PARISH MEETING
HORTON, SOUTH GLOS
WHICH WAS HELD AT
HORTON VILLAGE HALL
ON
WEDNESDAY 17th MAY 
AT
7.45 PM

THE BUSINESS TRANSACTED AT THE MEETING WAS AS FOLLOWS:

•	The Chair of the Parish Council, Cllr Fannon, opened the meeting and welcomed all.  Present, Cllr Craig, Hatherell and Harrison, Ward Cllr Rush and a representative from the PCC.
•	The Parish Clerk read a report on behalf of the Parish Council – attached.

•	PARISH ORGANISATIONS/GROUPS TO REPORT ON ACTIVITIES:-

•	PCC REPORT – a representative from Horton PCC read his report. – attached.
•	HORTON CofE SCHOOL REPORT – no report was received   
•	VILLAGE HALL COMITTEE – clerk read the report provided by the Chair of the Village Hall Committee – attached.

ANY PERSONS WISHING TO ADDRESS THE ASSEMBLY ON BEHALF OF A LOCAL ORGANISATION PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF KNOWN TO THE CHAIR PRIOR TO COMMENCEMENT OF THE MEETING.   No further reports.

CLERK'S REPORT 
ANNUAL PARISH MEETING 2023

Horton Parish Council held it’s usual required 6 regular meetings this year and it has been a quiet year.
Precept – The precept was set at £8375, a slight jump on previous years where it had been reduced considerably to help limit costs for parishoners during the pandemic. 
Community Infrastructure money was used to purchase defibrillator spares to keep the defib in working order and continues to be looked after by the Village Hall Committee.
The Parish Council were asked to consider if it would take on a merger with Little Sodbury, to which councilors agreed.  Boundaries have now been redrawn and Little Sodbury Parish Meeting has now been dissolved with both parishes now being one.  
Planning applications have all been straight forward with HPC making no objections other than considerations to be taken into account for one or two.
Phone Box- the phone box on the hill was pushed off it’s plynth by a car rolling into it.  Cllrs Fannon and Hatherell were able to push it back and fix it into place.  Mike Plows, who renovated the box some years ago and turned it into a book exchange, very kindly offered to re-paint it and spruce it up.  A BT phone box painting kit was purchased by HPC and we are delighted to say that it has now been finished and is looking super.  Huge thanks go to Mr Plows for his generosity in taking time to paint it for us.

Annual Report St James the Elder, Horton for 2022-2023 
Since the lifting of the Covid pandemic restrictions our congregations have returned to pre-covid levels and have actually gone up slightly. This has primarily been as a result visitors to the Court attending.
We have been in vacancy since May 2022 and after advertising on three separate occasions we still have not managed to appoint a new Rector. We are indebted to our Curate Jane Jones-Williams and all the other retired clergy who have enabled worshipping in the Benefice to continue seamlessly. The streaming of services from St. John’s Chipping Sodbury continues on a weekly basis as well as from some of the other churches on special occasions. 
Both the Church Wardens are once again extremely grateful for the continued assistance, friendship and support received from everyone in Horton. We would thank all those people who work so hard and give their time so freely, behind the scenes together with the Wardens, by welcoming people to the church, helping with refreshments, enhancing the Church with flower arrangements, raising funds generally, cleaning, general maintenance and whatever it may be; a huge thank you to you all. 
St. James the Elder remains an integral part of the village and whilst those from Horton making up the regular congregation are relatively small in terms of numbers we continue to receive support from the village as a whole when putting on events. Our congregations have again remained generally static in terms of numbers and it would be a huge boost if a few more people would support our morning service on a regular basis. We hold a variety of services to try and cater for all preferences in relation to forms of worship so there should be something for everyone at some time during the month. 
There is a huge amount of repair and refurbishment work required on the fabric of the church and the costs will run probably into well in excess of £100,000 if not £200,000. Primarily this is in relation to work to the roof. The main church path requires urgent work as do the table tombs but technically this is the responsibility of the L.A. and at present we have been unsuccessful in getting them to acknowledge their responsibility for these works. It is estimated that repairs to the table tombs will cost over £80,000. We would very much like to redecorate the inside of the church but with the other repairs necessary to the external fabric we cannot contemplate this at the present time. 
In relation to the repairs necessary to the Grade 2 listed table tombs we enquired at the Gloucester Records Office whether we could have access to the burial records. It appears that these have somehow been mislaid and we are grateful to Martin May for his work in researching these burials and compiling a new up to date record. 
We again still have far too many vacancies on the PCC and if anyone is prepared to put themselves forward it would be greatly appreciated. 
We are grateful for all the time and effort that the choir has put in during the lockdown and their hard work has borne fruit now that their participation in services is back to its usual routine. The Bells are now rung again before our services on Sundays and our thanks go to our dedicated ‘band’. We try to make everyone welcome at Horton, whether on a Sunday or with our visitors during the week and long may this continue. 
The school is now back to using the Church as they would normally. It was unfortunate that their usual participation at Christmas was still not possible in 2022 because of the inclement weather and the need to re schedule the annual Carol Service. The school, with the help of The Revd. Katherine Coster used the church prior to Easter this year for an ‘Experience of Easter Trail, which was very successful. The Head Teacher at St. John’s Mead school now has responsibility for Horton School in relation to the official ‘federation’ that is now in place. We try to make everyone welcome at Horton, whether on a Sunday or with our visitors during the week and long may this continue. Our thanks go to everyone in the Village for their support over the last year. 
Richard Needs (Vice Chair St.James the Elder PCC) April 2023

Horton and Little Sodbury Village Hall Committee 
Chairman’s Report for the Parish Council, 2022-23

Life at the village hall is getting back into the swing of things in our first full year since lockdown.  We are getting a steady flow of bookings for fitness classes, craft events, coffee mornings, parties and wedding receptions.  New regular bookings at the hall include a table tennis club and dog training classes. 
Since my last report a year ago, we have held various events, starting with a Platinum Jubilee picnic on the bank holiday Sunday last June.   It was a great success.  
In June we also hosted an evening with the Rockhampton Wind Quintet, starring our very own Mike Lea-Wilson on French horn.  
In September, the Tour de Britain cycle race was due to pass through Horton.  We were going to open the hall so we could all watch the riders as they hurtled down Horton Hill, but the race was cancelled the night before, due to the Queen’s death.    
Continuing with the cycling theme, the Sodbury Sportive were going to use the hall as their race HQ in August, but a lack of advance bookings from participants meant they had to cancel.  
In October we held an afternoon quiz with tea and cake to give villagers a chance to catch up.  It was well supported.  
The highlight of the 2022 social calendar was the Oktoberfest Bavarian evening organised by Barbera Denton and Caroline Bannister.  There was much beer and song and a good time was had by all.  
In December we held our annual Christmas card launch and charity evening in aid of a medical charity in Tanzania which Paul and Pauline Anthony are involved with.  For a change we combined that with a curry night, with catering supplied by the Horseshoe.  
In February Brian Jarvis gave a slideshow and enlightened us about the amazing engineering feat of the construction of London’s Victorian sewers, designed by Joseph Bazalgette.  The new drains were a huge leap forward in public health and saved many lives.  His drains are still in use today.  
Ninebarrow returned for a fifth visit in March, another sell-out concert.  We hope to have them back for a return visit next year if they can fit us in.  
The Horton Bull Run in April went very well.  As in the past, it was on the same day as the London Marathon, which we showed on our big screen.  There were more runners than last year and we were pleased to see the return of friends and family supporting the runners, which meant we sold more food and drink than last year.  
Barbera Denton masterminded an epic Coronation tea in May which was very well supported.  The hall looked very patriotic decked out in bunting and red white and blue balloons.  
Many thanks to everyone who attended or helped organise these events.  
Future events include a cheese and wine quiz evening in June – the quiz is about the various wines.  In September, GreenMatthews are coming back to see us with their historical musical instruments and to entertain us with some Witty Ditties.   Later in the month Alison Barlow is talking to us about her Coast to Coast horseback ride.  
We’d really appreciate any suggestions for events that you’d like to see in the future and hope you’ll support any events that we do run.  We are also very grateful for offers of help at events – perhaps behind the bar, in the kitchen, or baking a cake.  The Village Hall committee is very small so help is always needed.  
This year we applied to the Woodland Trust for some free ‘whips’ – very young trees.  400 came in November and another 100 in March.  They are a mixture of species.  We have planted these round the edge of the playing field.  We have been advised that many of the whips may not thrive, hence we needed to plant a lot of them.  
In the past few weeks the village hall committee has taken over as licensee for the bar as the Horseshoe were no longer able to support us.  We found out that committees of community premises like ours are able to act instead of a ‘designated premises supervisor’ to make sure that the conditions of our licence are adhered to.  This means that we won’t have to rely on finding a local publican who will take us on.  When private functions such as weddings use the hall and want to sell alcohol, they will need to find a local mobile bar operator to run the bar for them.  
We have also been busy with improvements and repairs to the hall.  Our shabby old curtains have now been replaced by smart blue ones.  Emma Cordy-Rugman managed to get a very good deal on them in the Next sale.  We also have black drapes to form a backdrop for performances.
Brian Jarvis and Tony Wake have masterminded the installation of some additional stage lighting on a moveable gantry which can either illuminate a stage on the long side of the hall or one at the far end. 
Our main project in the past year was the improvement of the car park so it’s now the same width all the way down.  This makes best use of the space.  We also now have a small overflow car park by the pavilion.  The extra parking makes a big difference when we have large events at the hall.  The final stage of the car park project is to pave the potholed entrance to the car park.  That is pencilled in for this summer.  
We are also getting quotes to replace the rather tatty kitchen units in the old part of the kitchen.  
We really appreciate the grants and support we get from the Parish Council and from South Glos Council.  Once again, the Parish Council has kindly agreed to pay for our grass cutting in the forthcoming year, for which we are very grateful.  
We are very pleased that life at the hall is getting back to normal and that it continues to provide a valuable resource to the village.  

Katharine Lea-Wilson
Chair, Horton and Little Sodbury Village Hall, May 2023