Pavilion Announcement - Jan 2024

Great news to start the New Year.

After a review process lasting over a year, it appears that we are finally seeing real changes in the use of the Pavilion.

In an exciting development, the Village Society and Thrive Langton have agreed to form a "Community Hub” to use the building. The Village Society have formed a Community Interest Company (CIC) which proposes a whole raft of new activities and will significantly increase the time the building will be used. The CIC will operate the Cafe with the day-to-day management run by Emma Howden. The Café will cease to be a proprietary commercial business and become an enterprise which benefits us all. Any surplus generated being returned to the Community.

LGCSA are very pleased about this outcome. We are moving towards the usage of the building for the purposes we had always intended: The building we built and paid for being used when we don’t need it for the benefit of the whole community.

As plans progress, we are particularly excited by the prospect of such activities as:

• The Pavilion Cafe being open more often, not just during school term times.
• More community lunches with discounted food and greater support offered to the older members of our community.
• A Youth Club providing something for the young to do in the evenings.

We particularly like the symmetry of LGCSA partnering with Thrive Langton to support and encourage their brilliant work in the area of mental health – whilst LGCSA continue to focus on physical well-being through sport.

A whole range of new activities are being discussed, they are all exciting and we hope they reach fruition.

We genuinely celebrate this news. After all, the hard work to raise the funding for the building is finally paying off.

I would like to express my thanks to the trustees of LGCSA. Whilst the review process has at times been problematic, they have remained united in their resolve and support. It is only due to LGCSA' insistence that things must change, that it now appears they will.

And moving forward in a spirit of cooperation and support, we feel we should publicly praise Emma Howden. After working so hard to create her business at the Pavilion Cafe – it takes a unique individual to let this go and instead selflessly refocus her talents to benefit us all.

We will all watch what develops with interest and we have offered to help Speldhurst Parish Council (SPC) with the technical and legal problems they need to resolve to secure the long-term success of this project.

Happy New Year

Guy Lambert - Chair LGCSA
2nd Jan 2024