For the AGM's agendas and minutes click on WMI Agendas & Minutes.

Fundraising events 2012

On Wednesday January 18th a Bingo session was held for the first time in the function room of the Ostrich Inn. It was a very successful evening with over 60 people attending, a lot of lovely prizes being donated and there was also a raffle. The total profit made towards the new pavilion was £370.50. Thanks must got to those who organised the evening, the people that donated the prizes and to those villagers that attended and had a wonderful social evening.

Fundraising events 2011

The soup/ploughmans' lunches will return in 2011, but not starting until April. For dates of all soup/ploughmans' lunches for this year and further fundraising events that will be organised in the future, please go to Events Calendar-Future Events for more details.
Again we are sorry but we have had to raise the price and the two course lunch will now be £4.50pp from April.

Fundraising events 2010

The soup lunch held on Feb 6th 2010 raised £70. The soup lunch run on the 6th March raised £111.00. The soup lunch held on the 10th April raised £58. The soup/ploughmans' lunch held on the 1st May raised £63.
The ploughmans' lunch held on Sat 5th June initially did not raise sufficient to cover our costs, but through a donation we made £26. So there will be a lunch in July and, now, also in August but not in September. Whether the Soup lunches return in October is dependant on demand.
The ploughman's lunch held on July 3rd raised £63 due to an increase in the attendance. The next Ploughman's lunch will be on Aug 7th. This raised £52. The lunches will return in October and November.
The two Soup Lunches that were held in October and November raised £32 and £38 respectively.
Due to increasing cost of the food for the lunches, we have had to raise the price to £4.50pp. We are very sorry about this but we have had no choice.

News

Dec 11th 2011

Newsletter December 2011

A new sub-committee has been formed by the Trustees to arrange future monthly fundraising events in or around the village in response to the answers given by the residents in the village questionnaire. This newsletter will be sent out regularly to keep you up to date with these events. You can also check the dates, in between newsletters, in the Creake News and on the Events Calendar-Future Events page of the South Creake village website.
January 18th 2012 7.30pm Bingo in the Function Room of the Ostrich Inn
February 25th 7-10pm Quiz Night at North Creake village hall
March 3rd 2012 12-2pm Soup Lunch at North Creake village hall
April 7th 2012 10am-1pm Wayside stall in the bus shelter
May 5th 2012 12-2pm Soup Lunch at North Creake village hall
June 3rd 2012 Gift Aid and Buy-a-Brick/Roof Tile stall at the Jubilee Street Party
If you would like to donate any unwanted gifts as prizes for these and future events, please contact Vicky May on 01328 823398 where you can arrange collection or delivery. They need prizes for the first two events above and could they be made available by January 9th. Also items like cakes, cookies, bric-a-brac, books, etc. are needed for the wayside stall in April. Please contact Ann Harvey on 01328 823234 or Doreen Cox on 01328 823464.
The Quiz Night will feature teams with a maximum of six people, cost £5pp to be paid on the night, and will include food (soup and cake), drinks you will need to bring yourself. The teams names to be in by 18th Feb and to be either emailed to Robin Maslin on robin@rmaslin.fsnet.co.uk or directly to Alirae Bunkle or Vicky May.
If you would like to help with any of the above or future events, please contact Vicky May on 01328 823398.
Three requests the group want to ask 1. Is there anyone in the village that has experience of or knows how to run a "Race Night" which they wish to organise for November 2012? 2. Is there a volunteer to organize and run the 100 Club? 3. Is there anyone who would like to organise and run Coffee Mornings in their house? Please contact any of the persons above.
Thank you.

Nov 22nd 2011 (updated 23rd Dec 2011)

The questionnaire answers have now been correlated and the details are as follows:-
Number of questionnaires sent out = 360
Number of questionnaires returned = 155 (43.1%)
Number that said the development suits the villages' community and sporting needs = 138 (89.03%)
Number of residents (502 at last count) that responded = 325 (64.74%)
Number of additonal activities to the 20 already suggested and requested = 65
Number of Gift Aid envelopes that contained donations = 33
Number of additional ideas for fund-raising to the 5 already suggested = 29
Total donations given = £2,453.46p
Number of volunteers willing to help finish the building = 32
Number of volunteers willing to organize and help run activities = 64
Number of residents that attended the two Public Meetings = 34
The Trustees would like to express their thanks to all of those residents that took their time to fill in the questionnaires. These answers will help us when we apply for grants to raise the money to build the pavilion. A Stage 2 application as just gone in to the National Lottery for a £500,000 grant under their Reaching Communities Buildings scheme. Further grant applications to other organisations will be undertaken over the next few months.

Nov 3rd 2011

There has been a questionnaire delivered to all village households this week to ask the villagers their views on the new Memorial Pavilion and to ask if there are volunteers willing to help the Trustees in the running, organising, fund-raising and participating in the use of the building and any activity that will be run in it. The Trustees ask that the questionnaire be filled in by as many residents as possible as the information gained will aid them in obtaining grants for its' construction.
There will be two public meetings being held in the Ostrich Function room on Wednesday 16th November at 4pm - 5.30pm and 7.30pm - 9.30pm where the results of the questionnaire will be available to view, copies of the design plans and a scale model will also be on show. Trustees of the War Memorial Institute will be available to answer any questions you may have.
Some neccessary minor alterations to the design have had to be made for construction reasons, click on this link to see the latest drawings:- Pavilion and Site layout. You can compare these with the older versions which are on a link further down this page

July 25th 2011

The new position of the football pitch has been laid out and the goalposts have been moved to their new positions on the pitch. Thanks must go to the Football team for moving the goalposts and marking out the lines of the new pitch and they played their first friendly match on it on Thursday 21 July. The pitch has been moved to allow for the construction of the new Memorial Pavilion.

AGM June 27th 2011

The South Creake War Memorial Institute invite all South Creake residents to attend the Annual General Meeting which will be held in the Function Room, Ostrich Inn at 7.30pm. Refreshments, kindly provided by the Ostrich Inn, will be available before and after the meeting.
For the agendas and minutes of AGMs, click on the link above.

May 22nd 2010

The WMI Annual General Meeting will be held in the Ostrich function room on Wednesday 16th June at 7.30pm.

The Institute has now been registered with the HM Revenue and Customs for the collection of Gift Aid. This will allow the WMI to get an additional amount equivatent to the tax paid by a donor on all gifts of money (donations) if the donor agrees. This will be an additional 28% of that donation, at no extra cost to the donor as this will come from the government.

Feb 1st 2010

A legacy of £50,000 has been left to the War Memorial Institute solely for the maintenance of the new Memorial Pavilion when it is built. This legacy has a time limit of Feb 2010 and is dependant on planning permission being granted before then. If it is not, then this legacy will be lost for this project.
The planning approval was acheived on Dec 7th 2009, so this legacy has now been secured and it has been put into a savings account managed by the Trustees.

WAR MEMORIAL INSTITUTE

Huge progress has been made in the last two months on this project; the Institute building has been sold, and full planning approval has been obtained for the New Memorial Pavilion. Unfortunately, neither have been straight forward.

The War Memorial Institute
The sale of the Institute has been delayed for eighteen months, due to the enforcing of a covenant, put in place at the initial purchase by the village in 1920 from Steward and Patterson, the brewer, stating that the building could be used as a Parish Institute and for no other purpose. The effect of this has been to limit the market considerably, and reduce the market value to one-quarter without the covenant. The Trustees have very strict conditions from the Charity Commission on the sale of the Institute, one stating that it must be valued by a Chartered Surveyor and marketed at that value, and could not be sold privately, but only on the open market. The Trustees have tried in vain, throughout that time, to get the covenant removed, but all the legal advice has been that, although it could be achieved, the legal costs could be very high and it would take many months. The Trustees were not prepared, on behalf of the community, to takes this line.

Without removing the covenant the only option would be to put it on the market with the covenant in place and at the low valuation, which would be up to £150,000 below the market value without the covenant and with a very limited market. The Trustees considered that the community should be made aware of the reasons for the delay and considerable loss of income from the sale due to the covenant, which is in the region of £50,000 to £100,000, meaning that this much extra must now be obtained through fund raising.

Now for the good news. The sale has been made possible by two people, a village resident, and a second home owner in the village. Both are in agreement with the critical need for the developement for the survival of the village as a community, and the importance of the income from the Institute in the project. The village residents, who moved to the village about 4 years ago, have made an acceptable offer for the building as it stands, with the covenants in place, and as individuals they are in a better position to deal with the covenants. They will also carry out all the remaining clearing out and are planning to live there themselves. The second home owner has made it possible, through a very generous donation, to enable a Solicitor to be employed to carry out the necessary legal work required by the Charrity Commission to enable the building to be sold privately. On behalf of the community the Trustees sincerely thank them both for their support.

THE NEW MEMORIAL PAVILION

Planning approval for this was obtained at the December meeting of the Borough Development and Control Board. As with most projects caried out in the village, there is a minority who are not in favour of the development. Of course, every one has that right, but they should accept that they are very much in the minority. In the case of this project it has been proved, on numerous occassions, that the vast majority of residents not only approve of the project and the need for it, but are anxious to see it completed and in use.

The village has been down-graded and now comes under the category of a Hamlet. It is also included in the 20% of the most deprived villages/hamlets in East Anglia, the reason being that it has no amenities or facilities and no community function facility. The residents who are not in favour of the project, and protesting, can be counted on the fingers of one hand and I am sure the vast majority of the community will agree with the Trustess that the protestors have now seriously overstepped the mark. They will not be specifically named in this report as their names are in the public domain through the Borough web site, and most residents know who they are.

One resident from a nearby village, presumably having delved into the village archives, discovered that, in 1976, the recreation ground/playing field was registered under the Commons Registration Act, with the same number as the village green. As such, it is classed as a village green, and cannot have a building of any description sited on it. He reported this to the Borough planning department. The village therefore, currently, does not have a site for the development and therefore before any development can be carried out this must be resolved.

This will seriously delay the project and be very costly to the community. Until this, the WMI Trustees have been leading, but it is now in Parish Council's court as it will have to take the necessary steps to get the recreation field de-registered. This is not straight forward and will be very costly. The application alone will cost £4900 to submit, excluding all the necessary legal costs and other implications.

The recreation ground was purchased by the village in 1908 for the recreation and exercise of the parishioners, and no residents have ever considered it to be the village green. The village green has been there since before records began, and any map clearly shows this. This would not have been a problem if the objector had not delved into the archives and reported it to the planning department, which then had no option but to take the action it has. There has never been any reason for it to be queried before and full planning approval has in the past been obtained for the bowls and football pavilions, and more recently, in 2006, the New Memorial Pavilion. None of these would be allowed on a village green, and even the play area would be questionable. The protestors put a number of unfounded reasons forward for their action, most of which would have been answered if they had taken an interest in the project throughout the development, which commenced in 2003, possibly before they arrived to live in the village full time. It is not clear what their objective is, but if it is to create a lot of extra work, considerably delay the project, and cost the community a lot of momney which could have been spent on other projects, they have succeeded.

If it was to stop the project, they have failed. it is critical to the survival of the village as a community and the vast majority are anxious to see it completed. It is a priority item in the recent Parish Plan, which was based on a survey delivered to every household in the village. If the project did not go ahead it would result in a loss of up to £200,000 to the community, and a one-off opportunity to provide the much needed facility, retaining a link with the War Memorial Institute, established in 1920 as a memorial to the bravery and loss of village residents.

A brief re-cap on the background to the project
When the Club closed in 2003, the Institute did not comply with the necessary regulations and therefore could not be let, and received no income. Following two well publicised, well attended, public meetings, it was unanimously agreed that the only option was to sell the building and provide a new replacement facility, situated on the playing field. The Trustees were re-formed and were given a mandate to see the project through. Initial dealings with the Charity Commission, to obtain approval to sell the building, were unsuccessful. The Commission needed evidence of the replacement, otherwise they would sell the building and decide where the money should go.

It was agreed that intitial research for the new facility should be carried out to provide the necessary evidence for the Charity Commission. It was identified that, to satisfy the village needs and to make the facility viable, the building needed to be multi-functional, incorporating the football and bowls pavilions plus a function room and a meeting room. This would ensure year round use. Various sites for the development were considered including consultation with the Highways department for the access. The only road where they would allow a new access for such development was the Fakenham road, due to emergency service access. To incorporate the bowls, tennis and football needs, the pavilion needed to be sited adjoining the bowling green, and the current site was agreed.

Before progressing further, work was carried voluntarily to design the new facility, incorporating the identified requirements, and carrying out the necessary work to obtain full planning approval to ensure the site could be used. This was obtained in 2006. A business plan was produced and all the details sent to the Charity Commission, requesting permission to sell the Institute. This was granted, with a number of conditions, one being that all the income must be spent on the new replacement building. All the details of the proposed development were published in the Creake News, asking for any comments or suggestions. Only two were received; the height of the roof, and breaking up and enhancing the elevation.

An architectural designer was employed, with experience in such work, to improve the development, taking into account the comments, and bringing the changing facilities up to the Sport's Council recommendations. The roof was lowered by one metre and the elevations enhanced. The improvements increased the size of the footprint, hence the need for new planning approval. Before the revised application was submitted for approval, the new drawings, plus a model, were on display at a well-attended fun day on the actual site, asking for comments. With one exception, the response was very much in favour, with no complaints or suggestions. The community must be praised for its fund raising efforts to enable the project to reach this stage, which total £15,000 to date. All the details on the progression have been published in the Creake News, and have been reported at the Parish Council meetings by the Secretary of the Trustees. These meetings are public and everyone has an opportunity to have their say. It is planned to commence the project as soon as the village green problem has been resolved, with work on the bridge being the first phase.


War Memorial Institute Trustees

Dec 7th 2009

On Monday Dec 7th three members of the Parish Council, and they are also Trustees of the War Memorial Institute, Len Ringwood, Rodney Wakeman and Robin Maslin attended the monthly West Norfolk Planning Control Board meeting at King's Lynn Town Hall as our application for planning permission was to be read. We arrived at the meeting at 10am and then found out that our application would not be read until after lunch. We sat through the meeting as none of us had attended this type of meeting before and found it both interesting and a little boring at times!

The time then arrived for our reading of the application and Len Ringwood, who had indicated that he wished to speak, was called forward to deliver his three minute speech to back up our application. The opposition representative was then called to give their three minute speech. The Chairperson then asked members of the Control Board if they had any questions. Two members gave their representations which were in favour of approving the application. So, with no questions being asked, the vote was taken and was passed by a very large majority! There were only two who voted against.

So, we now have our planning permission to go ahead and build the new Memorial Pavilion. There is still one minor stumbling block and that is the fact of the Recreational Ground (Playing Field) being wrongly registered as a Village Green. Negotiations are underway to rectify this anomaly.

In the meantime we will be carrying on with finalising the finer details of the Pavilion's design and proceeding with the bridge construction. Also we will be pursuing grants to finance the construction.
On this subject of finance, if there is anybody out there, either in the village or elsewhere, that would like to consider donating any money towards the construction costs, please contact me via the Feedback email link at the top of this page and I will contact you direct.
There is a legacy that has been left to the War Memorial Institute Trustees by Albert Shackcloth for the maintenance and upkeep only of the pavilion which was dependant on obtaining planning permission. This legacy has now been secured and will be invested for the future upkeep of the building.

It has been a very long haul to get to where we are now and we still have a long way to go yet, but you can now be assured that the new Memorial Pavilion will be built!

Sept 4th 2009

The answers and the winner of the Big Lunch quiz can be found by clicking on Big Lunch quiz answers.

The Sunday July 19th 'Big Lunch' raised a fantastic £482.95. Thanks must go to all those who organised it, especially the Girl Guides, those who donated items for sale and prizes for the two competitions, those who gave their time to man the stalls and games, and of course all those parishioners and visitors that came out and had their picnic and joined in the fun. The boat race was a great success with 171 boats being 'bought'! The winners of the boat race were: - 60 RKC Taylor, first prize of a meal for two at the Ostrich; 44 Doreen Cox, second prize of £10; 182 Nancy Fox, third prize of £5. The South Creake Village 25 questions competition is still open and questionnaire papers can be purchased for 50p each from the Ostrich Inn. The closing date is the 25th Aug. and the prize winner of a garden voucher for £30 will be picked at the South Creake Heritage Exhibition on Mon 31st Aug.

The planning application has been re-submitted to the King's Lynn Borough Council's Planning Department for their perusal and final approval.

History of the War Memorial Institute

The Institute was originally the Mineral Water Factory and was conveyed in November 1920 to the people of South Creake for "Social and Recreational use". Facilities were fairly basic but proved to be a popular meeting place.

In 1957 Mr J.B.Griggs, one of the original founders, who held the position of President and Chairman, raised £360 to install modern lavatories and toilet conveniences and was aided by a grant from the Educational Ministry, London.
The Institute at that time was only used for recreational purposes. It was also used for meetings of the Parish Council, Political meetings, Wedding receptions and other village functions, for which a small charge was made for the hiring.

Valuable work in the Parish emanated from the Institute which housed the Local Invasion Committee, Red Cross, Soldiers Comforts Fund and the Norfolk War Charities.

The Institute continued to flourish for many years, and in 1984 the Social Club was granted a 20 year lease on the Club Room and continued to provide social facilities with active Billiard teams, both Men and Women Dart teams and regular live music on Saturday evenings. Sadly economic circumstances overcame the Social Club and it was closed a few years ago.

On 3rd April 1984, The Charities Commission created a new Charity Scheme to run the War Memorial Institute. It comprisers a committee of up to 11 members, 2 elected and 9 representative members. This Committee is still going strong and is working actively to build a brand new Memorial Pavilion, in a different and more suitable position, to continue on with the aims and desires of the Trustees to provide a more convenient meeting place for residents of the village.

The new Memorial Pavilion

The Trustees, in conjunction with the Parish Council, have developed exciting proposals for a new community pavilion to be sited on the Village Recreational ground (Playing field) opposite the pub, between the bowls green and the children's play area, next to the river and the football pitch. Full Planning Consent is being sought during 2009, for construction to commence once the detailed scheme has been finalised, funding arrangements completed and tenders obtained.

The picture below shows the area of the Recreational Ground (Playing field) and the Village Green to the upper right. The site where the proposed Memorial Pavilion will be is in the area between the second square of grass (The Bowls green) and the children's play area, just to the right of the centre of the picture.


Location and layout plans can be viewed by clicking on Site layout, and the exterior elevations and interior layout by clicking on Pavilion layout.
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This model was built by Robin Maslin, one of the Trustees, for display at the village Fun Day on 27th September 2008. There was a lot of interest shown at the show with very favourable comments being put forward. The model, and plans, will be on display at all future fund raising events.

Fundraising events 2008/9

Once the decision was made on the design of the building, thoughts were then directed onto how we can get the funding we require to build it? So it was decided to start small and work our way up. We therefore held our first event which was a wayside stall at the bus shelter, this raised an incredible £363. A very nice sum for just selling items like cakes, jams, pickles, secondhand items and a raffle. All the items for sale were donated and we would like to take this opportunity in thanking all those who gave items and their time.

The next event was our 'big one'. It was the 'Fun Day' held on 27th September on the playing field between the bowls green and the childrens' play area. There were sales stalls, childrens' games, (which some adults partook in as well!), a display of the plans and a model of the new pavilion, light refreshments were provided such as tea/coffee and a bun, soft drinks from the Ostrich Inn, and the highlight of the afternoon was the resurrected boat race. Over 380 boats were 'purchased' for a £1 each and they were all released together at 4pm. Great fun was had by all watching 'their' boats flowing down the river. The three winners were delighted with their prizes of £25, £15, and £10. Once again very many thanks go to all those helped in any way to make the day such a great success and we were blessed with beautiful weather. The total raised was £1,015.

The next two events were held in North Creake village hall and were soup lunches. The Girl Guides made all the arrangements and did all the running of them. The proceeds were split between the Guides and the Pavilion and the monies raised were £54, and £86. This year (2009) there will be soup lunches run every first Saturday in each month (with the exception of January, September and December) and the monies raised will again be shared between the Guides and the Pavilion. The model of the new pavilion will be on display at each of the lunches with Trustees being available to answer any questions. Very many thanks must go to the Girl Guides and their friends who will be running them.
The first of this years lunches was held on Sat 7th Feb. in which we raised £86. The second of the lunches was held on Sat 7th March where we raised £100. The soup lunch held on Sat 4th April raised £46. The May 2nd soup lunch raised £65.
The Sat 6th June soup(less) lunch raised £103.50. This, it was felt, was due to the Open Gardens in North Creake that were happening that afternoon and that it was a ploughmans as most people, when asked, prefered the next two lunches to be ploughman's. The Soup(less) lunch on Sat 4th July raised £52.60. The Soup(less) lunch held on Sat 1st Aug raised £78.50. The soup lunch that was run on Sat 3rd October raised £65. The soup lunch held on 7th Nov raised £90.

The wayside stall on 13th April has raised a wonderful £342.80. All the items were donated and we again would like to give our thanks to all those who either gave the items or their time towards achieving this great total. Also not forgetting to thank all those of you who came along and bought items.