Great Hinton – Social Events vs COVID-19

COVID-19 has made a significant impact on everyone’s lives in a variety of ways and will continue to do so for some time. One of the overarching consequences has been the need to curtail any events that require people to be closer than 2 metres from each other, touching objects and then passing them on, catering, use of common facilities; all activities that heighten the risk of person to person transmission of the COVID-19 virus and would demand an extensive and costly disinfecting and cleaning process on completion.

It is believed that, to date, no one in the Village has contracted COVID-19, we would wish that to remain the case. Therefore, in light of the Government’s sensible directive that social gatherings must be conducted outdoors and in small groups – limited to family and close friends – and the additional risk of a second wave in the autumn, the Community Committee has agreed that all currently planned and advertised events should be cancelled. This includes the 3 social clubs – Indoor Bowls, Lunch Club and Craft Club – which will all remain suspended until it is safe and sensible for them to restart.

Rest assured that your Community Committee is ready to quickly organise social events again as soon as it is safe, sensible and legal to do so; events “on ice” are Skittles, Quiz Night and Horse Racing to name but a few; but we are open to all and any suggestions for events.

Graham HolmesChair, Great Hinton Community Committee

Before these strange times began, it had been planned to hold the Trust's annual meeting on either the 7th or 14th of this month. This is the meeting to which all residents are invited. Obviously, the meeting has been postponed to a date to be decided after restrictions have been eased. (The Trust's constitution requires the annual meeting to be held in April "or as soon as practicable thereafter".)

The Trust's annual meeting is normally followed by the annual meeting of the Community Committee. I understand this too has been postponed.

In the meantime, Andy and Graham hope that annual reports for the Trust and the Community Cmte respectively will be published next month.

The Great Hinton Social Committee has decided in light of the currently Covid-19 epidemic that it would be prudent to cancel some social events, details of which can be found on the revised Social Calendar.

The National and local medical advice is that the epidemic will reach a maximum infection rate during the April to June time frame; coupled with this, Great Hinton has a significant number of people in the ‘high risk’ category, many of whom are loyal event attendees, and we would not wish to place them in an increased danger of contracting the virus or having to forgo attending an event. It is hoped that the epidemic will have started to subside by the middle / end of June to allow the annual fete to be held; however, this will be reviewed in June.In addition to these events, it may also be necessary to delay the Annual General Meeting until later in the year; further information will be published once a firm decision has been made.

In addition, the various Social Clubs are independently reviewing if it would be wise to continue holding their meetings; members of each Club should contact the Club lead / organiser to obtain more information.Thank you for you understanding and I would redraw your attention to the very useful advice the Parish Council recently put out regards Covid-19.