An appeal to replace Sampford Courtenay Village Hall's roof has been helped along by the annual Christmas Cheer event in the village hall.

Over 70 young people and their families came to enjoy the hand-crafted festive displays, based on children’s story books before Christmas.

A merry band of elves, supervised by Mother Christmas, were on hand to go round with family groups and help the young people write letters to Father Christmas before meeting him in person in his Christmas grotto. The village hall also provided festive refreshments as well as craft items for sale and prize draws.

This popular event has gone from strength to strength and is now a firm favourite for both young and older people in the parish and the local community.

The event is one of a range of events that has been taking place to support the Village Hall Roof Appeal. The community needs to raise £150,000 to enable urgent repairs to the hall which includes the replacement of the roof. Without these repairs the village hall, which is the focus of community activities, will be forced to close.

Despite the pandemic, £50,000 has been raised so far and this has enabled the replacement of the main Victorian windows which were in a very dangerous state. Unfortunately building costs are increasing and further urgent help is needed to save the village hall.

At the moment the hall team is working on an application for major grant funding and also conducting surveys to look at how the community uses and values the hall facility and ideas on how other activities could be developed in the future.

More details are available on the Sampford Courtenay website.