If you live in a sociable village….

[Mumblechum0]

……what sort of events are popular?

ive just re enlisted to our village society after a break. It’s on its knees due to lack of volunteers on the committee and helping at events.

annual events are:
village quiz
summer fete
lent lunch (with church)
very occasional film night
litter pick with bacon butties first
xmas carols and mulled wine

we’re down to 4 people on the committee, we’ve all served on and off for 20 years

need new blood and new ideas.

if you live in a village with a busy social calendar, what do you do?

or what would you like to see?

we’ve previously asked in the newsletter and got v little back

We hold a monthly Bingo night which is currently super popular and the hall is usually packed out.

There is also the annual garden crawl and scarecrow festival which usually does well.

Other than that not much different to your list.

Yeah bingo or beetle drive

Book club

Community hub, so games, soup etc one afternoon a week

Thanks PPP, some excellent ideas 😊

Not strictly a village but one of the neighbours on my estate has started an afternoon walking group which seems popular, they just meet at a certain point and time and go out for about an hour each day unless the weather is really bad.

Scarecrow competition

Beetle
Followed by pie and peas

Murder mystery night

Farmers' market once a month, with refreshments & music

Christmas tree Festival- our church hosts, lots of different trees or tree shapes entered

Open gardens weekend, complete with refreshments & plant sale

Oh gosh - where to start!:

• weekly coffee morning where there is a visiting post office, free library + occasional themed mornings
• monthly Flix in the Stix
• monthly local history group
• Monthly visiting bands
• Harvest meal
• Lent lunches - the village school children make bread for this and serve at the tables
• Special occasion celebrations on the common: Carols on the Common; children's window walk with hot chocolate and mince pies (the villagers decorate their windows for the school children to enjoy); school events (e.g. bug hunt) where villagers provide refreshments out in the open); Annual outdoor Fun Day; Jubilee picnic etc. etc.
• local community choir - run by me! - which sings at local events
• Annual arts festival - run by me - where local people from 7 to 90 perform whatever they wish. It is a lovely day-long community get-together with delicious refreshments.

Just loads of stuff - there is something going on all the time.

People who have moved in from a town are staggered - they had been worried they might be bored!

Monthly cake and cafe for different charity a month, paint and sip bring your own drinks, quiz night, bingo night, old school disco, Chris lights turn on with mulled wine and snow machine, summer bbq and scavenger hunt organised by the local pub for charity.

Our village does loads, mostly aimed at elderly people or toddlers. So coffee morning in church hall every week, playgroups in hall, board games night and nordic walking groups. Events at the library: holiday book reading challenge etc. Womens Institute talks, book clubs.

Summer fete. Harvest festival, Christmas Fayre (with Santa and kids games as well as all the country market type food stalls).

In holidays the shops to a kid’s activity challenge where each shop has something to spot in their window (eg a rubber duck) and for the challenge children have to complete a form saying which item they spotted where.

Firework night bonfire. Remebrance Day is a big deal with road closure and readings at the Green.

My favourites are the stand up comedy nights in the hall, they’re very good.

A Warm Hub! It can be combined with other things (board games; film afternoon) etc but is bound to be popular and people can bake cakes etc for it

Thanks all, great food for thought!

We have your list plus pub quiz every month (lots of non-alcoholic mocktails etc for the non-drinkers) and every 6 weeks or so a gong bath at the church - just because we have a lovely enthusiastic lady with all the kit who loves offering it! It's very well-attended.

The Big Breakfast is very popular a couple of times a year. Sausages eggs bacon toast mushroom tomatoes beans.we gave it on a?Sunday morning with 2 sittings at 9.30 and 10.30.very popular.
Race night

Christmas decorated windows is always a popular one too

Our village is pretty big. They still struggle for help.
Big regular events-
Huge brass band competition (biggest in the U.K.)
Party in the Park (tribute bands in a festival setting)
Xmas lights switch on.
Medium regular events-
Scarecrow trail
Halloween trail
Advent calendar windows in the village
Flower show
Small/Ad hoc-
various fund raisers at pub/library/school (library is volunteer run too, although owned by council)
warm hub
OAP’s coffee morning each Saturday
dinners as fund raisers at the theatre

Winter/summer Ball

More frequently:
Bingo night
Race night
Open mike/live music
Knit & natter
Veg/baking fairs with prizes
Pamper evenings
Book club
Paint & a pint/prosecco
Walk/cycle and breakfast
Treasure hunt
Boards games night
Make your own cocktail night

One of the things that has started recently is a coffee morning that is a "hub" for information - there is a laptop provided by the LA that taps into information and people can find out stuff about benefits, services, etc.

These got people thinking they are part of something:
A little library, which is a cabinet filled with books, take one / leave one.
Same for plant stall.

From there grew a scarecrow festival, an Easter Bunny Hop for the children, where they have a treasure map and answer questions, Easter egg at the end.
summer fete.

Walking Car Boot, with an online map of people putting stuff at the end of their driveway all on the same day to sell.

Wow some excellent ideas!
we’re quite a small village, about 120 houses so about 300 residents plus about 40 Ukrainian refugees at the moment, so we’re slightly limited and it’s a very affluent place so not much call for warm hubs etc but I love the ideas for knit n natter, race night, Easter stuff for kids etc!
I’ll put all this forward at the next committee meeting (of 5 people!)
also need to get more volunteers, people often say they’ll help but don’t stick around unfortunately

Safari supper
Sloe gin competitions

Scarecrow festival weekend and party with live band, food stalls etc on the Friday eve.

3 pubs helps! well one is a social club! a river, so rowing club, church, village hall with classes from ballet to pop up cafes, a motor bike show, fireworks and an art centre with its own cinema, visiting bands at the hall, cornish dance festival.... not having many holiday homes helps, they get hate!

But its getting worse, more an more are people here just at the weekend with no interest in the community which is only about 800 in total.

You re screwed without people to help though.. whatever the ideas.

We’re a small village but we have a lot on also run by a small committee which we are part of. We have:

monthly bingo
monthly quiz
monthly seniors lunch
a cafe run by volunteers
kids cafe in the holidays with activities
live music nights
village fete
Christmas/ Halloween/ New Year’s Eve/ Valentine’s Day parties
Christmas markets
vintage motor show
walk with afternoon tea at the end

I’s sure there’s more! It does get to be a lot organising all of these events and it’s always us cleaning up after. People say they’ll help, then they don’t and oh god, the moaning when people don’t get what they want (despite us making it very clear we welcome new volunteers).