We hope that you were able to go to the Headley Village Fete on Saturday 25 May and enjoyed the afternoon. On this occasion the proceeds of the fete are to be shared between the community shop, St Peter’s Church Headley and Growing2Gether, the local charity based at Cottismore. I’m writing this well before the fete; I have no idea what the weather holds in store so my fingers are crossed. As always with these events, a lot of people worked hard to organise and run it, so many thanks to all who helped. But in particular we have to mention Penny and Graham Stewart who were the main organisers and put in many hours of work – a huge thank you to them for all their hard work.
In May we also hosted the Open Studios in the shop’s community room. Again we hope you were able to visit this and see the high quality work being produced by our local artists and crafts people.
Now that it’s almost summer we have plenty of plants on sale at the shop, mainly supplied by the local charity Growing2Gether. These are good quality plants sold at very reasonable prices. We are also selling cut flowers, from The Headley Flower Garden. This is run by local grower Rebeka Rixon, who grows seasonal flowers, supplying them directly or through the shop. As they are locally grown seasonal flowers they are different from bunches you find in the supermarket or florists, and are always fresh and colourful.
For many years we have had a minimum spending limit on debit and credit card transactions in the shop. In order to be more flexible we have now removed this limit. You are able to use your card for any value of purchase. In the Post Office we still continue to offer the facility for getting cash back with your card.
Many of you will have attended our regular shop tasting mornings before. Our next tasting morning is Saturday 20 July from 10.00am to 1.00pm. This coincides with the annual Hampshire Food Festival run by Hampshire Fare, and celebrates local produce from Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Come along to taste local produce stocked in the shop, including beers and ciders, cheeses, chocolates, cakes etc. It also provides an opportunity to come and talk to us about what we already stock, and ideas you may have for different produce. Please put the date in your diary.
We have always delivered newspapers to a wide area – including Headley, Ashford Hill, Plastow Green, Bishops Green, Ecchinswell and Crookham. We are very keen to keep these deliveries going in order to serve customers, and because the sale of papers is an important source of income for us. During the week we employ someone to do the deliveries. We’ve never managed to find someone to work at the weekends so we are dependent upon a group of volunteers. To keep this service going we need more volunteers. Please consider whether you could help at the weekend for 3 hours once a month, either in the shop or driving the shop car to make deliveries. Contact Neil on nrhaynes40@btinternet.com.