August 2026 - new kitchen time!

Thanks to the village's INCREDIBLE support to our fundraising events, bolstered by an amazing amount of grant application success from Judy our Treasurer, your village hall will have a new kitchen installed in August.

After over two decades of use, and in line with bringing hall facilities up to date in terms of efficiency and meeting the needs of hirers the kitchen refit has been through a lengthy consultation with regular users and the funds have been raised to proceed.

A consultative project - working with the village FOR the village

We worked with representatives from Tysoe Lunch Club, the Community Cafe and our WI to best understand the challenges faced by these groups when preparing drinks and food, quickly, for larger audiences.

We also looked at storage, washing up and, as it is a village hall, how can you make a large number of cups of tea very quickly!

We discussed upper generation users, we discussed not being as tall as we once were, we discussed being warm, and opening (and closing!) the main hall hatch more easily.

The result of these discussions is, we hope, a kitchen that will serve the groups and the village well for many years to come.

What does that mean for hirers and visitors?

A project of this scale does not come without disruption. During planning, we worked with our main hiring groups to best understand when to carry out the installation. With the hall at it's quietest in August, this is when works will be carried out - starting on the 1st of the month.

1. Is the hall remaining open during this time? - yes, very much so!
2. How long will this go on for? - we expect to be complete within three weeks
3. Will it be a bit noisy in the main hall? - yes, inevitably, expect the sounds of holes being drilled, walls being chased, cabinets being fixed to the walls and circular saws cutting wood. We will work outside of hiring hours, where possible, practical and feasible
4. Will the toilets remain in use? - absolutely, no changes there
5. I am a hirer that uses the kitchen - will I still be able to make a cuppa? - we are establishing a temporary kitchen in the McNulty Room, with a suitable selection of kettles, jugs, cups, other crockery, glassware and cutlery. The fridge will be available and the hall team will provide large containers of water, as needed. Washing up duties will be handled by the hall team and we will leave space in the room for used items
6. I am a hirer that uses the McNulty Room - how can we work around this? - Jacqui has been busy with the diary, and will work with you to reorganise or relocate you into the main hall - we will make it work
7. Is access to the hall the same during the works? - yes, please enter in the usual way through the front doors. Our contractors have been selected as they understand about working in public spaces and apart from a bit of noise, you will not know they are there

We like to recycle

Whilst the current kitchen is over 20 years old, many elements of it are serviceable. To this end we would like to offer certain elements, that are no longer needed, to villagers. The cabinets and worktops would make for great storage in garages or sheds.

We will be announcing an "open kitchen" on Friday 31st July so you can see what is available. Items MUST be collected over the afternoon of the 2nd of August - sadly we cannot hold items due to a lack of storage.