Hello Everyone,
Today we are celebrating the fact that we have had a well-used village hall for 100 years. As those of you who have read about the hall on the Rowney Green website will know, it is officially called the “Rowney Green Peace Memorial Hall”.

In 1920 our first hall, commemorating the peace after the First World War, was a wooden, second-hand, ex-army Nissan hut, which  had been transported in sections from Middlesex to Alvechurch station and then carried up to Rowney Green by horse and cart.
Our present brick building also commemorates the peace after the Second World War.
During the last century many volunteers in our community have worked hard to achieve and maintain the existing high standard of our hall, particularly when it needed a major refurbishment in 2009.
The friendships we make here enhance all our lives and enable us to achieve more in caring for the wider community and our natural environment. I will read to you a paragraph from our hall’s Souvenir Jubilee Programme of 1970.
“When (the old hall) was taken down and sold to Barrets of Feckenham for £100, there was a feeling of sadness, as of a good friend leaving the village. This was not only felt by local residents but my many people living well outside the area who loved to come to the “Do’s” at Rowney Green. There was an atmosphere which was unique and the most wonderful thing is that it lives on in our present hall”.
This unique atmosphere still lives on even today in 2022, and it has supported us during this Covid-19 pandemic.

It is a tradition that trees are planted to mark occasions such as this.
In the northern corner of this field, now known as Rowney Green Park, a clump of oak trees was planted in 1953 to mark the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth. It so happens that yesterday the Nation celebrated her Platinum Jubilee.
The children of our village have each been given a special medallion to mark the centenary of our hall. Our clump of 70 year old oak trees has been given a new plaque and another oak tree is to be planted to mark today’s celebrations.
I am sure that you will all join us in wishing our village hall community as much success and happiness in the next 100 years as we have had during the last century.

Let the celebrations begin !