Month: January 2022

Robin Boucher, chair of PVHG, made the following report of 2021 activities to the Annual General Meeting on 25th January 2022:

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During the first half of 2021 we were constrained by Government restrictions on meetings, due to the Covid pandemic. Some of us met on Zoom while others felt unable to do so. In the autumn we were able to meet face-to-face once more. Despite the difficulties, the year was not without some achievements.

Following Yvonne Eaton’s retirement from the position of secretary, Sue Brown agreed to take on the role for the next couple of years. Thank you, Sue, for undertaking this work.

While we were unable to meet, Sue Brown and Robert Dilworth worked on production of a list of baptisms and burials which now appears on the Group’s website at pvhg.uk. Some 3,286 entries are now available for visitors to examine.

In mid-June, I led a walk up Mill Street. The weather for the evening was beautiful and around thirty people turned out, which was close to the permitted attendance for an outdoor event at the time. The walk was well-received – the appearance of a peacock near the starting-point was clearly a good omen!

Meanwhile I had also started preparing a publication, based on oral interviews which our predecessors had undertaken from the late 1980’s onwards. Group members helped with proof-reading and supportive feedback and the Parish Council made a grant from its Solar Fund towards production costs. “A Way of Life That Has Gone” was published in December 2021; the PVHG publicity machine rolled into action (thankyou Robert and Sue) and the book was launched at a signing session in the Memorial Hall. At the time of writing over half of the print run of 100 copies has been sold.

Our autumn meetings included a session looking at the 1735 estate map of Packington, and a very interesting presentation by Sue Brown on the Leeson family, prominent in Packington from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. We concluded by starting to plan our contribution to the village’s Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebration to be held in June 2022.

Robin Boucher

2nd January 2022

At the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of PVHG on Tuesday 25th January 2022, a presentation was made on behalf of the members to our retiring Secretary, founder-member Yvonne Eaton.

Yvonne has been a member of our village History Group since its start back in the ’80s, over 30 years ago, and has acted as both Secretary and Treasurer for decades. Many early meetings were held in her home, Beech House on Ashby Road, before the 2009 refurbished Memorial Hall Meeting Room became available, and were renowned for her kind hospitality and provision of welcoming hot drinks and snacks.

She has retired from her rôle as Secretary, but retains her post as Treasurer, which involves a little less work. Yvonne believes the process, of changing our PVHG bank account signatories from her to someone else, might prove far too daunting for her to consider relinquishing this position!

In a letter to thank the group for the gift she received to acknowledge her many years of secretarial work, Yvonne wrote:

I wish to express my sincere thanks for the generous gift of crystal glasses given by the history group on my retirement as secretary of the group. What a surprise.

I have enjoyed being part of the group from its humble beginnings in the school room, then to Dorothy Ireland's home in the Grange, then to Beech House when Dorothy moved to Ashby, and now the Memorial Hall, long may the group continue.

Please pass my thanks on to all members of the history group."