Kennet Valley Social Scene - 288
The Group received some unexpected and shocking news at our November monthly meeting that the Winning Hand, the venue where we had been happily meeting for the last few years was to close on December 24th 2016. We had been well looked after there, in an ideal setting having the Restaurant to ourselves which gave a fairly intimate atmosphere and enough room for visiting speakers.
Since having our meetings there a lot more wives and partners regularly attend making the KVG a vibrant group and we have become victims of our own success in that we now regularly have over 40 members of whom approximately 30-35 have a meal. Which meant finding a new venue that was prepared to give us our own room, have parking for the cars and accommodate those numbers would be difficult.
The first thing that was done was to plot the locations of all the KVG members on a map. The KVG is a long thin area stretching from west of Hungerford to Little Marlow in the east, with two main nuclei in Reading and Newbury, Lo and behold the epicentre was the Winning Hand so a search was on for premises near by. The staff at the Winning hand were all being transferred to Pincents Manor Hotel about four miles East near junction 12 of the M4 so that became one of the options to be looked at. Phil and members of the committee then checked out all pubs hotels and golf clubs between Thatcham and Reading as to their suitability.
This produced 2 front-runners, Pincents Manor and the Holiday Inn, which is about 1 mile west of the Winning Hand. Both venues are offering rooms, which have been designed for corporate events with the one at Pincents Manor being the larger. We had our January meeting at Pincents Manor and the February one at the Holiday Inn, so by the time this is published it is hoped that we will be well on the way to finding a permanent venue.
The March monthly meeting will be the AGM and this will be held at Pincents Manor, not the Holiday Inn as given in the Presentation in January so any budding committee members out there get you names in.
KVG can now boast a Vice Chairman/ Overseas Director: Chris Hale, an Area Coordinator: Richard Roberts and the Grinnall Registrar: Phil Horsley so we are pulling our weight in the Register.
Our February mid monthly venue is the Brooklands Winter Classic Breakfast on the 21st try and arrive early, as it is likely to be crowded. The mid monthly in March will be on the 28th at the Newbury Showground for the 24th Spring Vehicle Meet and Autojumble, this used to be the Meet that was held at Wyke Down, please book your space..
The Website is now up and running so please use it to look at all the planned events for 2016 and to keep up to date with where our meetings are being held.