The Middleton and Aislaby Village Meals
The 2022-23 Village Meal Programme was delivered with an adjustment which requested that those attending should make a 'contribution' rather than a 'donation' to the cost of the meal. This approach reflected the substantial costs associated with the national 'cost of living' crisis. The 2023-2024 continues with this approach with the Village Hall able to make a small subsidy to those attending.
Following the COVID out break and the need to isolate our meals programme resumed in part with a Christmas Meal in 2021, delivered across both halls and delivered to selected homes.We intend to resume this activity and begin our next phase with a Christmas Meal in December 2022 and then three meals in January, February and March 2023 and then October, November and December 2023.
History: Over the past four years the Management Committee of the Village Hall have been successful in acquiring small grants through different organisations to deliver a village meal to those who wish to participate. The meal project is about friendship, community and caring for one another and socialising over a meal with stimulating company and good food. In our fourth year we became self funding with an expectation of a small grant from either the North Yorkshire County Council Fund or Ryedale District Council. However, in Middleton and Aislaby nothing is ever that straightforward and with the generous voluntary donations given by our diners we are able to always look one year ahead and can say that the meals will continue through the winter months of 2019 and 2020 to 2021.
These events are organised by volunteers from the villages and this page of our web site will be dedicated to those who eat, organise, fetch and carry, amuse us and tell us stories as we collectively come together in our community.
The March 2020 event was very different because of the social distancing and self isolation policies designed to reduce the incidences of the coronavirus pandemic. 37 meals were delivered to the homes of our diners. It was an extraordinary event.
The continuation of the Village Meals post COVID. The Christmas Meal 2022 was attended by over 50 villagers and the January 2023 meal was attended by 40+. The emphasis on a contribution rather than a donation did not deter people from attending and we hope to continue the same approach for all future meals.