A huge thank you to all those who helped to organise the New Year's Eve party and to all who joined us and brought lots of delicious food to share. It was a very sociable evening with lots of time to catch up, to meet some new faces and to discover some surprising connections!

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The Village Hall Committee would like to thank everyone for all their efforts in making the Christmas advent windows a BIG success again this year! It was so lovely to see all the beautiful designs and all the time and effort that went into planning and displaying your windows.

Events are now steadily increasing following last year's many cancellations due to Covid. Highlights this year included: ​​

• advent windows throughout the village

• the duck race

• Platinum Jubilee celebrations

• the Birmingham Conservatoire

• Hotbuckle Theatre "Great Expectations"

• pizza / BBQ evenings

• our popular coffee mornings.

Use of the hall for the past 11 months is 80%, with a total of 329 bookings, including regular groups:

• D-Railed Dance

• life-drawing class

• pilates

• Sutton Lower School

• Vibrance

• TJ's line dancing

• Tonic Yoga

• Sutton WI

• microdrone-flying

• Sutton Parish Council

• Pins and Needles

• FOSC

• Sutton Wildlife Group 

To commemorate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, we planted a West Himalayan Birch tree in the grounds of The John O'Gaunt pub for all to enjoy. The bark of this elegant tree will eventually change over the years to a brilliant white. After the tree was safely planted at the far end of the garden bordering the fields, we all gathered at the village hall for some cheese and wine.

A huge thankyou to all who joined us for our recent maintenance day at the hall, tackling everything from weeding to carpentry to treating the outside of the building. It turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far, so it was a matter of trying to follow the shade as best we could and avoid breathing in the paint fumes!

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More than 100 of us joined together to celebrate this special day. It was wonderful to be together after months of lockdown and to catch up with friends and neighbours over a welcome glass of bubbly, coronation chicken and delicious desserts. With everyone dressed in red, blue and white and many in 1950s dress, we truly celebrated in style! 

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The results for the Sutton 2022 art, poetry and Jubilee planter competitions were announced at the Jubilee celebration on 4th June. There's clearly a wealth of talent in Sutton! Well done to everyone who entered. You can view all the entries in our Gallery.

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This competition has been funded by the Central Bedfordshire Ward Councillor COVID-19 Grant Scheme, Councillor Wye‘s allocation

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All 1200 ducks came under starters orders in front of a capacity crowd basking in the glorious sunshine. On the surface the ducks looked calm but under the water there was frantic paddling spurred on by the enthralled support. The lead changed frequently and in just under record time two locally trained ducks crossed the line ahead of the rest of the flock. An enthusiastic reception from the children awaited all the ducks in the padduck area.

Several members from Potton Fire Brigade very kindly joined us at our recent coffee morning to show us how to do CPR and how to use the defibrillator that's installed on the front of the village hall. If you ever need to use it, call 999 and ask for the code to release it from its holder on the wall. The operator will advise you on what to do, and visual and audio instructions on the defibrillator itself are very clear. 

Several of us gathered together on Saturday morning and were guided by Jenny and Nigel Ream on a 2 hour walk around their farm. We enjoyed walking through several wooded areas where they are actively encouraging wildlife.

Two members of Kansas Smittys were unable to join us, but fortunately top-class musicians stepped in to replace them at very short notice. Our heartfelt thanks go to Peter Horsfall on trumpet/vocals, Ewan Bleach on clarinet/vocals, Ducato Piotrowski on guitar, Kourosh Kanani on guitar and Fergus Ireland on bass for such a polished, uplifting musical evening!

We were very fortunate to have good weather for the pizza party and even more fortunate to have "Drunk and disorderly" playing for us. People brought pizzas of all sorts: ready-made, made-from-scratch, vegan, courgette, broccoli, chocolate and marshmallow, etc. The pizza oven did well to keep up with the demand! But top marks surely go to Chloe for her jelly baby pizza!

The winners of the annual art and poetry competitions were announced at the coffee morning on 14th August. 

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Art winners

1st: Margaret Prior

2nd: Jenny Ream

3rd: Phil Lane

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The Friends of Sutton Church, (FOSC) is a registered charity (293616), whose purpose is to preserve and maintain the structure of All Saints Church Sutton. 

The 2021, 100+ Club has been formed to help raise funds for FOSC.  Membership costs £12 per annum and there will be six equally distributed prize draws throughout the year. 25% of all proceeds will be distributed as 1st prize, 15% as 2nd prize with the remainder kept for FOSC.

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The Sutton Neighbourhood Plan passed referendum on 24th June 2021 and was formally adopted by Central Bedfordshire Council on 25th June 2021. 

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Turnout: 48.44%

Yes: 97.58%

No: 2.42%

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Sutton Village Hall now has a mini-orchard in its grounds.  The six Bedfordshire heritage fruit trees were purchased from Apples and Orchards, Norfolk, and funded by the Central Bedfordshire Tree Planting Grant Scheme.

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Hopefully, in about five years' time, all the residents of Sutton will be able to benefit from the harvest.