– Heather and Don Heaslip are looking for new volunteers to help run Fencourt Hall.
Members of Fencourt Hall’s administrative committee have been given confidence that they will have successors when they stand down.
The committee, which has been searching for new members for years, held a successful meeting on Monday night to find new volunteers.
Fencourt Hall has stood in its quiet rural setting, next to Goodwood School at 529 Fencourt Rd, for 89 years.
Michele Frey and Sara Newman document the hall – and district’s – beginnings in On a Saturday Night – Community Halls of Small Town New Zealand.
There was no hall and no school when Fencourt was originally opened up as a farming settlement around the turn of the 20th century, the books says.
“In the early days a handsome two-storey barn belonging to farmer Edward Button was used regularly as a hall. The upper floor was always kept in perfect condition for dancing with the liberal use of candle grease; the music was supplied by Jack O’Keefe on his accordion.”
Although the property changed hands over the years, residents continued to enjoy “a lot of fun and frivolity” there.
Fencourt found a new social centre when Goodwood School opened in 1902 with a roll of 18 pupils, the book says, and “the old barn and school served the community’s needs for many years”, but eventually “locals decided a proper hall was needed”.
Jack and Eileen O’Keefe donated land, subscriptions brought in £100 and a further £80 was raised from garden parties and social events.
The hall officially opened on July 4, 1934.
Since then, it has been home to indoor bowls and table tennis clubs and hosted pre-school play groups, Women’s Institute meetings and a variety of classes including karate, yoga and dance.
“Back in the old days, every time someone left the district or arrived they were farewelled or welcomed with a function in the hall,” said Don Heaslip, who has chaired the hall’s administrative committee for 54 years.
He also recalls a rather memorable circus in 1974.
“All the animals were tied up to the nice new trees and what have you out the back and one of the guys was a fire-breather,” Don said.
“We wondered where he was getting the petrol from, but on the way home quite a few people ran out of petrol in their cars… and all the trees got well and truly pruned by the horses.”
Don, who has lived in Fencourt his whole life, remembers walking to school from Flume Rd, where he grew up, in frosts “so heavy that in the afternoon when you went back the ice was still on the puddles on the side of the road”.
“The school didn’t have its own hall because the roll numbers were only 48 around that stage, and the hall was used as an extra classroom,” he said.
“All they had in the hall was a little pot bellied stove to keep you warm…your toes used to just about make you cry with the cold.”
The hall has also been hired for countless celebrations over the years, such as New Year’s Eve socials, wedding anniversary bashes and birthday parties.
Its silver anniversary was celebrated in 1959 and its jubilee on July 7, 1984, when an afternoon of celebrations wrapped up with an evening ball.
Today the hall is still used for weekly community classes and regularly hired for local events.
Strive Performing Arts dance teacher Erin Chester ran dance classes there for three years, before relocating to a new leased building recently due to growth in her business.
“It’s cool that it’s a community hall and cheap for local groups like this,” she said.
Strive Performing Arts students enjoy a class in Fencourt Hall.
