Neasham Reading Room Newsletter - August 2025
What we have been up to so far...
Since the beginning of the year the Reading Room has hosted a successful Quiz night
with pie & peas in January this raised just under £1,000 and enabled us to replace the
fluorescent lighting within the hall with halogen bulbs. We are hoping that this will
reduce our energy usage.
In April, we hosted our annual AGM, this was attended by our committee members and
local community. This AGM was special as we unveiled a framed picture of John
Weighell, in recognition of all his hard work for the residents of Neasham over the years.
Also, in April we hosted a ‘Sip & Paint’ evening whereby all attendees regardless of their
level of artistic skills were shown how to paint a picture within 3 hours. Everyone took
home a completed painting of a peacock, and a good night was enjoyed by all.
May was a busy month at the Reading Room.
With support from Neasham Parish Council, we hosted a VE Day Lunch Club, this
included a delicious lunch of soup followed by an amazing selection of scones and
cakes. A VE Day quiz made us all think about what facts we could remember! And an
enjoyable time was had by all.
We also hosted an evening with a talk about the Darlington & Stockton Railway by local
historian Chris Lloyd. This event attracted a lot of interest and was enjoyed by all.
And finally, we hosted our second Quiz night with pie & peas, this was another great
night at the Reading Room.
Our last event before the summer was the Duck Derby in June, we were lucky with the
weather and sold an amazing 1200 ducks this year! A great day was had by all, with the
Hurworth Concert Band entertaining us with a superb selection of music, running races
for the children (that's all they wanted to do – run!!), children’s model boat competition
and race, raffle and tombola. The event was compered by Dave, Quiz Master. We made
just over £1300 - an amazing amount.
And that was the first half of 2025. All monies made from the above events are used to
support the upkeep and ongoing maintenance of the Reading Room.
Reminder of our upcoming events
Lunch Club returns on Friday 5th September 12noon- 2pm
Quiz Night on Friday 19th September 7pm-11pm
Pumpkin Walk, Quiz & Soup on Saturday 25th October – times to be confirmed
Wreath Making Workshop on Saturday 22nd November 2pm-5pm
Christmas Party on Saturday 6th December – times to be confirmed
Christmas Carols on Monday 15th December – times to be confirmed
Leaflets will be delivered and information on our website will be updated with the above
events shortly with further details, or you can look on our Facebook page – Neasham
Reading Room.
Just a reminder our website www.neashamreadingroom.org.uk has details of all our
events on at the Reading Room and this includes the option to buy tickets for the events
via PayPal or bank transfer.
Also, we would like to remind everyone to use Easyfundraising.org.uk to help raise
money for Neasham Reading Room – simply by shopping online. Easyfundraising turns
your everyday online shopping into free donations when you use them to shop with over
8,000 retailers such as eBay, John Lewis, Argos, Sainsburys and Just Eat. Retailers
make a small donation to say, ‘thank you’ and Easyfundraising pass those donations on
to the Reading Room. There’s no catch or hidden charges and we will be grateful for
your donations.
https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/support-a-good-cause/step
1/?char=101937&invite=0L0OZC&referral-campaign=s2s&utm_campaign=web-referral
If you would like to contact us at the Reading Room, please email us at
neashamrr@gmail.com
Thank you for your continuing support on behalf of the Reading Room Committee and
looking forward to welcoming you to our next events. Wishing you all a lovely summer.
