‘Oh yes? Can you tell us about that?’ Mrs Slaughter says, breaking protocol entirely, and Mr Scrimengor gives her a sharp look.
‘I shared a video tour of the hall, and then some cine footage of the gingerbread exhibit in the olden days, and today I made a quick post about the damage to the roof and how all our gingerbreads got spoiled, and my followers cared.’
‘Pfft!Social media? What about in the real world?’ Scrimengor says with a bitter laugh.
‘Between those posts, they got forty-five thousand likes,’ Fern says gently.
That’s enough to get me on my feet again. ‘See? Forty-five thousand people care. That’s loads.’
‘And there are about two and a half thousand comments,’ Fern adds, allowing her phone to be passed around.
Sully keeps a hold of it, clearly interested. After a moment’s scrolling, he pipes up, ‘Grandad, that’s a lot of engagement for a few videos about a village hall in the middle of the countryside.’
‘It’s meaningless,’ Scrimengor says. ‘Any fool can watch a video and give it a thumbs up.’
‘Some of these people are asking where they can donate to the repair fund,’ Sully says, refusing to be cowed by his haughty grandfather.
‘They are?’ I splutter, almost spitting the shards of my rhubarb and custard.
Sully passes the phone to me. Playing on a loop onscreen is a video, rather well edited, I have to say, showing pictures of the hall in the past cut with some of the footage Fern filmed that day at my cottage as we watched the cine film. It’s spliced together with pictures of all of us making the gingerbread houses, and of Shell with icing sugar on her nose in the Brambledown kitchen, then there’s all of us admiring the completed exhibit last night. It feels like a long time ago now, and my throat turns thick and I have to gulp a few times to stop myself crying. Fern’s recorded a commentary over the images explaining our ‘sixty-year-old tradition’. Then there’s a bleak scene shot from outside the hall and a glimpse at the big hole in the roof and a couple of council workers erecting scaffolding. Sure enough, there are comments underneath, lots of them.
‘Quite a few of them are asking how to donate,’ I confirm.
‘Yeah,’ Fern says, doe eyes sparkling. ‘Does the hall have a JustGiving page or something?’
‘Do we?’ I turn to Izz, letting her take hold of the phone so she can have a look too.
‘We stick any money we raise from the gingerbread grotto into a bank account,’ Izz announces, looking out of her depth. ‘The money from tickets, donations, and the mulled wine stall all ends up in there.’
That grabbed Scrimengor’s attention. ‘And this is your fund? What, may I enquire, is the balance?’
I don’t know if he looks hopeful it’s a high figure or if that’s what he’s dreading. Does he want us to save the hall with our fundraising or not?
‘Well,’ I begin, already feeling wretched because, of course, it’s not a high total. ‘We made our last fundraising deposits on December the first, and it came to…’ I look to Izz for confirmation and we both end up saying it at the same time.
‘Fifteen pounds fifty-two pee.’ Our voices trail off at exactly the same time too, as the hopelessness hits us. Any savings we had from last year were wiped out buying the baking ingredients this year.
‘I can vouch for their bookkeeping, Mr Scrimengor. Exemplary,’ says Mrs Slaughter, who acts as treasurer for all the community groups: us, the fireworks committee, the village fete, and all the rest of them.
‘Are we allowed to set up a JustGiving page to accept donations from the gingerbread grotto’s TikTok and Insta accounts followers?’ Sully asks, his face all eagerness and eyebrows rising like a Labrador’s.
Mr Scrimengor starts mumbling something about there being strict fundraising rules for social enterprise projects, and I see Mrs Slaughter looking as though she wants to set him straight, flipping through the big book of regulations on the desk, and we’re all surprised when it’s Leo who replies.
‘Actually,’ the head teacher says, his eyes lighting on Sully, ‘I think you make a good point. Anyone can fundraise for any cause if they want to. You don’t need to be a registered charity or anything. You can fundraise as an individual if you like. A cousin of mine in Arkansas did a GoFundMe to help pay for his emergency appendectomy.’
This makes an interested rumble rise in the room, and we’re all glancing around at this surprising turn of events (everyone except Sully and Leo, who are looking at each other in a way I can only describe as electric).
This is when Mrs Slaughter arrives triumphantly at a page in the big book of rules. She lifts the book towards me, and I stand to grab it.
‘Paragraph two,’ she says.
I read it aloud. ‘All Wheaton parish community fundraisers have as much of a stake in planning and renovation process consideration as council bodies.’
‘What does that mean?’ I say, looking at the words, none the wiser.
‘It means if you want to save the hall through your own fundraising efforts, you can try. Only, you have until the end of Mr Scrimengor’s planning proposal period to do it.’
‘And how long’s that?’ I say.
