This year we are celebrating our fortieth anniversary and many of you will remember our village playgroup (as it was then) through the decades of the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties and now in to the 21^st century and what a long way we've come. We hope that many of you, young and old, will join us at our 40^th Birthday celebrations on Sunday, 15^th July down at the Thursley Road recreation ground from late afternoon onwards. Our hardworking committee are putting the final touches to the event and we'll tell you more of what we have planned next month. In the meantime make a note in your diary - it's an event not to be missed.

Our Spring term seemed to fly by. We held our Annual General Meeting in February, the Farnham Fire Brigade paid us a visit and not forgetting our visit from the Easter Bunny, who came along and gave all of our children a hug and a chocolate rabbit. The children have been looking at the season of spring and the plants that appear during these warmer months. Our new sand pit was filled with twenty bags of sand and has been a real hit in the outdoor area.

It's been just over a year now since we moved to our new pavilion and we're as busy as ever. We have some new members of staff who have joined our team and we have also extended our lunch clubs for the summer. Our annual trip has been planned later this term and our first topics will include looking at jungle animals, farm animals and minibeasts.

Those of you who wander down to our side of the village will have noticed how smart the car parking area and grounds are looking. Local volunteers have been working hard to landscape the pavilion car park and the immediate surroundings. It certainly looks great and a big thank you from the pre-school. And finally, by the time you read this article, the pavilion should have a new lift installed up to the sports bar on the first floor.

A year ago this month, the new pavilion at the Thursley Road Recreation Ground in Elstead was completed, nine months after work first started. The formal opening of the building took place on 28 July 2006.

The completion of the pavilion marked the culmination of over nine years of effort by a dedicated band of village volunteers. The project started in 1997, when the village cricket and football clubs, together with the Peter Pan Pre-school and the Parish Council, agreed to set up a charitable trust to replace the old and dilapidated wooden pavilion at the Thursley Road Recreation Ground. The Elstead Recreational Trust was accordingly formed in 1999 and set about the task of raising the funds for a new building.

In spite of many setbacks (in particular the refusal by any of the sports funding bodies to provide financial support), the Trust succeeded in raising over £250,000 to enable the project to start. Nearly all of this was raised either from within the village (village organisations, charities, individuals, businesses, the Parish Council, fund-raising events, loans) or from Waverley BC, who contributed £55,000.

We were able to complete the project, in record time and to a high standard of finish, only through the efforts of some 40 or so volunteer workers from the cricket club, the pre-school, the football club and from the village as a whole who provided their time (and some valuable materials) free of charge to assist with the construction work. This probably saved us some £50,000 in labour costs alone.

The new building provides Elstead with as good sports facilities as any village in the county, together with excellent bar and lounge areas and a purpose-built pre-school area which also serves as an popular venue for village events and social functions.