We have a petition. It's from the Assembly Rooms Committee. The Assembly Rooms are our version of a village hall because village hall would be too prosaic a term here in Not Ambridge.
The Assembly Rooms is undergoing a major renovation. They don't have enough money so they are trying to raise some.
The petition is asking for signatures to request that the Parish Council gives the Assembly Rooms committee £6,000.
This sounds reasonable and lots of people are signing.
What the Assembly Rooms Committee haven't told people is that £6,000 is half the Parish Council's budget and that to fund a donation of £6,000 we'd have to put £10 on every one's Council Tax bills.
If that was made clear to people, I wonder how many would be signing?
It was the carnival last week and your correspondent ended up giving two members of the Assembly Rooms Committee a good listening to over the matter.
Such was the power of my oratory that they have published their petition in the Village News (it would be too simple for Not Ambridge to have a Parish Magazine) unchanged. Asks for support in requesting £6,000 from the Parish Council, doesn't mention where that money is going to be coming from.
That's not quite true, there is one change: They still ask the question, "Do you support the Assembly Rooms Committee in asking the Parish Council for £6,000 from this year's budget or its reserves to contribute to the refurbishment of the Assembly Rooms?" only now it is followed by the line, "This is not a petition, it's a questionnaire."
Well if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck .........................
There'll be tears before bedtime.
