Community Shop


In the early 1900's Henham had a quite a number of shops and at least four public houses. In common with many other villages in the area and indeed throughout the country, changes in mobility, work and life styles in the following century changed the nature of the village and by 1998 one shop and one public house remained.
	In May 1998, the announcement was made that our last shop in the village, a general store and post office was due to close because it was failing as a viable concern. After being completely run down from June, it finally closed its doors on 21st September 1998.
The village was faced with the decision that unless we helped ourselves, an important part of village life would disappear for good.
Today in 2008 we still have have a thriving shop run by volunteers from the Henham community but the post office part run by Bessie Hayden was forced to close on 1st July by Post Offices Ltd.despite it being highly successful.
Whilst so far the enterprise must be considered a great success, an ongoing problem is to keep the list of volunteers at a suitable level. As to be expected, people's circumstances are constantly changing and it has proved difficult to find villagers who are willing to commit themselves to regular duty slots and to be reserves. Often, we have to rely on a small nucleus to keep the shop running during holiday times and in emergencies. On the plus side, the shop has already won two awards, viz. finalist in the Cambridge Evening News Community Challenge Awards and runner up in the Village Ventures Competition. After more than five years trading there is confidence that the shop will continue to thrive. We have repaid our original loans and in November 2001 we had sufficient funds to relay the floor. If you wish to know more, click here for an account written by Barry Tate on how the shop was saved.
Annual General Meeting of the Village Shop Association held at Thursday 8th May 2008 at 8.00pm at OSCA
Considering how much we say we value our shop the attendance was somewhat disappointing. The meeting was addressed by the Chairman, Chris Swain and he presented the current financial position which is quite healthy. The closing of the Post Office was obviously a topic of conversation. A full report of the meeting will be available from Barry Tate in the next few days. Linda Peake was presented with a bouquet of flowers in recognition of all the extra hard work she puts in to the running of the shop. Well done yet again to the shop committee and all the helpers for your efforts on our behalf. - BB Minutes