As somebody not much inclined to break things, I am not particularly sympathetic when things get damaged through carelessness, but even I acknowledge that, however careful we are, accidents will occasionally happen. I am always very careful about telling people about any damage I happen to do, and replacing what I can.
It is therefore very annoying when the village hall committee keeps 'discovering' damages supposedly done to things by members of the PCC. The trouble is that they are either sitting on the knowledge of these damages for a long time or they are discovering them long after they happened when anyone of several dozen people could have inflicted the damage.
A couple of years ago we had a starvation supper for Ash Wednesday. The following June I received a letter complaining about the mess we had left the kitchen in. Not only had Stuart (a man so fussy he could make Liz's mum look like a slob) been in charge of the clearing up, but the accusation that we had left the dishwasher full of dirty water was ridiculous as we hadn't used the dishwasher.
Now there is an accusation that the kettle borrowed in May for the Open Churches weekend and returned the same week has been damaged. Has nobody made tea in the village hall between May and July? Moreover we have today been asked to pay for two glasses broken and a plate which was chipped supposedly at last year's Harvest Supper.
If someone rents a hall and equipment it should be made clear of what fair wear and tear consists, all equipment should be examined on return, and a receipt signed on its return. The moment a there is time lapse between return and inspection an element of doubt creeps in, and in the cases I have mentioned with periods of between two and ten months between the return of the equipment and the complaint during which any number of people could have used it, moved it, dropped it, the whole thing becomes ludicrous!
