Smoke And Mirrors

Great to see that things are progressing at Hamptons, but if you take a closer look not everything is quite as it seems.

We are delighted that the Friday Tea Dance will be returning mid July, but we are a little confused as to what will happen to Friday worshippers, who currently use the Main Hall. It is possible that once the final  pandemic restrictions are lifted on June 21st 2021, that Friday prayers will move round to the old members bar and former dance studio.

It does seem a bit odd that worshippers would be able to pray while the Tea Dancers are having a bit of a Cha Cha Cha (to music), perhaps the new format for Hamptons should be described as “pray and sway”.

Currently the Chelmsford Muslim Society are continuing to fundraise to install Wudu and Ghusl facilities ( for ritual ablution) at Hamptons and carpet the prayer area. Money is clearly still very tight, as after lengthy negotiations Hamptons cannot supply biscuits for the Tea Dancers, despite the booking generating an estimated £2,000 per month

Also great to see that the Hamptons Foodbank is going great guns, with 84 food parcels being delivered to families in need over the last 6 months, an average of 3.5 food parcels per week.

Quite why this post from Hamptons is claiming that they help 20 families a week is anyone's guess (read the full post here), perhaps each family gets 0.175 of a food parcel.

They also manage to namecheck one of the Lib Dem councillors, who fall over themselves to support anything the Hamptons does. We wonder if they would be quite so supportive if they learned that one of Hamptons directors is currently out doing  pre-election work with the Conservative Party.

Also wonderful to see the Hamptons organising a huge food and clothing collection to go to Yemen (read it here). Really heartwarming to see that the Hamptons is showing such community spirit. The truth is that the Yemen appeal is the yearly Ramadan appeal organised by the Chelmsford Muslim Society, which is always well supported by the generous Muslim community of Chelmsford. Here’s the 2019 appeal.

It does seem a tad disingenuous to post it up only on the Hamptons Facebook page as if the club organised it. But well done to everyone that donated, if you’d still like to make a donation, UNICEF are running a campaign, find it here.

Finally, we are quite amused that Hamptons very proudly post up on social media every time they take a booking, it’s a bit like a pub posting up on Facebook every time they sell a pint.

WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO PROVE LOL ?

KBO