Over the years the ladies of St James Dalby have developed a bit of a reputation for home baking. Their events are almost always accompanied with soups or suppers and they have freshly made cakes and scones at almost every gathering from the Parish Walk to Church meetings; not to mention of course hosting the renowned Annual World Bonnag Championships! A village that cooks …. and a village that has been talking about a cook book for the past of 25 years!

Finally, their love of preparing, baking, and sharing has inspired the production of their very own recipe book “A Slice of Dalby”.

Margy Killey, events co-ordinator at Dalby Church said : "“A Slice of Dalby” has been produced not only to tickle the culinary taste buds, but through the drawings and photography included in the book, it will also give people a feel of our unique church in this beautiful village of Dalby, so that hopefully they will remember us as they start to bake and maybe share our recipes with their own community too.“

The launch of the cook book coincides with the launch of a much larger project to redevelop the basement of the church which has fallen into disrepair, due mainly to ongoing problems with damp.

“A Slice of Dalby” will help raise some of the much needed funds for this restoration work of renovating the two unused rooms of the basement, with the vision of creating a local shop to be run as a not-for-profit community shop and offering an opportunity for visitors to buy local goods and produce.

The other room will be used as a multi-purpose meeting space for the young people and village community. This will include workshop/classroom facilities, games area, a community exhibition and comfortable and informal meeting space. St James, originally designed as church school in 1839, now seems to be launching into new chapter in its role of serving the people of Dalby and beyond.

Local Minister Cheryl Cousins said: “Exciting times! This is another project that we’ve talked and dreamt about for quite a while now, and a real example of the amazing people in the village and their willingness to pitch in and make things happen. What’s even more inspiring is the friendship, love and laughter (and of course the food) that goes hand in hand with the endless planning meetings and visioning to make this happen. Our master plan is that the “Dalby Hub” will be operational within the year, so watch this space, we’ve still got many, many more meetings to go!”.

The official launch of “A Slice of Dalby” will be held at Dalby Church Schoolrooms on October 30th The open evening, from 6.00pm – 9.00pm is a chance to come sample some of the culinary delights from the recipes in the book, along with an opportunity to bid at a Silent Auction on the 46 original charcoal drawings by Cheryl Cousins which appear in the book, ranging from A5- A3 in size. Other donated items will also be available to bid for on the night; there will of course also be the opportunity to buy “A Slice of Dalby” at a cost of ?9.99!

All funds raised on the sale of book will go to Dalby Church Restoration fund for the basement project .... the silent auction sale of art work will also support the basement project but also include a contribution to our two charities for the year, Womens Aid IoM and The Manx charity operating overseas : Mannin Sponsors Africa.

For more information on this project please contact Tracey Hellowell at traceymeredith65@gmail.com or phone 415091 or see www.stjamesdalby.org for more information on the work of Dalby Church in the community.