Slinfold Magazine item - July 2012

Slinfold Village Hall News

Caretaker

The Trustees are pleased to welcome Tim Covey into the role of Caretaker. Tim will take on responsibility for day-to-day maintenance of the Hall and will be the first point of call for any problems arising during rentals. It is great to have Tim on board, and his role will reduce the amount of volunteer effort required to run the Hall.

AGM

The 2012 AGM took place on 18th June and was relatively well-attended, generating good contributions. There will be a fuller summary of the meeting in August's magazine, but for now there are two main items to report.

Rental Rates

The AGM backed the Trustees' proposal that due to the current economic climate, and despite the Hall's running costs increasing at around 10% a year, rental rates will stay fixed for another year.

Events Group
There is a desire for more events - such as Plays, Music, Dances - to take place in the Hall. Past events have been generally successful but they do require organisation and effort. We are now looking to form an Events Group - which will be a reasonable number of people who can work with the Trustees to put on the occasional (or even regular) event in the Hall. If you are interested in a major or minor role in organising or helping please do contact us, and thank you to those who have already offered their support.

Contacts: Neil Peachey (Chairman) -791554,    Trevor Dayneswood (Vice-chairman) – 790374
website: slinfoldvillagehall.co.uk       Additional news & information: blog.slinfoldvillagehall.co.uk

Slinfold Magazine item - June 2012

Slinfold Village Hall News

Your 130 year-old Village Hall is an independent charily. It is run by volunteer trustees for the benefit of Slinfold and has no affiliation to, or subsidy from, any other village body (eg the Parish Council, the Church). To-date, running costs have been met by rental income, and any fundraising or grants have gone to improving the Hall and its facilities. However the ongoing difficulties in finding new volunteers means that we are having to pay for more and more work that would previously have been done for free. This coming year we need to take action in order to balance the books. Our options include substantially raising rental rates, fundraising (which needs volunteer effort too) to subsidise running costs or just running down our reserves and hoping a rich benefactor appears before we become insolvent.

It is your Hall, so please come to the AGM and let us know your opinion.
Contact: Neil Peachey (Trustees' Chairman) -791554
website: slinfoldvillagehall.co.uk

Slinfold Magazine item - April 2012

Slinfold Village Hall News

Volunteers

We are grateful for the new and existing volunteers who came to the volunteers’ meeting in mid-March.  We now have a few more people to help with general maintenance and upkeep of the building, but can always use more to spread the workload.

Main Hall Floor

Several people have commented on the substantial improvement in the appearance of the Main Hall floor since it was stripped right down, retreated and re-polished in late February. To help maintain it in good condition we have been advised to ensure that when moving chairs around the hall we should not pull them across the floor but should lift them or use the chair trolleys.

Future Plans

The trustees were surprised recently to hear a rumour that they were “considering selling the Village Hall for residential use” so that a new modern facility could be built elsewhere in the village.  The trustees would like to stress that this is not the case.  The Village Hall charity, established in 1881, continues to focus on the existing building as the core of the charity’s remit to provide a Village Hall facility for Slinfold.  The trustees have every intention of completing the re-development of the Hall, which started with the £300,000 refurbishment and extension opened in 2001.  It was agreed at the last AGM that we should again begin to move forward with the plans to widen more of the main hall and raise the height of the low-ceilinged part, to create a larger and more consistent space.  (These plans had previously been put on hold for some years so as not to compete with fundraising for the recent development at the church.) 

Contacts: Neil Peachey (Chairman) -791554,    Trevor Dayneswood (Vice-chairman) – 790374
website: slinfoldvillagehall.co.uk       Additional news & information: blog.slinfoldvillagehall.co.uk

Summary of Trustees' Decisions - March 2012

1. Reconfirm the aim (agreed at AGM) to ultimately enlarge the size and capacity of the hall, in order to ensure the long-term viability of the Hall.
2. Write an article for April magazine to refute any rumours of the trustees planning to sell the Hall for development
3. Produce adverts for the Hall in the future when there are multiple 'public' events in a month
4. Do not paint the lead flashing on the side windows of the Hall