Thursday 21 April 2016

Village Hall AGM coming up. Come and have your say on its future.

Village Hall Chairman,  Paul Want, invites all interested members of the public to the AGM for the Village Hall which will be held in the Village Hall at 7.30pm on Monday, 9 May.

He writes:
Looking to see what could happen is the same as using a crystal ball, very unreliable and open to interpretation. Therefore I would like to concentrate on areas that we do have some control over.

So as to maintain and improve the desirability of the halls for our hirers, we need to ensure the fabric is kept serviceable and safe which in turn makes the use of the halls a more saleable product and will make life easier for the cleaners. Long-term it should also make the halls cheaper to run.

For the year hence and given our “business plan”, I would recommend the following:

  • continue with planning a major programme of refurbishment works to the lobby, loos and rear corridor
  • redecorate the small hall
  • review and revise the current level of charges, and
  • improve the way in which we advertise and market the halls’ availability and events.


Although we have a healthy bank balance, most of that will be taken up with refurbishment and that is why we need to review and revise our current hire rates. We also need to keep pace with the increasing costs from service providers. Fundraising events alone may not plug gaps in the finances.

None of us are getting any younger and it would be good to try and co-opt others into the running of the halls so as to ease the burden and to also give some fresh ideas. How we do this could be by word of mouth, advertising and even press-ganging.

We have a good resource within Natland and Oxenholme. It would be good to keep it that way and with the efforts of all the committee members this is achievable.