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Westerham Hall Management Committee (1996) Registered Charity No: 1070491 Annual Report & Accounts

For the period ending 30th September 2023

The Committee (WHMC1996) elected at the Annual General Meeting held on Thursday, 13[th] April 2023 comprised the following members.

Elected Members:

Mr. Malcolm Basing Hon. Treasurer Mrs. Susan Speirs Hon. Secretary Mr. Mark Mountjoy Chairman

Appointees:

St. Mary’s Church Inner Wheel Mr. Tony Lincoln Westerham Society Tuesday Club Stragglers Westerham WI Mrs. Linda Rodgers Westerham Town Council Mr. Jeff Adams WADS Mr. Roland Gooding Catholic Church Mr. Ken Adams Westerham Conservatives Mr. Stuart Barns U3A

2022/23 was gratifying seeing how bookings continued to climb back up to pre-pandemic levels as people confidence increased; mos of our regular classes have now returned. It was particularly pleasing to see a continued increase in private bookings for children’s parties and birthday parties and other family celebrations from the community and beyond.

We welcomed Mrs. Linda Rogers as the new appointed Trustee from The Westerham Town Council.

Tots Teachers pre-school continues to go from strength to strength, which gives the Trust much needed regular income.

In the October 2022 Leyla Sakar took over as the Hall Manager. Leyla came to us with experience of the building and decorating trade looking for a local outlet for her years of experience having taken the decision to step away from the trade after COVID. Leyla covers the day-to-day management of the Hall, the operating of the online diary as well as undertaking all the day-to-day cleaning. She also manages the necessary repairs, liaising with contractors for access and reporting on completion of works.

The increased hire rates have been accepted and not had any adverse effect on bookings. We continue to keep prices under review on an annual basis and may need to introduce further increases more regularly to ensure the trust does not lose value in real terms.

Mr. Jeff Adams has made good headway exploring grant funding for green energy

improvements to the Hall. A report has been commissioned from SWP Ltd, who were, until recently, based here in Westerham. This will get us over the first hurdle of being considered for grant funding for specific projects; including solar PV installations, replacing gas boilers with heat pump variants, re-fitting of the kitchen to take advantage of modern efficient equipment and replace the gas hobs with commercial induction variants. This will be a long term project, broken down into manageable parts.

Our thanks go to Mr. Malcolm Basing, our Hon. Treasurer, for the mammoth task of running the bookkeeping and accounting for the Hall. Especially we thank him for the foresight in locking in our energy contracts for a five year period two years before the spiraling increases being suffered across the country this last year. These end in 2025 so we will need to plan increases in hire rates for that year.

None of our usual fundraising events were held as it was felt too early and the trust was lacking in manpower to undertake these. They will be reinstated in the coming year.

It only remains for me to express my sincere thanks to all the Trustees for their work during the year, both appointees from the users of the Hall and those elected at the AGM.

Mark Mountjoy

Chairman