Chairman’s Report Audley Community Centre 2020
2019 seems a long time ago now,
A time that our Centre was thriving. New people were coming on board to help and at last it appeared that after so many years of struggling the way forward was becoming clear.
Although bookings were increasing from both regular hirers and one off parties for us it was a testing year having previously taken the decision to reduce our evening opening times to 10pm in an attempt to discourage late night drinking parties and to see if financially we would still be able to manage
We will never know how much business this lost us but as a result we were able to change the image of our Centre. Audley has many better equipped venues than us to cope with the problems that we encountered and associated with unsupervised drinking parties and yet our Centre is ideal for children’s activities and parties encouraging us to develop in that way.
We have concentrated on establishing ourselves as the ideal place in our area to hire. Welcoming, clean bright and well equipped and I am confident when I say that this decision has been proved to have been the right one and is supported by the increase of bookings made. But what a year 2020 …COVID
Totally unexpected throwing us completely off balance and resulting in the closing down of our community centre for many months
No income, no people, and just when we all thought that we had got over the worst, the worst was still to come. It was tough for everyone and thankfully 2021 will be a new year of new promises
I can’t thank enough (from the comfort of my enforced self-isolation) for everything that you have done and continue to do to ensure the continued success of a Centre that we can all be proud of
I am confident that our team is strong enough to get through this very difficult year and that we can all look forward to things getting back to normal, facing together whatever that may bring.
Ron Bourne Chairman Audley Community Centre