Brookwood Memorial Halls Annual Report
Year ending 31st December 2024
The Halls are managed by a Committee constituted under a Deed of Trust dated 20th February 1950 for the benefit of all Brookwood residents, elected at the Annual General Meeting open to residents. The Committee comprises 4 members elected by qualifying inhabitants and up to 14 members representing recognised Village organisations. A further 6 members may be co-opted by the Management Committee. The Management Committee comprised:
Louise Norris (Chair)
Maria Nixon (Treasurer)
Colin Greenwood (Lettings Administrator) - resigned 8th January 2024 Jadwiga Grimshaw (Art Groups representative) - resigned 26th August 2024 Mark Liney (Village Representative) Lauren Brooks (Co-Opted Member) Maureen Grey (WI Representative) Joe Thorneywork (GSL -Scouts Association representative)
Natalie Proud (Playgroup representative)
The Hall’s banker is the Charities Aid Foundation, West Malling, Kent. We maintained financial reserves throughout the year adequate to remain solvent in case the Halls become unlettable should major insured damage need repair. We review this policy annually. In 2023 in the interest of effective financial stewardship of the Halls reserves we opened a higher interest savings account to deposit our reserves and take advantage of improved interest rates.
It has been fantastic to have a stable and committed Board of Trustees for the last couple of years providing us with real consistency. Following the resignation of our Lettings Manager Colin Greenwood in January 2024 we created a paid Hall Manager role and were thrilled to welcome Steph Rusted to the role in early January, Steph lives in the village and is familar with our Halls, she hit the ground running and has made a massive impact on the Halls in terms of our agility in improving the facilities and also what we have been able to offer to the community. The Trustees offer their sincere thanks for all her diligent work throughout the year which often times can be described as above and beyond.
Steph has worked hard to increase bookings and diversify hirers, to that end we have welcomed a variety of new regular and ad hoc hirers including Surrey Savate, Splat Messy Play and Action for Carers and You Sanctuary respectively and increased bookings by 37% and income 11% YOY.
As per the objects of our Trust, we continue to maintain and improve the facilities of the Halls for the benefit of the residents of Brookwood and its immediate vicinity without discrimination. We have made an number of these improvements with thanks to Cllr Ayesha Azad, the first grant for £1,000 from the Your Cllr Community Fund Woking allowed us to complete the much needed replacement of all the Halls fire doors to bring them up to the recommended standard. The second grant from Your Fund Surrey, of £18,185 came later in the year and will allow us to replace two of our decade old storage sheds in early 2025. Replacement of these shed removes one significant asbestos risk and provides improved storage facilities for our resident 1st Brookwood Scout Group.
The grant also provided the funds to upgrade our garden facilities, putting in a fence that secures the garden from the car park, provides a sitting circle for our youth groups and a fantastic bug hotel build by our talented caretaker Chris, we have also cleared some flower beds and planted spring flowers. Another kind donation from Woking Borough Council of logs has allowed us to lie a path around the space and build a raised flower bed in a space where the soil is poor quality.
Fenced garden & sitting circle Bug Hotel
Our final improvement of 2024 improved the security of the Halls as we implemented a PIN locking system in the Halls. Each regular user has a PIN to allow them to lock and unlock the Halls during their regular hire periods and ad hoc party bookings have a “burner code” which is only valid for the duration of their hire. We also installed a video doorbell in the large hall where the glass is frosted to allow hirers who see who they are admitting. Following the sad incident in Stockport in the summer we have advised our youth groups in particular to lock themselves in for the duration of the hire and the locking system allows them to do that safely.
After thorough consideration and following a number of instances resulting in the volunteer management committee of the Halls being required to restore the halls to a clean and tidy state due to hirers breaking the terms of their hire, we took the decision to charge a damage deposit for all parties and ad hoc bookings and we are monitoring the impact that this has on bookings.
On the August Bank Holiday weekend we welcomed around 30 people to the Halls to join our summer clean up, it was wonderful to see regular hirers turn out to help us get the Halls ship shape for the winter and to hear their stories of appreciation for the Halls and the memories that they hold.
We closed out the year with our third Christmas Trail, it is brilliant to have some villagers join us to organise the event and our thanks are extended to Brenda, Sue and Susanna. We were grateful to the residents who agreed to have a poster up in their window for the village to complete the trail, including the school, village shop and post office. This year we had the addition of a Santa’s Grotto set up in the Committee Room and we welcomed 21 small people to visit, thanks to Santa for making the journey at such a busy time of the year. We also extend our thanks to the fantastic Vox Choir who sang two sets of Christmas songs and really made the event. We welcomed a record 100 villagers to the hall for mince pies and mulled wine.
Christmas Event 2024
In addition to these now annual event we were thrilled to add a Table Top Sale, Dad’s and Carers event and an Autumn Event to our community offering. Our Dad’s and Carer’s event have been run on a Sunday morning for Dad’s and Carer’s with children under 5 and have been set up with thanks to the Playgroup for lending us their equipment and to villager, Steve for hosting. The Autumn Event during Half Term was particularly well attended with a least 60 parents and young people, we provided crafts and refreshments and the children helped us plant our spring bulbs.
Autumn Event - Half Term 2024
As we head into 2025 we commenced a recruitment campaign for a Health and Safety Trustee to ensure our compliance and duty of care to our Hirers and so we are pleased to welcome Trevor Davis to the team this year. Our cleaner also resigned after 15 years at the Halls and we extend our thanks to Eniko for her significant period of service. We are using Complete Cleaning and Maintenance, the cleaning company in Brookwood to maintain our Halls standards.
We are also looking at refreshing the Halls with a lick of paint, so we are getting quotes.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank the small but mighty team of volunteers who make up our Trustee Board for keeping the Halls well maintained and governed for the benefit of the Community. I would like to extend particular thanks to Maria Nixon and Steph Rusted for the support and partnership over the last twelve months
Louise Norris, Chair - on behalf of the Trustees and Management Committee, Brookwood Memorial Halls
https://www.brookwoodmemorialhalls.org.uk/
Financial Report Year ending 31st December 2024 BROOKWOOO MEPKIRIAL HALL AND PAYIIEIITS ACCOUNT FOR YEAR EIIOI IIECEIPT8 AIID PAY¥EIITS F(%9 YEAR w••.fJ 13ZI.J 126A• 13.41 71 PAYIIE#T3 10.WD 4,•31 4701 217316 3365 ),9W. &27¢.91 9754 l/J1 QIT ird 61&4• 4J¢. fl J.1• I•ET OF AECePTS AMD PAYM& 4YOi 41096
Brookwood Memorial Halls - Registered Charity Number 304981