Culmington Village Hall – Chairman’s Report - AGM
Firstly, can I thank each and one of you as Trustees over the last 12 months. In addition a special thank you to Jeff Williams as Vice Chairman, Avril Enston; Treasurer and Janet Stuart; Secretary for their support to myself and the rest of the Trustees.
Over the last 12 months, it has been a busy time, the Trustees have had regular meetings, and we continue to have a strong team on the committee. The AGM was held in July 2022, all posts reviewed, and Charity Website updated.
Last year, we explored the options of extending the village hall for extra storage space and to have a permanent bar like other village halls locally have.
Peter Lines from the village supported us with our planning application and we were granted this on 22[nd] October 2022. This was for the Erection of a single storey extension to create a new storeroom. We are now planning with fundraising projects to help us with the build cost, looking at grant applications, and fundraising and how people can donate to our project.
In addition, we have been looking at how we can make our village hall more attractive to hirers and we have been exploring options of installing Wi- FI and our own Card Machine, this is ongoing as we have had issues with BT over this and the signal or the WI FI.
All local events have continued to take place, including weekly coffee mornings, luncheon clubs, annual flower show, Christmas Fayre, Folk evenings and our village hall over the last year has been hired out well.
We also found that having our monthly social evenings on a Friday of each month offering food themes such as curry, Italian and involving food; have been a great attraction for our community and going forward we will be doing these more. Thank you to our Cooks Gwyn and Anne for this and for the Allan bar etc.
Our networking with other village halls and the use of our Face Book Page on Social Media has proved to be a success.
With the lead up to Christmas in 2022, the team did a real push on fundraising four our project, we held a Promise Auction, this was a huge success, and a great night enjoyed by all with Bill Wathes as auctioneer. This was a good start raising 6k for building renovations.
We then involved local people exploring new ideas to bring our community together and we held our first Tractor Run and 4x4 in Culmington. Pat Caine and his team of helpers and the local scout group supported by West Mercia Police was a great success raising approx. 2 k and this was split between MS and the Village Hall Project Funds. The day was just great, so much lovely feedback, it really did bring the community together, and we have a date for 1[st] October 2023.
Unfortunately, at the end of a positive year on the 19[th] December 2022, we had flood damage to the village hall a burst pipe in the ceiling, and had severe water damage to the kitchen and small committee room. This meant all events were cancelled until further notice, a great disappointment for all. The committee worked hard and everything was put in place to start building in the New Year, unfortunately, we had hurdles to go over with the insurance company, which delayed our start much to our disappointment. However, on a positive note, we are due to open mid-May with our first social evening on Friday 25[th] May 2023. We have installed a new kitchen, upgraded our water system and new lighting in the kitchen.
We also held a lovely walk to Bury Ditches at Clun on Saturday 15[th] April 2023 with a buffet lunch at the Hundred House, this was well attended and a lovely day enjoyed by all. This was organised by Jeff Williams and Andrew Pike.
Grants and looking forward to raise funds for our building project has started with our first grant application submitted and this was completed by Avril and Jeff, thank you for your work with this as this was not an easy task and is still under review.
Luncheon Club kicked off with a good start and Gwyn proposed a 100 Club this has proved a great success, with the first draw being drawn at the first Luncheon club last week.
Jeff is monitoring bookings and as committee; we will be looking at reviewing and updating our Governing Document.
Also for this year we will be looking at our Insurance providers going forward following on from our recent claim in December 2022
Our aim is to continue to provide a wide range of functions to support all ages in our current parish, continue fundraising, and push forward with our building project.
A Future idea for 2024 is arranging our own Parish ball, local people have shown an interest and we will be planning this for next year.
Thank you all for you continued support to the Village Hall. I appreciate all your hard work and commitment and to you all as Trustees.
Jo Mear- Chairman
20[th] June 2023
I t
Independent auditors report to the Trustees of Culmington Village Hall I have audited the financial accounts of Culmington Willage Hall for the year ended 31 March 2023. In my opinion, the financial accounts have been properly prepared and 8ive an accurate representation of the state of the charity's aftairs as of 31 March 2023. Signed: Judy McNally Date..