Our village hall committee chairman, Colin Cummins, has planned an extensive renovation project for us which includes: re-roofing, including roof insulation, double glazing units for hall windows and complete new double glazed windows in kitchen, wall insulation, new heating with condensing boiler, a revised lighting scheme to cater for day activities and mood lighting for evening ‘do’s, new chairs, floor revamping and overall re-decoration.

None of this comes cheap of course; we need to raise circa £50,000 and Colin is now hard at work with Grant Applications to see if this can be achieved. We welcome the support of everyone around us and if you have a good idea for raising funds, please let us know as soon as possible! I can be contacted on: shelaghi@hotmail.com

In the meantime, our thanks go to everyone who uses the village hall at present – this enables our hall to support itself, whilst providing a useful function room for local villagers and activities.

Shelagh Inglis

I sent the following email to the Village Hall Chairman, Anna Mackison, on the 25th of January 2008:

“Dear Anna…

…In our business we are always upgrading and replacing computer equipment, I would be happy to donate some of our unwanted equipment to the village hall and provide some free time from our IT manager to set it up, if this would be of any help. I don’t know how old the computers are that you currently have, but unfortunately this technology does get out of date very quickly.

I am also happy to supply any plumbing or bathroom related products free of charge for any village projects.  (Our business is www.plumbworld.co.uk, as I am sure you know)

If I can be of any assistance, just let me know.

Regards,

James”

No reply as of yet, but I am sure a free donation won’t be overlooked !!

If anybody has any specific requests for additional equipment that they would like to see in the village hall computer room, then please let me know by email to: editor@ElmleyCastle.com and I will see what we can do.

I am not sure what the situation is with the village halls in Great Comberton and Little Comberton, but if the secretaries of these halls would like to be considered for donations of unwanted IT equipment, then just let me know.

James Hickman
Elmley Castle

Here is the reply I received:

“Dear James,

As you probably already know, I am the village hall chairman and you have obviously been listening to the wrong people! – and I can probably guess who.

When you have read the following, you will be in a position to correct anyone who raises this with you again.

Like any other village hall, it is a charity which is in business to hire out the building to groups and individuals who need a local venue for their activities, in order to pay for things like maintenance, insurance etc., and have a volunteer board of management trustees (all of whom live in the parish) and who oversee the use and management of the building.

Our booking secretary, Jeanette, has been the village hall’s secretary for many years, and, like the rest of us, she does it for nothing and, along with myselfat times, is our main face with the public, has all and sundry knocking on her door at all times of the day and night for bookings and keys, and I know of no-one in the community that doesn’t find her totally conscientious and helpful.

The computer room was paid for with public lottery money and Countryside Agency money and there is a lot of insurable equipment in the room, e.g.

3 stand alone computers and printers, scanner, fax/phone and proper

photocopier.It has always been a secure room, and we frequently allow it to be used as a store for our LCD and sound equipment and visiting groups who want a secure place to store their equipment, e.g. troupers, the school, arts groups and bands.

So it does in fact get a fair bit of use for such a small space.At one point, we did have a chiropodist also running her business from this room, however, the water sprays she used on people’s feet in close proximity with the electronic equipment in the room was damaging it.

Contrary to what you have heard, this is a multi-use building and residents in the community have always been encouraged to use this particular part of the facility (and we have advertised its availability in the Link).

It has been used by children doing homework projects together with business people who need a quiet working space away from noisy children at home.

Many residents took advantage of the 12 computer courses we ran in the village hall – paid for with a ”Longlife Learning’ grant that I applied for.

These were run for us by the local college, were well attended and the village hall computers were available throughout for use during the classes. This equipment has been used for corporate events and public hearings, and the photocopier has historically been used by the Parish Council.The village hall treasurer also uses one of the computers to do the village hall bills because it has the correct invoicing software installed.

We recognise that most people have their own home computer and therefore private use is likely to be sporadic, but the room itself is used regularly.

As with every other village hall, and particularly in our case because of the security of the post office facility, the village hall is kept locked at all times when not in use.We did have one resident who complained (because his home computer failed suddenly) and said this room should be kept open at all times so that he could use it at will.

However, our insurers would not accept this, plus we would in effect be letting it out free of charge which would not cover the electricity or maintenance and hirers of other parts of the building would be subsidising someone else’s use of this room.

Therefore, like the rest of the hall people have to book and ask Jeanette for a key.Her telephone number is readily available, and most people know it. The hire charge for this room is £2 per hour all inclusive including the cost of the telephone line for internet connection.

Of course, if you want computer use free you can always go to the local library, however, they are permanently funded by public precepted money and we are not.

There are three bottom lines here -

1) we have to be insured and there are very few specialist insurers who insure village halls.

2) security is essential to Post Office Ltd. and for the protection of their employees

3) no matter how much one tries to accommodate an individual’s needs, some people will never be satisfied.

Anna Mackison”

So there you have it, anyone who wants to use the computer facilities is able to do so and rumours to the contrary are unfounded.

Just contact Mrs J. Smith on (01386) 710511 to arrange a time to use the computers.

James Hickman
Elmley Castle