St Marys Village Hall

Annual General Meeting

 

8th May 2024 @ St Marys Village Hall

 

Maggie Bailey (Chair of trustees) welcomed everyone to the meeting.

The Chair provided a summary of the year with 5 new trustees  appointed in March 2023 and she formally thanked the trustees and volunteers who have supported the running of the hall and key events over the past year.  It has been a successful year with a number of family events and regular hall bookings for weddings and other groups.

Finances

The accounts will be published in due course following independent examination in line with the charity’s constitution.  The Chair provided a verbal summary of the financial year:-

At the point of handover there was circa £41k in the bank account;

This year income from events and bookings has been £7000;

Financial outgoings have been circa £20, 000.

A number of outgoings have been one off payments for upkeep, maintenance and cleaning to enable the hall to open safely, other one-off outgoings have included decorations for key events (Halloween, Christmas and Easter and these will be used year on year). It is estimated that the hall requires an annual income of circa £10,000 to remain viable and sustainable and this is achievable through private bookings such as wedding receptions.

Energy Bills

A bill of £42,000 was issued by SSE for electricity, due to inaccurate and estimated meter reading,  a smart meter was installed by SSE and a dispute was opened with the energy ombudsman. This was successful and the bill was withdrawn.

Subsequently, a further estimated bill has been issued with annual estimated costs of £7,000 for electricity being indicated. Actual meter readings taken by the trustees suggest that the estimated annual cost of electricity should be circa £1500. This has resulted with a further dispute being opened with the energy ombudsman.

Grant applications

Government grant to improve energy efficiency.  We have a grant application for £150k form the government schemes for sustainable energy in village halls  to become more energy efficient and carbon reduction.  A government surveyor report has indicated that we require:-

1. Secondary glazing to the hall,  this cannot detract form the value of the hall, and the government grant supports this, the quotation for this is circa £90k;

2. Covering the floor and having underfloor heating, fuelled by an air source heat pump  the new floor has to be re-laid with a similar quality floor and this will exceed the remaining amount of the grant.

It is hoped that the quotes can be agreed to get both elements of the job within the amount of the grant.

The Chair is also exploring other income source grants but will only pursue this once the grant final quotes are received.  We are also pursuing a £40k grant to improve and increase the toilets from two to three or hopefully four.

 

Open days

There are open days once per month for hall viewings for events and private bookings. The next dates are Sunday 12th May 2024 2-4pm, Sunday 9th June 2024 2-4pm, and Sunday 7th July 2024 2-4pm.

Ongoing requirements

The Chair stated that there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes in terms of booking - terms and conditions of hire need to be revisited to ensure damage deposits are taken and more volunteers and committee members are needed to help with bookings, stocking the hall for events and opening/closing to ensure the viability and sustainability of the hall.

Trustees and Volunteers

There are 2 formal resignations today leaving 3 remaining trustees, 2 of which need to stand down from the committee in the very near future.  Current trustees vacancies are:

• Chair

• Assistant Treasurer/Purchaser

• Secretary

• Volunteer Organiser  

• Booking Secretary

The meeting was then opened up for questions and comments.

Questions and Comments

Events were requested for older children and adults including a weekly youth club for teenagers.  It was agreed by the trustees that these were needed but they also needed support from parents and the community to run these. Mrs Nicholson stated that she would be happy to support this one night per week.

It was also observed that in regards to the all events and bookings including community events there needs to be a charge for any group with volunteers to set this up and ensure the  costs of opening the hall are covered.  The chair stated that if an adult social club is required then this can be done but volunteers are needed to run these events.

It was also suggested that adults did not feel welcome to the family events if they did not have children  -  this was acknowledged as an oversight and agreed all welcome to future events.

Tracey noted that volunteers prefer to put their energies into the community events,  but recognised that volunteers are also required for private hires and this needs to be managed to sustain the building.

Jan explained that the trustees have communicated that volunteers can just give an hour here and there and that she delivers written communication as not everyone is on social media.

The Chair also explained that bookings for weddings/private parites will take priority  over the community events so that something like a youth club needs to be during the week rather than a weekend (Friday/Saturday/ Sunday) as this will provide the key income for the hall and hopefully moving forward will subsidise the community events.

The President of WI acknowledged the hard work of the committee in relation to addressing the issues with SSE, maintenance and funding for ongoing developments.

The Chair thanks the community for their contributions and closed the meeting with thanks to all committee members and highlighted the huge amount of work that Nancy undertaken. Nancy also highlighted that it was very much a team effort and that Jocelyn had worked with Nancy for all events with cleaning, purchasing and organisation of the events and running the bar.