Hawkesbury Upton Village Hall - Hire for Weddings, Parties, Stage for Live music

Hawkesbury Upton Hall Committee

Report for the year 2009

I would like to thank the committee for their dedication and hard work over the past year. This year has been quite a busy year for us with our standard hires, quite a few private hires with bar, plus our own fundraisers and work on the Hall.

Last year we planned to re-decorate as much of the Hall as we could and were fortunate to be able to use a successful project run by Leyhill Prison. The project takes prisoners out into the community on projects like decorating, general small building works etc. and our re-decorating project fitted well in their already busy program. The Hall was shut for the Easter period and the most of the planned work was completed to a good standard. Other areas of the Hall that could not be done were completed by Sue Hewer.
In March we had another successful Breakfast fundraiser and this helped towards to cost of the disabled access ramp that was completed in the April. However we still need to finish this small project with the construction of a canopy over the ramp area.
Another success last year was the re-introduction of Bonfire Night, very well supported and enjoyed by all ages.
Through peoples generosity of either fireworks or cash donations ensured that not only last years event was spectacular but also this years.
The Energy group has completed a Project Development Study on the Hall and move to the next phase of proposals and grant applications. However any decisions or work will need the support of the Village and 100% grant funding to proceed as the costs of these new sustainable technologies are very large. But if we can introduce sustainable technologies we will drastically reduce our heating & electric costs and also Co2 emissions.
We still have three other small projects on hold due to funding shortage, kitchen and servery area makeover, changes to the upstairs small meeting room to create an office environment and bar floor tiling needs replacing.

Looking forward to the coming year, again we continue to search for grants to help our funding, as well as our own fundraising activities. Hopefully these fundraising activities will enable us to complete many of the pieces of work we have already started or have planned as well as the general day to day Hall maintenance.

Treasurer's summary report below provided by Mick Bendeaux.

The letting fees continue to cover the majority of our everyday running costs. Our Fundraising made nearly £1,200 but as our one-off expenses included the installation of the disabled ramp (£1,725), decoration (£1,805), construction of an under stage trolley (£670) and a new hot-water urn (£91), the outcome of all this was a reduction in our Current account balance from £7,609 to £4,021.
We also decided to replace all the glasses in the bar with unbreakable plastic ones, and this exercise cost £423. Our future plans include the re-flooring of the bar, constructing a canopy above the disabled ramp and refurbishing the kitchen.




Thanks again to everyone.

Angelo Sauro, Mick Bendeaux & Fiona Steeds
Chairman, Treasurer & Secretary