An update on the new Village Hall project from Cass Miller Jones Chair, Fritwell Village Hall CIO…
September 2024
Update:
Fritwell Family Fun Day and Flower Show
I’d like to start this update by reflecting on what a great day the Family Fun Day and Flower Show was! Whilst this event has a long history in Fritwell, recent years have seen a drop off in Show entrants and general attendance, but this year really saw that change. I’d like to thank everyone who submitted entries into the show, who ran or supported stalls and who came along on the day. The Trustees are all hoping 2025 continues this upwards trend! As well as being a great event it also raised £1,400 to support the running of the Hall, which is fantastic.
New Village Hall
As I mentioned in the June Update the fundraising activities for the Village Hall continue to progress. To date we have raised £110,000 towards the New Hall, which is fantastic. Big projects rarely run smoothly however, and we have hit our first bump in the road with fundraising. Unfortunately, our initial application for National Lottery Funding was not successful. We applied for a grant of £300,000 which was always ambitious, but if we didn’t try, we were never going to know what was possible. Happily, this is not our only opportunity to apply to the Lottery, or our only source of funding. We have two other grant applications in progress, one to the Bernard Sunley Foundation and one to the Communities Fund, both for significant sums. We are also meeting with our National Lottery advisor soon to see if they have any feedback on our application before we make another bid, likely for a lower amount.
As I have outlined previously we have a number of areas of fundraising:
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- Individual giving
- Community fundraising
- Grant funding
- Corporate sponsorship
- In-kind donations
With many of the other areas underway, we are now actively seeking pledges of in-kind donations, so if you think you can introduce us to a person or company that may be prepared to donate materials for the New Hall build then please do get in touch with a Trustee or drop us an email on newhallquery@fritwellvillagehall.co.uk We do not need to receive the items now, but need a concrete pledge to provide them when we undertake the build. Examples would include bricks, roof tiles, bathroom furniture, solar panels and chairs. To see a full list of the items we are looking to source please go here.
Hiring the Hall
If you have events coming up then our hall provides a flexible indoor and outdoor space for events for a very reasonable cost. We have recently updated the online form to request hire of the hall, which hopefully makes it more straightforward. If you do want to hire the hall please complete the form here
Upcoming events
To see our upcoming events please keep an eye on the posters around the village, follow us on Facebook, or join our mailing list here
Thanks
Cass
