Scotland: National Rural Network
Are you involved in the running and management of your local village hall or community building? Do you have a question about funding, legislation, volunteering or governance? Our panel of Village Hall experts are here to help.
Chrissy Boyd of Ullapool Village Hall, Philippa Wetton of Berwickshire Association for Voluntary Service and Sandra Hogg of the Rural Team at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations will answer your questions on a whole range of issues relating to community buildings.
Our panel of experts have years of experience of village halls and the voluntary sector and will share their experience and expertise with you in our latest Ask an Expert feature.
Send your questions to editor@ruralgateway.org.uk by Monday 9th August. (Please keep your questions under 75 words.) We'll then send them on to the panel and publish their answers on the site.
Chrissy Boyd, Chair of Ullapool village hallI've lived in Ullapool since the seventies, having brought up a family, been an SYHA hostel warden and worked for Ullapool Museum during that time. I've been on the Village Hall committee for around 15 years, and ten years ago was joint project manager for a major refurbishment of this big and busy Hall. I also enjoy helping out at the Ullapool Book Festival and arts events promoted by Ullapool Entertainments.
Find out more about the hall on the Ullapool Village Hall website.
Since joining Berwickshire Association for Voluntary Service (BAVS) 2 years ago, as Development Worker, I have helped Berwickshire voluntary and community groups in various ways ranging from; support with new start ups, governance advice, sources of funding information and application support. I have helped co-ordinate annual networking events to offer groups further support and information on services of interest to them. I have also been involved in the implementation of PQASSO and EFQM quality systems within BAVS, and I am currently a member of a working team focusing on a pilot quality standard scheme to be implemented by village halls.
More recently I have had a focus on volunteering within the sector and have looked at ways of promoting the benefits of volunteering to our local community. I enjoy working closely with community groups to help support them with any challenges and identify opportunities to enable them to develop and become more sustainable in the longer term.
I never intended to work in rural community development but somehow I've ended up here from an early career in freshwater biology. But I still like fishing!
I've worked in SCVO's rural team for eight years and have taken a keen interest in supporting village halls. They are so important for rural communities and yet seem face more challenges with less support than almost any other organisations I can think of. I developed the village halls website, www.villagehalls.org.uk in 2005 and led the Halls for All Campaign in 2007. I am now developing a quality award for halls with a team that includes Philippa (news of that later in the year). I'm also held to be something of a funding expert by my colleagues, but play that one down.
I've been involved in volunteering in my local community for a number of years starting, as many do, on the playgroup committee. A couple of years ago I decided that it was time to volunteer on my own village hall committee. What a learning experience that's been! I've a much better understanding now of the issues facing halls.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Google
Technorati
Comments
Many people consider that the
Many people consider that the hall is an essential part of any village, like the primary school is and look at them being shut, and like the post office is and look at them being shut, like the shop is, and so on. The question must be just how important the village hall actually is. We have legislation insisting that children attend school yet we are able to close them. We have national guidelines about our postal service yet we are able to close it. We have restricted transport offerings yet we watch petrol stations close, again shops must compete with the behemoth neighbours possibly 30 miles away, can they avoid closure.
What is ever laid down that states village halls should exist, should offer certain services, should enjoy some protection? Is the village hall simply another creature of the market? Will we watch local halls close one by one? Should that be the accepted pattern especially if village hall services can be amalgamated?
This pattern clearly is not universal yet as among the three experts there is evidence for village halls that do thrive. I sort of know what the answer is - join the committee and get stuck in. But where is the answer that addresses problems seen in so many areas?
Thanks for your comments and
Thanks for your comments and questions for the panel. We'll send your question to our panel of three experts and then publish the response in a Question and Answer style article with the other questions to the panel.
In the meantime if anyone wants to share their experience or views then please do by adding a comment to this article.
The responses are now in. You
The responses are now in. You can read questions and answers from the panel in Ask an Expert: Village Halls. Thanks to our three experts for their in-depth answers and to everyone who took part in the feature by sending in a question. Look out for a new Ask an Expert coming to the site next month . . .