PROGRESS
After some eight months of waiting for the outcome of an application to the National Lottery for funding, the Hall Committee's hopes of Lottery cash were dashed. Despite submitting what the independent assessor admitted was an excellent application for a replacement village hall, ours was not thought to be an urgent case, and our lottery bid, for which we had such high expectations, failed.
Hall Secretary Mrs Val Gill said: "We are bitterly disappointed because we were advised to keep our bid below £500,000 so we put in a carefully-worded request for just £250,000. Now we must find some way of raising that enormous sum ourselves. But in spite of this setback we are absolutely determined to have our replacement hall, because it's so important to our scattered community."
For the past few years, as the building approaches the end of its life, the committee has spent all income from rentals on repairs. Now the hall itself is no longer viable and an appeal has been launched to raise the money needed for a replacement. By the time of the failed Lottery bid the Hall Committee had been busy fundraising and had £6,000 hard-won money in the bank. Funds have continued to build up since then, from both fund-raising activities at the Hall and donations very gratefully received, with the figure as at the beginning of May 2008 standing at £8,000.
But as Mrs Gill adds: "There's still a long, long way to go to reach our aim of just over a quarter of a million pounds for a modern, sustainable, low-running-cost building. But we shall succeed; we have to, for the sake of future generations. All of us that use the hall love attending the clubs that meet there."
The proposed plan, front and side elevations of the new Hall.
A model of the proposed new Hall, with the roof off so that you may see the inside, is now on display in the window of Marshgate General Stores and Post Office.
Key:
- Porch
- Hall
- Stage
- Dressing Rooms & Toilet
- Store Room
- Committee Room
- Kitchen
- Ladies Toilet
- Disabled Toilet
- Boiler Room
- Gents Toilet
- Car Park
- Existing Hall position shown with dotted outline