BIGHTON
NEWS
Village Hall Monthly Draw
winners
January:
£45:
£30:
£20:
£15:
Geoff Buss
Helen Skirton
Sally Ann Manley
Sheila Lovett
February:
£45: Sarah McCowen
£30: Johnny Scott
£20: Gina Tufnell
£15: I & S Street
BIGHTON VILLAGE HALL
Committee AGM
Bighton Village Hall Committee AGM takes
place in the hall on Thursday 25th April at
7.30pm. The public is welcome to attend.
The AGM will be followed by a committee
meeting.
Heating and Insulation Project
We had not been happy for some time with
the oil-fired heating: it was noisy, distributed
the heat badly and we had lost two lots of oil
due to theft. To make matters worse all the
windows and doors were only single-glazed
and there was no insulation in the walls to
keep what heat there was in the hall. While
our income from lettings and fundraising
covers
running
costs
and
small
improvements, there was no way we could
fund replacing the old heating system, let
alone the rest. To make matters worse the
oil tank was not bunded and even replacing
that would have cost some £2,000 as it
would have to be re-sited away from the
wooden hall and fenced in some way. We
approached the Fieldfare Local Action
Group (LAG) based at Winchester City
Council. Following initial workshops,
discussions and submission of our proposed
works to: replace the oil-fired heating with
an electric ‘air source’ heat pump system,
replace the windows and doors with modern
aluminium double-glazed units, insulate the
walls and then redecorate (total cost
£21,000+), we were given the OK by them to
make a full proposal. This involved several
more workshops and about 40 hours’ work
to prepare all the documentation required to
be considered for the funding. LAG
manages this on behalf of the Rural
Development Programme for England,
which in turn is funded by DEFRA and the
European Development Fund for Rural
Areas.
We were very pleased last August to be
awarded 100 per cent funding for our
project, so we got things going straight
away, which is why the hall was closed for
periods before Christmas. The final stage
was the redecoration and about 45 litres of
paint and three litres of varnish were applied
by some 16 generous volunteers putting in
about 170 hours of work over a weekend to
get the job done. What a fantastic effort!
Thanks to everyone who helped with their
time and loaned equipment. The value of all
that labour and equipment is easily close to
£3,000.
So now our main community asset, the
Village Hall, is more energy-efficient, quiet
and secure and smarter than it has ever
been. Thanks to everyone who helped and
to the funding bodies, we can all be proud of
our hall. For a small rural community we
have done very well indeed. So do come
along whenever you can to hall events,
that’s what it’s there for!
Adrian Arnold
Bighton Village Hall Committee Chairman
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