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Alvechurch’s first Pumpkin Festival took place in the Village Hall on Saturday 28th October.  It was a great success, with about 100 pumpkins of various types (home grown, carved, craft) on display and pumpkin-themed food and cakes were on sale in the small meeting room.  More than 300 people visited the Hall during the day, and over £900 was raised for the Village Hall and our chosen charity, Papyrus.  Thanks to everyone who contributed a pumpkin, who helped out on the day, and in particular to our wonderful and hard-working Pumpkin Committee!  Plans are already underway to repeat the event next year.  You can see a gallery of photos from the day below.

In the second round of the local Co-Op Community Fund, we were very lucky to receive £974.52!  Many thanks to the Co-Op and to all those who chose us as their charity.  This money will go towards delivery of our five year plan.

The Village Hall’s first pumpkin festival is fast approaching!  It will be held on Saturday 28th October, from 11am to 4pm.  You can enter a home grown  pumpkin, carve one, or make an artificial one.  Please click on the poster below for more details.  You can download an entry form from the post above this one.

We have now had a baby change unit installed.  This was one of the top five requested improvements in our recent survey.  The unit is located in the accessible toilet near the front doors of the Hall.

The first funding period for the local Community Fund has finished, and has raised the sum of £857.65 of for the Village Hall!  Many thanks to everyone who has supported us.  And the good news is that you can continue to do so, as we have been selected for the next round of the fund, which runs until 7th October.  We hope that you will support us again.

If you are not familiar with the Community Fund, our local branch will donate 1% of everything you spend on selected Co-op branded products and services to a nominated charity in the Community.  You need to be a Co-op member to do so – sign up here.  You can then nominate the Village Hall as your chosen charity.  If you are a Co-op member but don’t have internet access, you can nominate us by phoning 0800 023 4708.  Thanks!

Our survey of Village Hall users and other members of the community, in which we asked what the priorities should be for our five year plan – is now complete.  Many thanks to everyone who took part – we had over 200 responses!  You can read a summary of the results here.

The most popular suggestion was to improve the physical access to the Hall, followed by installing a hearing loop, improving the storage of tables, providing access to WiFi and installing a baby changing unit.  We are now using the output of the survey to inform our five year plan, and will provide a further update on this soon.  Improving the physical access to the Hall will be a major project and will therefore take some time, but we hope to make progress on some of the other priorities very quickly.  Watch this space for more information, and thanks for your feedback so far.

There is still time for you to support the Village Hall by shopping at our local Co-op.  We are one of the causes being supported by our local branch, who will donate 1% of everything you spend on selected Co-op branded products and services to a nominated charity in the Community.  You need to be a Co-op member to do so – sign up here.  You can then nominate the Village Hall as your chosen charity.  If you are a Co-op member but don’t have internet access, you can nominate us by phoning 0800 023 4708.  Thanks!

We are currently working on our plan to maintain and improve the Village Hall over the next five years.  As part of this process, we are keen to find out what you – Village Hall users and members of the wider community – see as the highest priorities for us to address.  We have produced a short questionnaire to gather some information about this, which can be accessed here.  It only takes a couple of minutes to complete, so please let us have your views!  Thanks.

The Village Hall Management Committee is currently in the process of producing a plan for maintaining and improving the Hall over the next five years.  We have lots of ideas, and will share our plan when it’s ready.  However, we also want to know what you, the users of the Hall and residents of Alvechurch would like to see provided or improved at the Hall.  Please use the form in our Contact section to make any suggestions you may have.  We can’t promise to implement everything, but any and all suggestions are welcome.

To help us fund the improvements that we have planned, Hall rental charges will be increasing slightly.  For regular users, rental charges will increase by £1.50 per session for the main Hall and £1 per session for the Small Meeting (Committee) room.  These increases will apply from 1 April 2017, and will also be applied in April 2018.  They follow a three-year period in which Hall rental charges have not increased at all.  For one-off users, charges will be increased to £25 per hour for the main Hall and £10 per hour for the Small Meeting (Committee) Room.

23rd November 2016 – by request a repeat of last year’s enjoyable evening with your local choir. An Alvechurch Village Society event – £1.00 to members and £2.00 for non members to include a drink and a biscuit.