Village Hall national quality awards and refurbishments completed during Covid
Sunny ACT Community Buildings event at Newbiggin Village Hall
17th August 2022
Despite the challenges of hall closure and restrictions due to Covid, volunteer committees continued to work hard to improve their village hall charities, refurbishing their buildings and achieving national quality awards for governance.
The sun shone and spirits were high at ACTion with Communities in Cumbria’s first ‘in-person’ Community Buildings Event in over two years, held recently at Newbiggin Village Hall, Penrith.
Hallmark awards were presented to five Cumbrian halls which had achieved the national standard during Covid. Arnside Educational Institute; Beaumont Parish Hall; Dalston Victory Hall and Scaleby Village Hall all achieved Hallmark One for charity essentials and administration. And for the second time, Thursby Parish Hall achieved both Hallmark One and Hallmark Two, for safety, licensing and maintenance.
The Hallmark award acknowledges the good work undertaken by community building management committees across the country and aims to encourage improvement across all their work and activities. In Cumbria the quality standard scheme is run by community development charity ACT, as part of its community buildings advice service.
Event delegates also enjoyed talks from three of the twenty-one community assets projects which received a total of over £800K funding from the National Lottery Community Fund and support from ACT during 2019 to 2021. John Atkinson from Dalston Victory Hall, Anne Gate from Keekle Village Hall and Adrian Paye from Borrowdale Institute each spoke in detail about their refurbishment projects to provide better community facilities, improve energy efficiency and accessibility for all.
ACT Development Officer and Lead Village Hall Advisor, Hellen Aitken, said of the event “Since the first Covid Lockdown we’ve been holding twice as many Community Buildings events, initially focussed on keeping up to date with changing regulations and reopening safely, but these have all been online, so it was lovely to be able to meet up with so many village hall volunteers again.”
“I was especially pleased to be able to present Hallmark awards achieved during Covid and to hear from some of the halls we’ve supported with refurbishments and applying for National Lottery funding.”
“Sarah Bowman, Funding Officer for the National Lottery Community Fund also joined us for the event and we’re delighted to be continuing our organisations partnership for a further three years, supporting more community assets to access funding and improve their facilities for the future. Contact us at ACT if you’d like to find out more.”
“The Hallmark award acts as a marker for grant funders, evidencing that a village hall is well run. I’d encourage all hall committees to visit our website and use the Hallmark checklist to see if their hall meets the standard. And if you find you need to make some improvements, contact us at ACT and we’ll be happy to help”
Visit: www.cumbriaaction.org.uk/what-we-do/hallmark-quality-standard or contact ACT on Tel: 01768 425 666 or Email: info@cumbriaaction.org.uk
Inside Newbiggin Village Hall, John Atkinson speaking about Dalston Victory Hall refurbishment and Hallmark
Peg Eastwood accepts Hallmark 1 and 2 awards for Thursby Parish Hall
Harold Bowron accepts Hallmark 1 award for Beaumont Parish Hall