Financial Position

Funding Activities

• Dave Hoskins has continued to draw in contributions to the 'Raise The Roof'appeal and a combination of individual donations and money raised from organised activities has brought the total amount raised to nearly £10,000. This is a fantastic achievement in less than 12 months. Many thanks again to Dave. However, we still need the momentum to continue and especially need ideas and those prepared to organise money raising activities.
   
• The Coffee Morning and Cake Sale on February 10^th was a great success and thanks to Joan, Kathleen and Dawn Martin for organising it and to those who brought cakes to sell. A big thank you to all who came and braved the storm!
   
• The Christmas Taster Lunch on 4^th November raised £160. Thanks to Dawn Hoskins and her band of helpers.
   
• Denise is presently organising a Table Top Sale on 3^rd March. If you have any good quality bric-a-brac please speak with Dawn Martin. Any unwanted Christmas pesents? Please hand to Denise.
   
• Dawn Hoskins is arranging an Easter Lunch on Saturday 31^st March. Soup or sandwich and scone. Tickets £2 - available shortly. Easter Sing Song starts 11.00am followed by lunch at 11.45 am.
   

Lottery Community Building Fund

Our Stage 1 application to the Community Buildings Fund was completed and submitted in November 2006. This national fund will allocate £50M over the next three years and is the biggest opportunity we have for winning the vast majority of the money we need for the new hall.

Following the submission of our application I was interviewed by a Lottery Grants Officer for well over an hour on 2^nd February. The interview covered all aspects of the 6 sections of our application and ranged from questions about how we would manage the construction of the building to more in-depth questioning of our future needs. At the end of the interview the Grants Officer confirmed that she was now satisfied that we had given a comprehensive account of ourselves and the application for Stage 1 was complete.

During the discussions it emerged that the Lottery is expection approximately 1,000 applications and only about 200/300 are expected to be finally successful. Only 1/4 of applications will go through to the final stage.

What happens next? Well the Grants Officer will score our application against set criteria for each of the 6 sections in the application. She will then write a report and submit all of this to the Lottery Committee. Our scores will be compared to other applicants and the Committee will choose those going through to the final stage. Unfortunately, we will have to wait until early May before we will be officially informed whether we have been successful or not.

The total cost of the Hall has now risen to £505,000 of which we are asking £381,000 from the Lottery.

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Since the last Newsletter I have received a few offers for organising future fundraising events. This is encouraging, although it appears that it is the same small group of people who are volunteering. Come On! I am sure all of you have the ability to organise just one event - after all this Hall is for the benefit of us all.

Ian