The Village Halls Podcast
A podcast for anyone involved in the running of Britain's 10,000 village, church and community and anyone interested in the vital community services they provide.
The Village Halls Podcast
2023 Inspirational Award 3rd Place
Discover the secrets behind the extraordinary transformation of Great Whittington Village Hall with insights from Philip Hinchcliffe. This episode promises to reveal how a once cold and underused school building became a bustling, eco-friendly community hub. Philip shares the challenges they overcame, including raising funds for solar panels and a heat pump, which not only modernised the hall but also brought the community together like never before. Learn how this inspiring project turned the hall into a vibrant space, now hosting National Theatre Live productions and serving as an essential emergency hub.
Hello, my name is Mark Smith and welcome to the Village Halls podcast sponsored by Allied Westminster, the UK's largest specialist provider of Village Hall insurance and the home of Village Guard. Hello, in today's episode we are joined by Philip Hinchcliffe from Great Whittington. Great Whittington Village Hall came in third place in our Village Halls Inspiration Awards. Welcome to the podcast, philip. Thank you very much indeed for inviting me. You're very welcome. We are also joined by Gavin Mitchell. Gavin is the Managing Director of Allied Westminster. As you already know, allied Westminster and the Village Halls Podcast started the Village Halls Inspiration Awards to celebrate the incredible contribution village church and community halls make to the rural communities. Gavin, welcome to the podcast once again.
Gavin Mitchell:Thank you very much, mark. Hello, phillips, good to be here again.
Marc Smith:So, Gavin, I'm sure our listeners are eager to hear what stood out for you about the Great Whittington Village Hall and our Inspiration Awards.
Gavin Mitchell:Well, I think it was a well-deserved winner of the awards that came in third in our Inspiration Awards. Well, I think it was a well-deserved winner of the awards that came in third in our Inspirations Award competition, and I think under a few key points.
Gavin Mitchell:It was really, first of all, the revitalization of a historic building what was effectively a cold and damp and underutilized stone building, originally school turning it into a warm, welcoming, eco-friendly village hall. An extraordinary achievement because, basically, there was a revolution in the entire building and the use of the village hall incredibly successfully the use of technology, overcoming challenges in terms of raising grants and funding and going through all sorts of hoops to basically revitalise the village hall and, more importantly, community engagement has very significantly increased with the village hall.
Marc Smith:Yeah.
Gavin Mitchell:So an impressive transformation from an old, cold underused damp building to a vibrant village hall.
Marc Smith:Excellent. So, philip, actually can you tell us a little bit about the village hall? Before the new committee took over it was an old school, is that correct?
Philip Hinchcliffe:Yes, it was an old school. It was the primary school for the village and a bit of the surrounding area. It closed down in 1971. There were only eight pupils at that time and now the primary school children go to a place 10 miles away. So it was a disappointment that it closed down, but it gave the opportunity to convert it into a village hall. They'd been raising funds for a village hall since the Second World War and, we believe, before then, and so the hall was well.
Philip Hinchcliffe:The school was transferred to the ownership of the village in 1972 and converted at that time. So it's been a hall now for just over 50 years and it's always had a problem with it being a cold place. We're a very small village. At the time of conversion there were only 35 houses in the village and so not a large community, and so they did a wonderful job raising money. But as a school it had night storage heaters and that was fine because the school closed down at three o'clock in the afternoon but most of the activities were in the evening, by which time the heating had all run out, and in Northumberland it wasn't a pleasant experience, and that's where we were at the start.
Marc Smith:All right, right. So what were the immediate issues that were facing the hall when you joined the committee? Was it 2021? Is that correct?
Philip Hinchcliffe:Well, I first joined the committee in 1977, having moved into the village in 1976.
Philip Hinchcliffe:But then in 1999, I retired and we have a place in Spain, so we were going to spend a considerable time of year in Spain and so a couple of years later, having passed on I was treasurer at the time and I passed on to another committee, who eventually passed on to another committee, and that's when the the idea of selling the hall came about and they wanted to pass the money to support the village pub. So I came back onto the committee at that stage and we decided that we needed to revitalise the hall and make it into a warm, welcoming place, as Gavin has suggested. And that's what we've done for the last three years. We've obtained funds for solar panels, heat pump, we've got an AV system, we've got 20 kilowatt hours of batteries and we've had money from Northern Power Grid as well to make it into an emergency hub, because during Storm Arwen we were without any electricity for six days, and it's now a very warm, welcoming environment and in September it's going to be used on 22 occasions and we're very proud of that.
Marc Smith:Wow, that's really good. What was the usage before all the work was done? I think you couldn't really use it in the winter.
Philip Hinchcliffe:Well before COVID. The last winter, before COVID, in the three months from January to March, it was used on eight occasions. Last year, when we just had the heat pump put in, it was used on 35 occasions and, as I say, in September, this September it's going to be 22 times. It's already booked for over 20 occasions in October, november and December's a bit early yet to decide.
Marc Smith:Yeah, that's actually pretty incredible the difference between before the work and after. It just goes to show that when you do put the work in to make these places inviting, that people do actually come, because your village is 150 people.
Philip Hinchcliffe:There's about 150 people in the village. There's just over 300 on the electoral roll for the whole parish. There's a small village and three small hamlets in the parish. But as an aside to all that, we've just become tied up which you won't have known about with the National Theatre Live, and on the 13th of September we're going to show our first programme from the National Theatre Live, which is Public Laughter an old cowed one. We received the Blu-ray disc just on Friday. We've had a trial run on the AV system yesterday and we're all systems go to produce eight shows a year on it Great.
Marc Smith:Wow, that's very. How did you manage to do that? That's quite a feat. Did you have to write to the National Theatres to be able to do this Well?
Philip Hinchcliffe:we. I was in contact with other halls in the community or in the county and I discovered one, rochester, which had already got an arrangement with them, and so I then approached the National Theatre, and it's taken a little while, but we've got the contract going. It's a no brainer for us, because all they want, on a trust basis, is a percentage of our takings. So even if there's only one person turns up, we still make a little bit of money. If there's 100 people, we'll make an awful lot of money, but we can't take 100 people in the hall.
Marc Smith:That's really good. So I think it's quite a vibrant community you have there.
Philip Hinchcliffe:Yes, yes, there's still some split.
Marc Smith:Some people still want to support the pub more, and we all do, even on the committee. We want to support the pub. It's an essential part of the community, but they both provide different facilities, yeah, yeah. So what was the community involvement like during the process of upgrading the hall?
Philip Hinchcliffe:Well, we're a small committee now, only eight people and a lot of people. We have about 30 to 40 active members of the committee oh, not of the committee of the hall who support everything. We have a coffee morning every first Saturday of the month, so it's next week, this Saturday coming and there'll be 50 people plus there. So there's a lot of people coming to the hall now.
Marc Smith:Oh, excellent, excellent. So I'm right in saying that it was November last year. It was at the university group and they've developed a process map. So you can allow other community groups to a university group and they've developed a process map. Yes, so you can allow other community groups to take inspiration from yourself. Was it renewable energy? They were studying it was.
Philip Hinchcliffe:After we put in the systems I did a case study of our trials and tribulations of doing it, which were not inconsiderable, so I sent that to Community Action Northumberland, which is the group that looks after the village hall in Northumberland, northumberland, and as a result of that I was asked to take part in a working group from Northumbria University who were trying to do something on a national basis, and they came out of the hall and interviewed us considerably I think it lasted nearly three hours one afternoon about what we'd done and how things were going, and they put that out as a national thing, partly through ACRE as well, I believe, and so I think that was probably one of the main reasons we got an award from Gavin. He'd know better than I would, but there must be many, many halls that have put in solar panels and heat pumps in the last couple of years, but maybe not many have undertaken work to pass that information on.
Gavin Mitchell:Yeah, I would agree with that. I think what's absolutely fascinating about your village hall is it's a wonderful case study, and that's really why it stood out from our judging position as something that would be inspirational for other village halls, because I think you executed the whole project beautifully and the fact it's become a case study is marvellous.
Marc Smith:Can you talk about the funding that you got there? So what were all the funding opportunities that you went for? Because obviously that's one of the hardest parts of these types of renovations.
Philip Hinchcliffe:Right Back in April 1922, we were told that the National Lottery was providing us a trial funding of £500,000 to the North East and Cumbria with a maximum grant of £30,000 for capital projects.
Philip Hinchcliffe:And we put in an initial application in June for £30,000. Towards the cost of that. It took a long time to get through the process, which was fairly arduous, and we were eventually approved in May 2023 for £31,500. For £31,500. We'd made approaches to other fundraisers in the meantime but they'd all said, and quite rightly so, the National Lottery is your lead funder. Come back when they've given you the approval.
Philip Hinchcliffe:So after we got the approval, we got additional funds from various sources. Community foundation, newcastle were, which look after funding for many charities, were very helpful and we obtained 20 000 pounds from them. From three different charities one provided 9 000000 and the other provided £5,000. The one that provided £5,000 we were very pleased with because of the area of responsibility that they have only includes three houses in our parish and their maximum grant was £10,000. And we thought well, with three houses we might get a few hundred. But they came up to trumps.
Philip Hinchcliffe:The Willan Trust gave us £10,000. And the county council gave us a total of £15,000. £5,000 from their community chest and £10,000 came from the North of Tyne Infrastructure Fund. So we ended up with £73,000 and we had to commit £10,000, which we had from the COVID Relief Fund. We had from the COVID relief fund. So the whole project in the end cost just under £74,000. So we didn't need to spend our money, which meant we had enough left so we could fully redecorate. We put in woodworm treatment to the roof timbers which should survive, make it last for another 50 years at least, and we've replaced two felt roofs which were over 40 years old and in fact Gavin provided some funding towards that because we put in an insurance claim because one blew off in the winds.
Gavin Mitchell:Thank, you, gavin? No problem, that's what we're here for, however, prevention- is always better than cure for 50 years and this is the first time we've had it happens, it happens, it happens oh, excellent, excellent, well, that's, that's really good.
Marc Smith:So well, that's. We're pretty much coming to the end of our show there. So just before we go, what advice would you give to other communities or individuals looking to achieve something similar?
Philip Hinchcliffe:Right. The main thing is be prepared that it's going to take a lot of time and hard work Getting grants from different organisations. They all have different criteria and, although you know what you want to do, you've got to build your grant application to what their criteria are and you will get sufficient funds. One of the problems we had was planning. We're a conservation area and although the county council was giving us funds on one side, the planning department was trying to stop us on the other side. I eventually ended up on stepladders in the middle of the road with a camera proving that you had to be on the top floor of a double-decker bus to see where the panels were going to be.
Marc Smith:Excellent. So, philip, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Thank you for sharing all your insights and experiences. I'm sure listeners will be well have gained a lot from what you shared today and, obviously, the process map. It would be great to be able to share that on our website as well, just so other people can have a look at what you did. Yeah, so thank you very much for both of you for joining us on the Village Halls podcast. Thank you very much for both of you for joining us on the village halls podcast thank you very much indeed for inviting me my pleasure.
Gavin Mitchell:Thank you very much, mark.
Marc Smith:Thank you very much, philip many thanks to our headline sponsor and specialist village hall insurance provider, allied westminster, the home of village guard, for making this podcast possible, and to online booking system provider, hallmaster, who also sponsor our podcast and can be found at hallmastercouk. You've been listening to the village halls podcast, a unique listening community for britain's village community and church halls and anyone interested in the vital community services they provide. We'll be back again soon with another episode. For more information, please visit thevillagehallspodcastcom, where you'll also find links to our social media pages. Thanks again for listening in and until the next time. Goodbye for now.
