Knowledge Base

WELCOME:

There are now in excess of 60 halls affiliated to the Dorset Village Halls Association. Each of those halls has a committee, usually of around ten people in all; that means about 1,500 people are involved in village hall management in Dorset. Every one of those people will have experiences from running their hall or professional knowledge they bring from outside employment or other activities. When you stop and think about it that is an enormous amount of knowledge and good practice that should be shared with the others in the hall management community. It is our sincere hope that this 'Knowledge Base' will garner that knowledge and expertise and provide it in a way that others can use positively. Please help us be encouraging contributions to the 'Knowledge Base'.

ACCESSING THE KNOWLEDGE BASE:

To try and bring some order in to the Knowledge Base we have divided it to six sections: 

• Finance and Funding
• Management and Legal
• Operations and Maintenance
• Promotion and Fundraising
• Service and Supplies
• Communications and Computing

As far as possible we will ensure that each submission to the Knowledge Base is placed in one of these section appropriate to its subject matter. However, we have added the Information Finder service which enables you to access the data here (and in other areas of the site) by a range of keywords as well as a 'text match' search facility. With these ways of accessing the information we hope you will find the answer you are looking for.

THE 'SMALL PRINT'

Please note that:

• The inclusion of any supplier of any service in this knowledge base does not imply that the Dorset Village Halls Association have vetted that supplier and recommends that service or product.  Hall committees should conduct their own 'due diligence' on these suppliers in the same way that they would on any supplier.
   
• Any comment made by any contributor to this knowledge base will be from their own experience or will be their personal opinion. These comments will not necessarily represent the official views and opinions of  the Dorset Village Halls Association.

   

• The moderators of this site reserve the right to remove any comment they feel is inaccurate, misleading or offensive without prior reference to the contributor. Any person who continually submits such comments will be banned from the site.

CONTRIBUTING TO THE KNOWLEDGE BASE:

You can contribute to the Knowledge Base in two ways:

Comments:

On every page of information in the Knowledge Base you will find, at the bottom, an option to 'Add new comment'. If you have read a page and havve something from your own knowledge or experience to add to what has been said then please click on 'Add new comment' and start typing! Over time contributed pages will start to build up with added information to make them more and more relevant and useful.

Contributions:

There will be many gaps in the Knowledge Base, not just to start with but for ever ... it will never be complete! We would like you to submit papers on things that you can share with your peers in other halls. It does not have to necessarily be pages and pages, shorter contributions can be just as important. If you have something you would like to contribute please click on the menu item 'Contact Form' and then set the category on the form to 'Contribute to Knowledge Base' and fill in the form. It will not appear straight away as it will be received by the Knowledge Base monitors by email and they will have to cut and paste it into the appropriate place in the Knowledge Base.

IMPROVING THE KNOWLEDGE BASE:

The Knowledge Base is a new venture for us. If you have any comments or suggestions on how we can improve it then please use the menu item 'Contact Form' and then set the category on the form to 'Contribute to Knowledge Base' and fill in the form to tell us what we can do to make this service even better.