DORSET HALLS NETWORK TRAINING
Virtually all of our affiliated halls have Internet through at least one member on their committee and more and more we rely on the Internet and email to get information out to our members. With this in mind, earlier this year the Advisory Service launched the Dorset Halls Network website www.dorsethalls.net and this now receives quite substantial use. Some of our halls have asked for guidance on how to make the best use of the site so we are running a series of training sessions to explain what the site is intended to do and how our halls can make the best use of it.
During the session we will look at how to put your hall in to the popular Venue Finder directory, as well as accessing the volumes of information that is available to support hall management committees and then we will look at the forum and getting questions answered.
To start with we will run three 100 minute sessions in our Dorchester office on Monday 6th September 2010. These sessions will start at 2.00pm, 4.00pm and 6.00pm and you have a choice as to which you attend. There are, however, only eight places available on each session so we will operate a first come, first served system. If demand for places exceeds the 24 slots we have available that day we will look at running another session in October.
To book your place email Peter Orchard (Village and Community Halls Advisor) using this link
BENCHMARKING
At our July BiteSize event we discussed starting a benchmarking scheme for halls in Dorset to enable each to compare their costs and income against other halls in the county. This could also lead to sharing information on utility charge rates and other key costs and possibly then negotiating bulk schemes with preferential rates for scheme members. The scope of the scheme is as wide as the halls that choose to participate want to include - we are starting from scratch here, not importing someone else's ideas!
You can read more about benchmarking here. If you have questions, would like to register interest or would like to be involved in a steering group to get the project started please email me at this link.
HALLMARK
As mentioned previously, we have now launched the Hallmark quality assurance scheme in Dorset. One hall has now achieved accreditation and four others are preparing to apply. If you have not already done so, please have a look at the Hallmark web pages here. You will find all you need to know about how to go about getting Hallmark accreditation for your hall.
REACHING COMMUNITIES FOR BUILDINGS
A specific tranche of Lottery funding is being allocated to community buildings under an extension of the current Reaching Communities programme. Other than it is going to launch in the autumn we have no other information at the moment but we will be running a briefing event as soon as the detail is known. If you think your hall is likely to want to apply for funding under this scheme then please let us know using this link so that we can estimate the extent of interest and how we can put a support programme together.
TRUSTED AND VALUED
The next in our popular series of BiteSize events for halls will be on the 28th September 2010, again at Frampton Village Hall. This time we will be addressing management issues with regard to charity law, governance, good practice, top tips and some falsely held myths. The Village and Community Halls advisor, Peter Orchard is teaming up with his predecessor, Lois Rose and DCA's governance specialist Susi Calder to bring you an afternoon that will, hopefully, be far more interesting than the topic seems!
We will be taking bookings in September but if you are keen to get your name on the list then email us here.
AFFILIATIONS
Finally, there are a small number of halls whose affiliation expired at the end of March 2010 and have yet to renew. Sadly we will shortly have to drop them from our mailings and withdraw their access to the website so, if you think your hall may be one of these please renew as soon as possible. You can find an affiliation form here.