October 2024

16 Buckden Roundabout October 2024 Village News Autumn is with us and so we start another busy quarter at the Village Hall! Our new website is now operational so please do have a look. We will be adding more information to the web- site over the coming weeks. Repair Café Saturday 5 th October, 1:30pm – 4:30pm Some of you may have heard of the Repair Café concept. It is a free community event where volunteers help people fix bro- ken items. The goal is to reduce waste, save money and strengthen social cohesion by matching up broken items with volunteer repairers. There are over 2,500 Repair Café ’ s world- wide and we are very excited that Buckden will now be home to one! Please come over and bring in your broken items, or just come and enjoy a cuppa and some socialising. Social Time Hub Fridays 10am – 12pm. These Hubs are aimed at retired and semi - retired people where there will be exercise sessions with the chance to catch up over a cup of tea, plus workshops, social activities and festive meals. Come and join in every Friday 10am – 12pm in the Millard Suite. The sessions are funded by Peterborough United Foun- dation and in association with Cambridgeshire County Council and EFT Trust. Bookings In addition to the Repair Café and the Social Time Hub we have all our regular hirers including pilates, chair - based exercise classes and life art drawing classes. We also have a kid ’ s party and a jive dancing weekend. Remember that Buckden resi- dents receive discounted rates. Please also check out our online calendar at buckdenvillagehall.co.uk BVHT Annual General Meeting BVHT ’ s AGM took place on 3 rd September. All Trustees stood down and presented themselves for re - election. Matt Beldam was elected Chair, Cynthia Alers Treasurer and Hamish Masson Secretary for the 2024 - 25 financial year. The Village Hall Trust continues to rebuild its revenues post - Covid, although our key corporate training market remains subdued. However, our four tenants (Buckden Parish Council, Cambridgeshire County Council (Library), Buckden Preschool Playground and Buckden Village Club) provide a regular source of income. Our regular hirers also help support our operating costs and special events such as the pantomime, cat show, Jive dancing weekends, weddings and parties have been steadily increasing. We have excellent ratings on Google and the Trus- tees thanks our staff for their great work. Utility costs and staff payroll are the Trust ’ s major expenses – the Village Hall is completely self - funding and relies on grants, donations and legacies to undertake larger projects and regular maintenance and repairs, as described later in this article. New Trustees – we need you! The Trust is now a limited liability charity managed by a board of 12 Trustees. We currently have vacancies for two new Trus- tees. If you would like to learn more about joining the Trust as a Trustee please email admin@buckdenvillagehall.co.uk We are working on a number of interesting projects including im- proving our carbon footprint, transitioning to net zero and en- hancing our grounds, as well as stepping up our marketing strategy. Footpath upgrade on playing field By the time this article goes to print the work will be complet- ed. Many thanks to the FCC landfill grant charity for the gener- ous £34,000 grant and to Breheny Civil Engineering in Hunting- don. The Valley Maintenance of these four acres is a mammoth task for a small charity such as the Trust and we are very thankful to the band of volunteers we have who help to keep it looking as good as possible. Please contact the office if you are interested in vol- unteering for this group. Our main project for the autumn is to tidy up the scrub vegeta- tion, support the new hedging and attack the banks around the water. Richard Salmon at Prolawn is helping us with this last task and we would be keen to hear from anyone able to help us plan planting on this long bank. Nottcutts Garden Centre in Brampton has indicated interest in supplying plants once we specify them and we are hoping for grant funding for additional works. But we need some experts to help us plan! As mentioned last month, the water levels in the Valley are low due to the stream running alongside Morris Close drying up and also the weir at the end of the Valley has failed. HDC are investigating the stream issue and the Trust is arranging for Breheny to rebuild the weir as part of their work on the foot- path. Breheny has also patched the MUGA area in places. Grant Applications The Trustees regularly apply for charitable and grant funding to improve the Village Hall ’ s grounds and facilities. This is a very time - consuming activity, but we have had good success in rais- ing funds over the past years, including funding for remediation of the Valley, refurbishment of the footpath and improving the pitch conditions for the sports teams. Our current grant appli- cations include: Biodiversity study and grant application Huntingdonshire District Council (HDC)) is offering grants to improve parks and other nature areas. The Trustees success- fully applied and HDC conducted a site survey in July. We are (Continued on page 17) Burberry Road, Buckden, Cambridgeshire, PE19 5UY Tel: 01480 811101 www. buckdenvillagehall.co.uk email: admin@buckdenvillagehall.co.uk