Village Halls Doomsday Book 2021

A chance for you to record the good things you are doing to mark a century of rural community action.

The aim is to make Village Halls Week a little more interactive and engaging, as well as creating a powerful record that ACRE can use to influence decisions affecting village halls in the future.

The record will help ACRE make the case for sustained funding and support for village halls which will be especially important as the country recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.

Let’s get Lincolnshire halls into the book. Register your hall today and share your stories today!

Image by No-longer-here from Pixabay

Cancellation of John Barker Award 2020

Organisers of the John Barker Trophy have announced that the 2020 awards will not take place this year as originally planned.

The awards began in 2004 to celebrate and recognise the work of those volunteers who give their time and effort to manage and maintain community buildings. For many years Village Halls and Community Centres across Lincolnshire were able to call upon the technical expertise of John Barker on building related matters.

When John retired from volunteering, the Directors of Community Lincs established the ‘The John Barker Trophy’.

John Barker said “In these extraordinary times when the whole county has risen to the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic it doesn’t feel appropriate to be highlighting some individuals, organisations and communities ahead of others. Many halls have been closed for a period of time and some continue to be, however we know volunteers work tirelessly in the background to maintain buildings until they can be put back into use again.”

Samantha Smith, Village Halls Advisor at YMCA Community Lincs added “The decision was not taken lightly, we remain in a difficult situation as we gradually emerge from lockdown, and we continue to face ongoing challenges.

I would like to take this opportunity to say a very big thank you to everyone that volunteers to maintain village and community halls across Lincolnshire, your dedication has been an inspiration at this time and I feel honoured to be able to support you. We may not be able to thank you in a celebratory event, but you are very much appreciated”.

It is hoped that the awards will be back again next year when, we hope, some normality will have returned and we can celebrate the hard work of our volunteers again.