The Sampford Brett ACORN Group

The Sampford Brett Acorn Group came about in 2017 as a response by the Village Hall Management Committee (VHMC) to feelings in the Community that "something needed to be done" about the Hall. Depending on your viewpoint, the "something" ranged from a lick of paint, perhaps a new kettle, right up to demolition and rebuilding! An open meeting in the Village Hall identified a number of volunteers who were prepared to take a project forward. The VHMC established some terms of reference for this group, and you can read these here.

To summarise those Terms of Reference, the work falls into four main areas

1. to document the context of the current Village Hall
2. to document the requirements for a future Village Hall - actual and aspirational
3. to document a range of feasible options for proceeding
4. to document a preferred option for approval by the VHMC

To understand the current and future context for a Village Hall, the Group liaised with the Community Council for Somerset (CCS - a charity specialising in supporting Community groups, organisations and individuals in Somerset) to determine an appropriate framework for understanding the physical condition of the Village Hall and the needs of the Community Hall Users and regular Hall Hirers. They recommended that we make an application to the Big Lottery Fund to finance the design and analysis of

• a technical structural survey of the Village Hall to understand it's strengths and weakness, serviceability and lifetime projection
• a needs survey of the whole community to get a feel for what people think is good and bad about the Hall and how it plays a role in their life
• a needs survey of regular Hall hirers to get a feel for any specific issues

This application was successful and resulted in a structural survey report and a Community Needs Survey. 

Based on the above reports, the Acorn Group is currently determining a range of options to take to the VHMC later in 2018.

Watch out for updates as this work progresses!