Big thank you to all of you who voted for us in PKC's "Fairer Communities For All" awards: we were awarded £4140 at a wonderful awards ceremony on 2 December in Strathearn Community Campus in the company of many other deserving community groups from Strathallan and Strathearn.This money will allow us to really get things moving in the village hall - with some organised storage space, some folding chairs (who knows, they could even be comfortable???) and seed funding to start getting a social programme going...
News
We've been shortlisted with PKC's "Fairer Communities For All" fund with two requests for funding (Community Event Support and Hall Storage), but we really need your votes: 1. Go to https://www.pkc.gov.uk/fcfa or go direct to https://forms.office.com/e/rXv7qNr10y 2. Add your postcode and select Strathallan ward. 3. Vote for us in the 'Cost of Living' section; you can also support 3 other worthy causes...
Co-op Members can officially support Dunning Hall Group as part of the Local Community Fund. This means the more members that choose our cause, the more money our project will receive.
The DCA and Stepping Stones recently awarded a grant to us for £5000 to purchase some great games and activity equipment and to ensure that the building is a great (and compliant) place to deliver childcare. We're hoping that this equipment will enhance the offering of "Emma's Explorers" and make Dunning a more attractive village for young families. We're also hoping that this will allow us to develop more youth initiatives, as well as provide the catalyst for more community groups.
Lots starting up this month in the hall. Almost dizzy with how much more the hall will be used in the future.
Childcare
We have a new wraparound childcare club, running Monday-Thursday 0800-0900 and 1500-1800 during term times. We are still working with Emma to provide equipment (which can be used by the whole community) and she is currently on the lookout for any spare toys, arts & crafts materials, games and educational activities.
Contact Emma at Enquiries@emmas-explorers.co.uk or via facebook.com/EmmasExplorersOutofSchoolService if you can help with her appeal, or for more information about signing up to the childcare service.
We applied to the PKC Advancing Community Assets Fund and were awarded a total of £18,121.20 to support capital purchases and operating costs. However, we need your financial support so we can match the award pound-for-pound.
We hope to take over bookings and general running of the hall very soon, and we will need a lot of aspects in place on day #1 (specifically, a booking website, wifi, new security hardware and some safety/maintenance contracts).
Then we wish to start making big improvements. We'll have a survey on what to tackle first, but our initial priorities will include:
As a group we've been very busy over the winter months, but little of our activity is publicly visible in the way the hall is currently run. The process of Community Asset Transfer is a long one, and it's liable to take us a few more years before the community is in full control. But we will need your support and ideas to keep the momentum going. We have a fine body of volunteers from the village who are acting as the Group's trustees, but we will soon need others (that's you, by the way) to help organise events, promote the village and help us raise funds.
Since submitting an expression of interest to Perth & Kinross Council in 2024, we have been working out how to make the hall viable for the longer term, including: preparation of a business case; approaching funding bodies for potential purchase, improvements and running costs; arranging a valuation of the building; investigating support for our existing hall groups and users; and looking at childcare and creation of a local arts hub.
As of today, Dunning Hall Group is registered as a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation, number SC053780. Details will be posted on the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator website within 24 hours.
Registration as a SCIO will allow us to open a bank account and move the community asset transfer process forward. In the meantime, all booking requests should continue to be made with Live Active (see liveactive.co.uk/community-halls for booking information and current rates).
OSCR have provided feedback on our proposed constitution and have requested the following amendment:
Following last night's public meeting, we have agreed a provisional board of trustees and a constitution. Thanks to those in the community who supported us and attended.