Funding applications
We understand from County Councillor Bert Richardson we have been awarded £1000 by the Cumbria Neighbourhood Forum (Cumbria County Council) – this is to finance the continuing work on developing the scheme for the Village Hall (professional fees, planning application fees etc).

Keswick Lions have kindly offered us a grant of £1500 for the scheme when needed.

We are still awaiting news on some other smaller scale funding applications to finance ongoing work and also to pay for portable staging.

The community itself needs to raise £15000 towards the cost of revitalising the village hall (this is in addition to any major grants etc we manage to obtain, and also in addition to “normal” village fundraising efforts. This regular “slot” in Beneath Blencathra reports progress and publicises forthcoming fundraising events and activities. The fund has now built up to approaching £13000. We are approaching our target after a little more than a year of efforts. This is a credit to all concerned but also to the village in general for supporting us.

Receipts from the Folk and Blues Night
(tickets and bar profits) n £703.00

7.30PM Wednesday 6 February.

A meeting will be held in the public rooms on the revitalisation of the hall and the plans will be shown and be open for discussion.

It is very important that as many residents and village hall users attend this meeting, to see what is proposed and to make any comments before plans are finalised. It is going to be very difficult to get funding for such an ambitious project. Organsations we will be approaching to seek funding will want evidence of solid community support – this is an opportunity to show it.

The community itself needs to raise £15000 towards the cost of revitalising the village hall (this is in addition to any major grants etc we manage to obtain, and also in addition to “normal” village fundraising efforts. This regular “slot” in Beneath Blencathra will publicise current and forthcoming fundraising events and activities.

Recent payments:

Recipe Books - £56.00

Pudding Festival - £273

Donation from Duncan Stuart - £50.

The fund has now built up to over £6000. Every little helps.

Preliminary design work starts. Local fund raising leaps forward. Major village community study gets under way.

A lot of solid progress this month, with quite a lot of things now “just about to happen”.

Commissioning architects to do a feasibility study

Village Hall Trust/Public Room Annual Meeting

No meetings this month but lots of progress behind the scenes. And the stop press news – we have just been given a National Lottery grant to finance the feasibility study, so it is full steam ahead.

Experience from other villages
Guy Duxbury organised a trip to Gamblesby, where the village hall has been very successfully renovated. A group of five people went, saw what they had done and talked to the secretary of the village hall committee there.

The village hall is one of the main pillars of community life in Threlkeld. It was originally built in 1901, financed by public subscription, on land donated to the village by a local benefactor. It has served the village well for over 100 years.

Now the time has come to bring it bang up to date, not by a complete rebuilding, but via a comprehensive revitalisation of the existing one (which local people are very attached to). More details of what is planned can be found here.

With plans and activities starting to get underway with the Public Rooms revitalisation project, it was the turn of the younger members of the community to put there ideas across on what they would like to see in the Public Rooms. Pupils from Threlkeld School were given the task of drawing plans for the building, the results were really good and varied.

Here's a few samples of things we can expect to see in the Public Rooms of the future! Click on the pictures to view full size.