Latest Village Hall News
Networking Events for Village Halls - South Glos event on Thursday 20th February 2025
At the WERN AGM recently, it was suggested that networking events for our local Village Halls would be useful. As a result, we will be hosting a Networking Event for Village Halls in South Glos on Thursday 20th February 2025, from 12.00-1.00pm. This will be an online meeting on Zoom.
The object of the meeting is to provide an opportunity for people with an interest in Community Buildings to share experiences, find out what others are doing, promote good practice and generally keep up to date with what’s happening. Dick has been involved in something similar, albeit meeting in person, in B&NES for some years and it proved useful both as a network forum and a place to get practical advice on problems small and large – not to mention recommendations on local suppliers.
If successful, we’re hoping the opportunity will be a regular occurrence and can be extended to B&NES and North Somerset.
Please contact us for the meeting link if you would like to attend (we may need to limit numbers to make the event manageable), or indeed if you’re interested but unable to make this meeting. If there are any issues you’d particularly like to know about please let me know – the agenda is driven by those attending!
Village Halls Week 2025
Is your Village Hall going to take part in 2025?
Let us know by emailing info@wern.org.uk
To find out more about the campaign, click here
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill (Martyn's Law)
The bill has now passed its Public Bill Committee stage in the Commons and will shortly have its 3rd Reading before passing on to the Lords.
Prior to being introduced into Parliament (1st Reading) there were consultations on a draft Bill that would have included all public premises over 100 capacity. A large proportion of Village Halls in England would, therefore, have been within its scope. Once enacted the Bill would have placed a legal requirement on Trustees to ensure their premises (and users) were prepared for a terrorism incident. Following extensive lobbying by ACRE and others, when the Bill was introduced in October the lower threshold had been raised to 200 and, once regulations are prepared, there will be some flexibility over how this is defined.
The Home Office has resisted all calls to amend the lower limit back down to 100 and it seems almost certain that this will still be 200 when the Bill starts its passage through the Lords.
ACRE is continuing to keep a careful eye on the passage of the Bill and will continue to resist any amendments back to 100. ACRE are also starting discussions with the Home Office over guidance and regulations for Village Halls of over 200 capacity and any voluntary measures that Trustees of smaller premises may feel they need to take.
