THE WAY FORWARD-HOW TO RAISE THE MONEY? FIRST STEPS-THE ROLE OF
WINSHAM PARISH COUNCIL
Once the Public Meeting agreed that the JHMC should seek to proceed with the rejuvenation of the Jubilee, their followed a period of intense activity.
It was agreed that the approach to fund-raising would be multi-pronged. Obtaining Grants from the Local Authorities would be essential, and these would need to be supplemented by grants, hopefully, from other organisations who were known to provide money for projects such as the Jubilee Hall. However to qualify for such funds, most insisted on either a 50/50 funding deal or at least  a sound indication that substantial amounts of money had been provided by the community. Part of this would be the ability to demonstrate that the Winsham Parish Council considered the project sufficiently worthwhile to support with money from the precept.
However, before the grant providers could be approached we had to establish exactly what work would be done, and how much it would cost, and how the project would be managed. Meanwhile it was agreed that raising money from the community could be proceeded with, and the Parish Council should be approached for a substantial donation, which would paid for through the precept. It was decided, in view of concerns as to what further problems might be uncovered as work progressed,  that the renovation project would be managed 'in-house', using local tradesmen, rather than offer a 'turn-key ' project to one building contractor. It was felt that this would give more control and perhaps save money. Rod Wells offered to undertake this management task.
After a long session with the Parish Council , they agreed to donate £15,000, to be raised initially from the Public Sector Loans Board, and repaid over a number of years. This was a considerable amount of money for a small/medium sized village, but it successfully 'kick-started' the fund raising efforts.
This was followed by a blizzard of appeals to the people of the village, and something like £15,000 was raised from fund raising events and appeals over an eighteen month period. Picture of these events can be seen by clicking HERE.
Meanwhile the serious task of establishing what needed to be done progressed under the supervision of Rod Wells, without whose help the project would not have been nearly as successful as it eventually proved to be. It was eventually to cost some £112,000 for the immediate project. This included the main hall floor, all the 'must-do' elements as well as many of the 'should-do' items as well. The project did run out of money in its last week, but the people who were still working donated their wages so that the work could be completed.
At the end of the ten years that followed, this figure increased to about £137,000, which included the replacement of all the external windows, a lot of work on the hall's boundary walls (with, in all likelihood, more to come), more damp proofing, and some important work on the roof. A wonderful example of a community working together for mutual benefit.
Click HERE to see a summary of the work that needed to be done.

Click HERE to return to Introduction
Click HERE to return to Renovation Index

February 2017