Category Archives: News/Blog

Local area meetings for hall committees in November

With the support of trustees/committees from Oxfordshire halls, Tessa – our Community Halls coordinator – has planned a series of four Local Area Meetings this November. They are starting next week so make sure to book your place soon!

These are free events for village hall committees to come and gain some advice on a topic or two. For the final part of the evening attendees will have a chance to discuss useful topics and meet and support each other. Refreshments will be provided.

  • In Cherwell and West Oxfordshire, the meetings will consist of a presentation on raising grant funds from Jaimee Hewett from OCVA.
  • In South Oxfordshire we will have a presentation from the chair and a committee member at North Moreton Hall on their recent hall refurbishment.
  • In the Vale of the White Horse, Steve White will be giving a talk on the Blewbury village hall improvements and Hugh Reece from West Hendred village hall has offered to share his advice on funding strategy.

At all meetings, Tessa Hall from Community First Oxfordshire will give a short presentation on the new fire safety regulations and how halls become compliant with these.

 

How to book

Please email tessa@communityfirstoxon to book your place and say which event you want to attend; you don’t have to stick to your area if one of the other areas are nearer to you or you want to attend that event.

 

Details of the evenings:

Tuesday 12th November at North Moreton Village Hall South Oxfordshire 7pm until 9pm

Hall location: https://www.communityfirstoxon.org/north-moreton-village-hall/

Jo Nickless Chair of the hall and Jeremy Howland from the management committee will talk about their recent hall refurbishment and share some tips about fundraising and managing their £57,000 project.

Parking: Entrance to car park There are two spaces immediately outside the hall on Bear Lane for disabled parking, but please park across the pavement as the lane is narrow. Parking for everyone else is on the recreation ground at the bottom of Bear Lane. Please consider car sharing if possible.

Thursday 14th November Leafield Village Hall – West Oxfordshire 7pm -9pm

Hall Location: https://www.communityfirstoxon.org/leafield-village-hall/ Plenty of parking outside the hall. Please consider car sharing if possible.

Jaime Hewett, Development Officer from OCVA will be giving a presentation on Grant Fundraising for Village Halls: A Practical Guide. Join us for an engaging and practical talk focused on helping village halls and community organisations navigate the world of grant fundraising. This session will provide you with the essential tools to develop strong, successful grant applications—from defining your project to ensuring eligibility and preparing your submission.

Tuesday 19th November Thomas Hughes Memorial Hall Uffington Vale of White Horse 7pm-9pm

Hall Location: https://www.communityfirstoxon.org/uffington-thomas-hughes-memorial-hall/ Plenty of parking. Please consider car sharing if possible. We are in the smaller hall which is to the right after entering the hall.

We will start with Steve White talking about the large half a million-improvement project carried at Blewbury Village Hall. After that, Hugh Reece has offered to talk about the funding strategy used for West Hendred village hall improvements.

Wednesday 20th November Sibford Village Hall, Cherwell 7pm-9pm

Hall location: https://www.communityfirstoxon.org/sibford-village-hall/ There are 30 car parking spaces outside the hall, please consider car sharing if possible.

Jaime Hewett, Development Officer from OCVA will be giving a presentation on Grant Fundraising for Village Halls: A Practical Guide. Join us for an engaging and practical talk focused on helping village halls and community organisations navigate the world of grant fundraising. This session will provide you with the essential tools to develop strong, successful grant applications—from defining your project to ensuring eligibility and preparing your submission.

Share this

OCVA/CFO: Let’s Talk Volunteering – keep connected on this journey

This week Oxfordshire Community and Voluntary Action (OCVA) and Community First Oxfordshire  held the first in a series of workshops based on the Vision for Volunteering research completed in 2023.

Our first session was well attended and comprised of a recap presentation from Emily Lewis-Edwards, joint CEO at Community First Oxfordshire and Laura Price, CEO of OCVA, breakout groups and information on next steps.

As the research took place last year, we felt it was important to summarise what this involved, the main findings and how this has impacted the work we do now. Both OCVA and Community First Oxfordshire have taken significant steps to learn from the research, champion it to our strategic partners and reflect on their own work.

Moving forwards, we will be holding more workshops that while centred on the findings of the Vision for Volunteering research, the space will be how to embed what we have been told, how to learn from the findings and provide space for speakers and conversation.

We welcome anyone to attend the workshops who is involved in volunteering, perhaps as a volunteer themselves, working in volunteering, in a role that benefits from volunteers or recognises the enormous impact volunteers have on our communities. Feel free to come along to how ever many workshops you can, there is no expectation to come to them all.

To keep connected on this journey please sign up to our mailing group

The next session will be on Wednesday November 20th 1-2:30pm on the theme ‘inclusive and flexible volunteering’. To sign up for the next workshop please complete the registration on Eventbrite- link here.

All sessions will be online until our final in-person get together in the summer of 2025.

Many thanks

Jenny Bowley

Volunteering Development Manager OCVA

Share this