Village Halls Week 2024 – 18th to 24th March
Our annual ‘Village Halls Week’ campaign is happening this year from the 18th to 24th March. The idea of this event is to shine a spotlight on the contribution that England’s 10,000 + village Halls make to their communities.
This year we are celebrating everything that village halls can do to ‘go green’.
We are exploring how halls can be made more energy efficient and how management committees can encourage and support sustainable and environmentally friendly behaviour in their community.
We are asking halls to hold your own events, share stories and get inspiration from others. There are many halls in Oxfordshire that are doing their best to ‘Go Green’, this is a chance to showcase your achievements and if you want support on the day I may be able to lend a hand.
Please sign up here https://acre.org.uk/village-halls-week-2024/ to register your interest, and obtain your free packs of posters, badges and bunting – there are 500 packs and so far 100 halls have registered- there is also an interactive map that you will be entered onto to show where events are taking place, it would be lovely to see more events in Oxfordshire.
There are different themes for each weekday during the week:
1. Monday – Go Green *
2. Tuesday – Encourage Behaviour Change
3. Wednesday – Provide a space for groups concerned with the environment
4. Thursday – Make your community greener
5. Friday – Celebrate if you are going green.
* On Monday 18th March, ACRE will be publishing a detailed guide to retrofitting a village hall, this work is being carried out with Staggs Architects. Halls around the country who have installed a range of different technologies from draught proofing to heat pumps, have been visited and will feature in the guide.
Further reading:
Please have a read here about how the energy crisis has been affecting halls from a survey conducted by ACRE and Utility Aid https://acre.org.uk/briefing-rising-energy-prices-and-village-halls/
And in the following link, watch a film from BBC breakfast about how one hall Orlingbury is really struggling and how one hall in Gamlingay Hall in Bedfordshire has become an Eco Hub. Kirtlington our very green hall in Oxfordshire is also mentioned. The VCSE Energy Efficiency Scheme administered by Groundworks is mentioned too with a link to details of the funding.
https://acre.org.uk/news-roundup-support-to-help-village-halls-become-more-energy-efficient/
Tessa Hall
Community First Oxfordshire