27/10/2026
HENBURY VILLAGE HALL CIO – AGM 29th SEPTEMBER 2026
CHAIR’S REPORT
I joined the Village Hall Trustees and was then elected to take on the role of Chair at the beginning of 2026. I should like to record our thanks to my predecessor Katharina Byrne for all she did on behalf of the Hall.
We have had a very busy and very successful year. Booking enquiries continue to increase, and in particular our commercial standard kitchen has played an important part in helping us to secure wedding receptions and large birthday parties – all good sources of income for the Hall. Several users have left favourable reviews, thus improving our profile.
Our regular users include St Mary’s Church, Pilates, Tai Kwondo, Yoga, Ghanaian Presbytarian Church, and Line Dancing. This demonstrates the versatility of our facilities. We still have several weekday daytime and evening slots suitable for regular users, so enquiries are always welcome.
We continue to run our popular monthly coffee mornings. Dennis and Jen Broe have been running these very successfully for several years but will be standing down at the end of this year. We are very grateful to them and indeed to Dennis for all the work that he has been doing at the Hall over many years. Please let us know if you would like to help with running the coffee mornings in 2027.
All our trustees have worked extremely hard in their various roles to keep on top of bookings activity, opening and closing down duties, as well as the never-ending list of maintenance issues! We are also grateful to all those volunteers who have helped us in so many different ways either on a regular basis or with one-off tasks, both in the hall and in the garden.
Sadly, our Bookings Manager Jackie Bennett died unexpectedly in January this year. We were very grateful to her for setting up our current booking and payments system.
We have taken on a new keen volunteer who is helping us significantly to update our IT systems and to enhance our publicity.
We remain grateful to our cleaner, Lauren, who does a great job for us diligently each week.
With help and guidance from our local Councillor Mark Weston, we received a generous grant from Bristol City Council for the installation of new gates and CCTV to improve our external security and to purchase new tables and chairs for use within the Hall. The purchase of the new chairs will be completed by the end of this year.
It was Mark who initiated the plant donation from the Bristol City Council from their Blaise Nursery – a real enhancement as you enter the Hall from the car park.
Other improvements to the Hall during the year include the fitting of WiFi boosters in the main hall and meeting room, providing improved connectivity for users, and use of remote control of heating in the main hall.
There are a number of ongoing repair works, both external and internal, needed to improve the Hall and to bring it up to the high standard we are seeking. The Anthony Edmunds Trust, who own the building, have agreed to fund some of this work.
Richard Clifton
