A customer survey was undertaken to provide fact-based evidence to support this work. The response rate was high, over 50% of those contacted responded within the required timescale.

Customers were asked to comment on three main aspects of the VHA service:

• Topical advice and briefings on village and community hall issues contained in our newsletter, Surrey Community Action News (formerly 'In Action')
• The one-to-one service provided by the Village Hall Adviser via telephone, training seminars & personal visits
• Information sheets provided on request.

All readers ranked the newsletter column as useful or very useful and 46% ranked it as excellent. 80% of advice service users ranked it as excellent. Comments reflected on the knowledgeable and patient approach of the adviser. 82% of respondents had used the Village Hall Information Sheets, 91% of them rated them useful or very useful and 36% rated them as excellent.

A full summary of the results in available from Martin Moss at Surrey Community Action.

Thank you for feeding back your comments. We believe that this service is of strategic importance to communities in rural and urban areas. Surrey Community Action is lobbying to protect the Countryside Agency funding stream and to attract new sources of funding so that the service can develop and grow.

Charities
The Charity Commission has produced a range of summarised guidance leaflets for charity trustees which can be ordered free of charge by calling 01823 345427. The three main publications are:-

• SG1 Registering as a Charity
• SG2 Administration for Charity Trustees
• SG3 Financial Management for Charity trustees

The following consultation documents are also available from the Charity Commission who are carrying out a review of the register.

• The Recreational Charities Act 1958 Discussion document. (Most Village Halls are set up under this Act)
• The promotion of Community Development

(source: Charity Commission)

For more information please contact Martin Moss:-
Tel: 01483 45 92 92 x 225
Email: martinm@surreyca.org.uk

Management Committee Area Groups
(Spring 2003)

For the past eighteen months one or two representatives of all the village halls in Waverley have met as an informal group two or three times a year to discuss mutual problems over a cup of coffee. Usually a speaker has been invited to talk on a relevant topic for a short period, followed by questions from the floor.

The meetings have been hosted by various village halls and have been held on a weekday evening between 6.30 and 8.00 pm. These meetings have been so successful that Surrey Community Action has decided to make similar arrangements throughout the whole of Surrey. Some Districts and Boroughs will be grouped together if there are not enough halls in each area to be viable. Meetings have now taken place in all five Surrey areas and each area has agreed that it would be useful to hold future meetings twice a year.

The main subject at all meetings was "producing a business plan for village halls". This was followed by a question and answer sessions, hall tours and time put aside for local problems.

Surrey Community Action's Village Halls Adviser - Martin Moss is encouraging all Chairpersons to attend the meetings held in their district, and if that is not possible to ask another member of the committee to attend. The meetings will provide an opportunity to decide whether you want further meetings and agree suitable times.

Information about future meetings will be sent to Village Hall Management Committees as soon as dates have been fixed.