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Well done to the Fund Raising Committee, particularly Amanda for all her hard work in successfully gaining a £10,000 grant award from the Derbyshire County Council Aggregates Levy Grant Scheme.  The Memorial Hall Committee heard the good news last night.

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Please click here for a printer-friendly version of this newsletter, in PDF format. Printed copies can also be found in St. Peter’s Church, The Sycamore, and on village notice boards.

After a thorough and comprehensive tender process involving five separate building companies competing for the job, Wildgoose Construction Ltd have now been appointed as the contractors for the new Memorial Hall. One of the reasons that this company was selected – in addition to them presenting the lowest price – was their previous experience of working locally and collaborating directly with the Peak District National Park Authority. They demonstrated sensitivity to the demands of working in a village such as ours, and understood the need to keep disruption to a minimum.

Wildgoose has shown a willingness to work closely with the committee and the existing donors and local business who are offering free of charge, or at cost building materials. This ensures that we get best value for money, while keeping the overall cost as low as possible.

We have all been aware of the difficulties created by the recent economic climate. However, every cloud has a silver lining. For us this means building costs have reduced dramatically over recent months, enabling the current estimate to be in the region of £730,000. It is hoped that this figure can be further reduced when the detail of all materials that can be supplied free of charge is known. This can then be further subtracted from the costs.

The revised figure not only reflects reduced costs of building, but also the professional fees for the consultants and design team. Their support has been instrumental in achieving the building cost reductions. Since professional fees were originally included in the fundraising figures as “in kind” contributions, we have now reduced this accordingly. Consequently, the funding gap is now in the region of £40,000 to £60,000, depending on how subsequent costs come down as prices become clearer with time. This is good news because there are applications already submitted (and some with a good chance of success) for grants totalling over £90,000.

The build can now start as soon as all the necessary contractual paperwork has been finalised. Our current expectations are that this paperwork will be completed by mid September.

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The Memorial Hall Committee is happy to announce that another £10,000 has been won for the New Build. This comes from the Garfield Weston Foundation and the village is very grateful for their support. Congratulations to the fund raising team. 

The Committee is currently working to reduce costs even further by making the hall more sustainable which will allow them to apply for further grants in this area.

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Tonight’s Memorial Hall Committee Meeting has been postponed until later in the week.  Amanda will email members with the new date.

Thanks

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The Ashbourne News photographer will be in the pub at 7pm tonight (Monday) for photo shoot for an article about the Memorial Hall. If you can spare 10 minutes please come along. Sorry it is so last minute.

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The New Memorial Fund was boosted by another anonymous donation of £500 over the weekend. The committee would like to thank everyone for his or her continuing hard work in raising the money.

Just a word about ‘anonymous’ donations. Sometimes they are from individuals or families that wish to remain quietly private or sometimes they are from a company who like lottery winners, don’t want to be inundated with other requests. Whoever they are we respect their privacy but say a very sincere thank you.

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Lou Matthews ran her very popular jewellery stall again at the Village Market on Saturday. At the end of the day she generously donated her takings of £200 to the New Memorial Hall Fund. Lou is anxious that all the people who bought jewellery from her should also be thanked.

The fund also received another anonymous donation of £2000. We are a very lucky village to have people who are working so hard and giving both time and money to help us build our hall. Thank you to all of them.

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Up-dated Monday 29th June 2009.  Sorry the Blog Team have slipped up and put this information on-line prematurely.  Watch out for a corrected post tomorrow (Tuesday 30th June 2009).

Click here for the corrected post.

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Good news in the past few days – two more grants have just been received towards the new build. One from an anonymous charitable trust was for £5,000 and a further cheque for £2,000 has come from a successful application to the Rank Foundation.  A huge thank you to both of them – every cheque is a step closer to our village dream of a new hall.

Help would still be very welcome from any one that has a few hours to spare (not that anyone ever has spare time) to help fill in grant forms. The funding team have put together all the relevant information that is generally needed to fill in the applications and there is always someone on hand to help. Every time someone offers help it puts a little fresh blood and energy into the team and it’s great to be involved, so please help if you can. You can contact anyone on the blog, the committee or the secretary, Amanda  on 344.

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As part of the fund-raising for the Memorial Hall, we are looking at whether any further large companies in the area would be prepared to support the project as part of their community charity programmes.  Some companies, including Egg and Toyota, will consider contributing to local charity projects where their employees are involved.  If anyone in Parwich, Alsop, Ballidon or Pikehall works for either of these companies or for other large companies in the area, we would be grateful if you would either call Lynne on 474, contact me at parwich@hotmail.co.uk or leave a contact name / phone no. as a comment to this post.  Thank you.

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The Memorial Hall Committee are thrilled to hear that £26,000 has been awarded from the Trusthouse Charitable Foundation towards the rebuild of our new hall.

According to the Foundation’s website, only one in ten applications for its Large Grants Programme are successful – which makes the funding group’s achievement all the more remarkable.

Anyone involved in applying for grants will appreciate just how much work is involved in these applications: not just the hours of research to find the grants, but also the many more hours spent filling in pages and pages of information for the application. Each funding organisation has to be very sure that the project is worthwhile and that their funds are going to be administered properly, so it is great to know that our new Memorial Hall fills their exacting criteria.

The Committee is hoping for more good news over the next few days, so watch this space.

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The Memorial Hall committee have just heard the fantastic news that they have secured a grant of £25,000 from the Local Authority schools/Parwich School towards the building of our new hall. The funding committee are very encouraged that grant sources are impressed with the plans for a new hall to serve the community and are hopeful we shall get an equally successful response from other Fund holders who are currently considering our applications.

There has also been a very generous anonymous donation of £2,000 towards Project Parwich and also £15 from Judith in North Carolina. Thank you both whoever you are and it’s lovely that someone so far away wants to help. Judith, if you are ever in England after next summer, come and visit us and have a cup of tea in our new hall.

(This is in addition to the £721,100 currently on the thermometer, as we need to wait for our technical adviser to return from holiday to update it.)

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We have received a post from Keith Parsons expressing his personal views about the Memorial Hall, which we have printed in full.  In the interests of balance we have included some relevant responses and they are at the bottom of the post. (more…)

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An asbestos survey has been done today in the Memorial Hall and where samples have been taken large patches of blue tape have been placed over the sample area. Please do not disturb the patches as they maybe required for cross referencing once samples have been analysed at the lab.

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The Memorial Hall Management Committee have put together a set of answers to frequently asked questions, copies of which are being delivered to all households. Please click here to read the document.

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Please click here to read the minutes of this meeting, in printer-friendly PDF format.

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Parwich Memorial Hall Management Committee Meeting
7.30pm – 9.30pm 6th April 2009 – The Memorial Hall
Minutes

Building the Future
The Chairman introduced 2 more of the Design Team, Chris Price from Prosurv and Ben Daykin from Rogers Leask and then summarised the decisions made at, or deferred from, the last meeting.

Discussions covered storage not agreed at the last meeting, the mobile bar idea, the positioning of sockets, best option for having boiling water available in the kitchen, constraints re drains and sink positioning, the relocation of the boiler from last weeks plans, the lighting plan including positioning of lights, switches etc.

KD shared the changes put in from last weeks discussion which included the storage doors creating a wider opening and the addition of shelving, and that he had built a storage space in for a mobile bar.

CP also reminded the Committee that final changes would need to be made by 20th April so tender documents could be sent out on 27th April in order to keep to the time schedule. (more…)

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Please click here to access the latest Funding Resource Table, which shows how much money has been raised to date for the new Memorial Hall, and the current state of play regarding further funding applications.

Four months after receiving £500,000 from the Big Lottery Fund, and with roughly four months to go until construction is scheduled to commence, the Memorial Hall committee has already secured just under 50% of the remaining funding – which means that we’re very much at a midway point with the project.

With twelve further applications already applied for, seven applications currently being drafted, and several more to come, there is every reason to feel optimistic that the funding target will be reached in good time. The funding group have been receiving excellent feedback from some of the grant-giving bodies, and villagers should expect to hear some significant positive announcements in the near future.

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Parwich Memorial Hall Management Committee Meeting
8.00pm – 9.30pm 1st April 2009 – The Sycamore
Minutes

Minutes of previous meeting
a) Minutes were signed off from the Steering Group meeting of 12th March and AGM on 24th March

Matters arising – None

Election of Officers
All 5 officers were willing to stand again. Val Kirkham proposed they were accepted in office en masse. This was unanimously agreed.
Chairman, Mike Gerard-Pearse
Secretary, Amanda Johnson
Bookings’ Secretary, Janet Gosling
Treasurer, Ed Linnell
Entertainments Secretary, Sandra Chadfield

It was agreed to return to the issue of having a Vice-Chairman at the next full meeting.

Signing of the Minute Book
All present signed to acknowledge their acceptance of the Trust Deed (Constitution)

Building the Future
The Chairman introduced the Architect Keith Dobbins and explained that the plans were having to be redrawn as Marsh Grochowski were unwilling to release the originals. He also suggested the Committee might like to consider if the piano was used enough to justify the space it took up. Jane Harris said she would ask the Pre-School representative if they would be happy with a replacement keyboard. It was agreed to make a decision about this at the next meeting when members had considered it. Di Turnbull offered to price up the cost of several types of keyboard.

Keith Dobbins then shared detailed plans of ideas to date about re drawing of the toilets and storage solutions and these were discussed at length. (more…)

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Please click here to view the minutes of the Memorial Hall’s Management Committee AGM, which took place on 24th March 2009. The minutes are in printer-friendly PDF format.

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