An Update From the Chair of Trustees
24 months ago, together with a small group of local residents I responded to a request for volunteers which appeared on the Ivinghoe Village Hub Facebook page. After over 10 years running the Hub Charity the retiring Trustees were looking for a ‘more youthful’ (their words I promise you!) and larger group of new Trustees to take the Hub forward on behalf of the community. By late September 2021 a small group of local volunteers had stepped forward and we were elected to the Board of Trustees at the Annual Trustee Meeting.
As newly elected Trustees our most daunting responsibility was to ensure that the entire Old School building and external areas remained well maintained and were regularly repaired and restored, as this is a condition of our lease agreement. To make sure that the building retains its status as a community asset, all the running costs must also be covered by the Ivinghoe Village Hub Charity. So, as is often the case for community initiatives, we kicked off our tenure by taking a close look at the Hub finances to look at ways we could ensure the long term future of this valuable village asset.
The previous Trustees had always managed to cover running and maintenance costs from rental revenues, but it was often a close-run thing. We decided that this was the first thing that we needed to change. With the need to pay for increasing energy costs and ongoing mandated refurbishment it became clear that the Hub needed to generate more revenue that had been the case previously, if it was to survive.
We identified two areas where we could look to develop healthier revenues. These were the café business and increasing the popularity of community room rentals.
We looked to approach this in three ways:
The Hub facilities were by this time somewhat dated and not necessarily suited to the needs of today’s community. We decided to find out what kind of facilities would be more popular with the community and what would encourage people to make more use of the Hub. Our plan was to then redesign the Hub facilities to cater for those needs and at the same time give the entire building a refresh.
We observed that the social media and communications platforms for the Hub were under-developed. We decided to improve these so we could provide regular updates to everyone about what was happening. In this way we would look to drive and develop community activities.
There had always been a small and very dedicated group of volunteers directly involved in supporting the Hub. However it was clear to us that if we genuinely wanted to grow the number of community events and activities over time we would need a lot more members of the community to get involved. To be clear, at this stage we were a group of only 4 Trustees, two of whom had full time jobs.
During our first couple of months as Trustees we researched and developed a plan. We also reviewed different ways to develop the Hub’s cultural, educational and historical footprint for both the community and visitors to the area. We were keen to develop the Hub into a fun and relevant place, which offered something for everyone.
By March 2022 we were in a position to share what had now become known as the ‘Revitalisation Plan’, and we did this during a 4-week Community Consultation Initiative. We held meetings with numerous Focus Groups at the Hub, to outline our plans and gather feedback. We also asked the participants to complete an Online Survey which allowed us to quantify and measure local opinion on specific issues. We then incorporated the feedback and ideas offered by the community into the plan. You can download a full version of the plan here.
Click here to view the Revitalisation Plan Document.
To give you an idea of what has been going on behind the scenes over the last few months, below is a summary timeline showing some of the areas on which we have been working.
Click here to view the Timeline document
