Beaulieu Village Hall News, General

New team at Beaulieu Village Hall

It’s hard to visit Beaulieu and not spot a Donkey

As from 1st August we have a new team at Beaulieu Village Hall. New trustees, a new chairman (me) and a new secretary/manager.

The needs of our community has changed since the hall was established and officially opened in 1976 and with it the organisations that use the hall.

Our team are all keen to help make The Beaulieu Village hall as user friendly, sustainable, competatively priced, multifunctional as possible and once again become the hub of our village and wider New Forest community.

We welcome your feedback and ideas on how you see The Beaulieu Village Hall becoming more viable and suitable to your potential needs.

Some of our challenges like the limited car parking at times in our busy Beaulieu Village Car Park or the lack of extensive storage facilities there is no quick fix for. We are however within a well batted cricket ball’s flight from the Beaulieu Abbey’s Mill Pond and the beautiful ever changing Beaulieu river – thus we proudly boast location, location, location! We also have great audio visual facilities and a fabulous kitchen kitted out to serve school lunches.

Long term we are determined to complement other local venues rather than compete so that by working together we can create an offer for Beaulieu Village and surrounds that is hard to beat and remain the beating heart of The New Forest all year round. (not just when we are hosting The Beaulieu Village Victorian Christmas event or the Shrove Tuesday Beaulieu Village Pancake Race)

I am supported by the new trustees including Patrick Fairweather (from Fairweather’s Garden Centre , Patrick’s Patch and Steff’s Kitchen) and most importantly by Doc Doherty ( Clinic manager for Nutritionist Yvonne Bishop-Weston’s Beaulieu Nutrition and Natural Health Clinic but also in her own right an incredibly talented masseur and reflexologist) who brings her admin skills to the mix.

A big thank you to Robin and Sarah Wallis Howard and their team who kept the various balls in the air, some epic juggling through some very difficult times.

I hope to meet you all soon , front of stage.

Tony Bishop-Weston Chairman Beaulieu Village Hall

2 thoughts on “New team at Beaulieu Village Hall

  1. Nick Weiss says:

    I wish you well, Tony, as Chairman and I’m sure you and your team will do a great job.
    As you, and others, know we left Beaulieu eight or nine years ago now and we live in France, where every commune (village) has a Salle des Fetes, funded by the commune.
    The use of the Salle des Fetes is always free of charge to residents of the commune.
    I know that this would not be possible in Beaulieu, partly because the Parish Council does not fund the village hall, although it may make an annual grant.
    I do suggest, however, that residents of Beaulieu should pay a lower residents’ rate for hiring the hall, compared to non-residents.

    1. Chairman says:

      Hi Nick,

      Thanks for your message!. Good to see you are keeping an eye on what we’re up to 😉 We miss you both!.
      At the moment our fees are so low, they are in effect almost free to Beaulieu residents and the local groups.
      Inflation is hitting us hard though, like the rest of the country, so we will enevitably have to raise them to make them more realistic for the sustainability of our village community asset. I’m hoping we can find lots of volunteers to divide up some of the day to day tasks. If we can keep our running costs as low as possible then we won’t have so much pressure ( and a legal responsibility as a charitable trust) to charge the going rate in line with inflation. We are in particular need of some green fingered folk. Hope to see you soon.

      Tony

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