Wantage And Grove District Arts Guild

Just what is Wantage Civic Hall for?

Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 April 2009 14:13 Written by Bob & Chris Thursday, 12 February 2009 21:48

Most of you  brought up the central question: What is the Civic Hall for?

Of its many purposes:

• host to Civic events/ Public meetings;
• location of Town Council Offices and the Registrar of births marriages and deaths;
•  venue for public functions such as the Wantage Community Church, weddings and private parties;
•  venue for meetings/rehearsals of local groups engaged in many different activities in art, crafts and sport/keep fit;
•   venues for arts events such as concerts, plays, operas, musicals and art exhibitions.

which, if any, is its key purpose?

Is it, for instance, expected to break-even (or make a profit) with respect to its running costs or is it part of a public service paid for from local taxes like the public parks? If so what is the basis for the cost calculation? That is, what parts are supposed to be self-supporting and/or profitable and how are overhead costs distributed between those and the “civic” ones that are funded from taxation? How is the annual budget set as between those and the civic ones? How is the future development or capital plan worked out to cover these two strands of purpose?

We were told that, about 5 years ago, there was a determined effort made by the then manager of the Wantage Civic Hall to set up a programme of events – concerts, plays and exhibitions – to bring more people into the Hall. A paid organiser was hired and she negotiated with several arts providers to take part in this year long programme of events. When the negotiations were well under way, and some events had taken place, bringing audiences into the Hall, she and the Manager were told to stop making the arrangements because “This is not what the Civic Hall is for”. Contracts for future events had to be broken at a cost to VWHDC. But who determined that this was an inappropriate course of action for Wantage Civic Hall? And why? It has been suggested that this was because one or more of the events might have made a loss - there was certainly an element of risk - and the VWHDC deemed it inappropriate for the Council to be involved in his kind of risk taking.  Do you think this was the right judgment to make? 

The people of Wantage and Grove and District look with envy at the establishment of the Cornerstone Centre in Didcot – and indeed many people from this area are active supporters of events in that Centre. Didcot also has a Civic Centre. Is that what allows SODC to permit the programme of professional and amateur events to be held in the Cornerstone? What is it that makes the operation of Cornerstone a possibility in Didcot when it would seem that similar developments in Wantage were stopped?

Facilities

Those who responded also wanted to comment on the facilities offered by the Civic Hall i.e. 

• Booking
• Layout of rooms
• Catering
• Equipment - Sound and Lighting

We decided to summarise the comments and place them on record in the section “Civic Hall Facilities” of the full report. We are well aware that some of these points are disputed. We simply record what we have been told. It is hoped that by showing what the local groups say about the facilities we can set baselines for further development. We note that some points raised here have been raised before, in some cases, many times before. There is clearly a need to reach some closure about them classifying them as:

(a) incorrect;

(b) correct and can be remedied (with a timed and costed plan);

(c) correct but cannot be remedied (with a reason).

Potential 

The report takes a constructive view of the Hall's future. In spelling out the Potential for the Hall, it stresses that there is a strong desire in this community that Wantage Civic Hall be kept as a functional part of the community. A number of our respondees rely on the Hall for their activities, in two cases for their livelihood and in the case of the Community Church, because of long established practice (they have been meeting in the Civic Hall for 27 years continuously except when it was closed for refurbishment). However much people complain about the facilities it provides or does not provide, they are clear that some sort of public hall is a requirement.

The question was raised as to whether the Civic Hall could be run on a volunteer (or semi-volunteer) basis, perhaps with support from Wantage Town Council, somewhat like a Village Hall. The general consensus seemed to be that this was too large a challenge for a purely volunteer effort. The full report gives details of other volunteer run enterprises in the area; this shows that a substantial number of volunteers would be needed.

While catering facilities are available in the Civic Hall, their usage is minimal because in one case (coffee area) they are broken and the other case (bar) this is only open, at considerable cost to the hirer, during events. Adding facilities that are open during the day would make Wantage and Grove start to believe that the Civic Hall was a real part of the community. This is one area that COULD be run by volunteers (Cf League of Friends in hospitals). Other halls allow external bars in, often at zero cost to the hirer (the bar owner takes the profit). Other ideas seen at other multi-purpose centres - facilities such as a coffee shop (seen in many places) or the VWHDC Local Services Point - would mean that people were coming into the building throughout the day. So far as we are aware , the Civic Hall doesn't even sell tickets to events run there despite the fact that it has at least three people close to the front desk all day.

No one venue can accommodate all the potential uses community groups might want to put it to so we have to decide what the Wantage Civic Hall should focus/specialise in. In effect this means we have to decide what it is NOT for as well as what it can do. This should be decided iin the context of planning for other community facilities in the district e.g. the “Community Centre” being discussed for Phase 1 of the Grove Airfield development, if and when that gets going again. It would make more sense for each of these venues to complement each other with respect to facilities than for both to try to be all-purpose and not good enough for any one.

Conclusions

• The Wantage Civic Hall is important to the local community. Many groups would be made 'homeless' for productions/services/classes if the Civic Hall was closed down.

• It appears that VWHDC do not have a clear idea of what facilities the Civic Hall should provide (or avoid providing).

• There are grounds for believing that a better bookings policy could substantially increase usage of the Civic Hall, and hence its income.

• There are many areas (air conditioning, performance of the sound enhancement system, stage lighting) where small or medium scale improvements, which should have been part of the last refurbishment but were scrapped, would increase the attractiveness of the Civic Hall to hirers, thereby increasing income.

• It would appear that, by comparison with other local halls, the Civic Hall uses a luxurious level of management and caretaking and this contributes significantly to the annual deficit.

• While catering facilities are available in the Civic Hall, their usage is minimal. Much more use could be of these services and this is an area in which volunteers could contribute.

• There are schemes for running facilities like the Civic Hall, ranging from full VWHDC control through to fully run by volunteers, with many stages in between. These should be explored, by a joint working party (WAGArts + VWHDC at least) before any irrevocable decisions are taken.

To download the WAGArts Report on Wantage Civic Hall (iin pdf or in plain text format) click here