Community buildings expertise

We offer information and guidance for people who run community buildings, including village halls, community centres, church halls, social clubs, and other buildings that are available for hire by groups and individuals.

IMPORTANT COVID-19 INFORMATION

Guidance on the latest covid-19 situation and regulations is at this link.

Our information and guidance service

Our support for community buildings offers free guidance such as information booklets, regular bulletins and networking opportunities on a range of issues, including:

Our information sheets and access to the Basecamp discussion forum (see below for further details) are free to all community buildings in Hampshire, thanks to funding we receive from Defra through our membership of the ACRE Network.

More in-depth support and guidance are normally available to Action Hampshire members only but we have suspended this restriction during the covid-19 pandemic.  Anyone from a village hall, community association, or similar community building in Hampshire is welcome to contact us – see the top right of this page for contact details.

Funding

We can help with finding grants and other funding opportunities to enable you to maintain and improve your community hall or centre:

Community_buildings_funding_list_Jun_2021

Information and resources

We can provide information sheets and model documents for village halls, community centres, and other community buildings covering a range of issues.  Further details are here for you.

Insurance

One example of an issue that we can give you expert information on is insurance.  Your organisation’s insurance policy needs to cover a range of mishaps that might come your way.  There’s more information on this page.

Networking and training

We provide an online discussion forum on Basecamp for members to ask each other questions and share ideas and experiences.  Contact us using the details near the top-right of this page if you’d like to join, and for other training and networking opportunities see this page.

We’ve produced a handy guide to getting started on Basecamp – download it from the link below:

Basecamp tutorial – Action Hampshire Mar2021

What to do next?

• Apply to become a member of Action Hampshire so you can access all our support and guidance
• Come on one of our training and networking sessions
• Sign up for our fortnightly newsletter, News You Can Use, to view regular updates on community buildings and other topics of interest to local charities and community groups
• Contact us if you’d like to receive information booklets or talk with Kevin Sawers, our Community Buildings Officer, about a specific issue