by Wendy Greaves, Manager
And just like that three years has almost gone of our time managing The Winchelsea Shire Hall.
The agreed approach to managing the Shire Hall was as follows:
- Year 1 (2022) – a foundation year to discover possibilities
- Year 2 (2023) – growth and embed, formalize arrangements with support
- Year 3 (2024) – Evaluate, is this a good fit for the WCH?
Over the time we have had a variety of activities and events in the space including– wedding ceremonies, wedding receptions, funerals, birthday celebrations, themed dinners, luncheons, movie club, the Winchelsea market (monthly), various art exhibitions, high teas, fundraising events, maternal and child health fortnightly drop in sessions, library story time sessions, childrens activities, chatty café, carer’s corner, singing group, art group, training (first aid/cpr, RSA, Food Handling), corporate training days, space hire and meetings.
Although this sounds like a lot it falls very short of generating the level of income required to be self-sustaining. The community definitely love the space, want to use the space but are not prepared to pay a commercial price for using the space. It also takes a lot of staff time to maintain the space – taking bookings, meeting people to see the space, giving instructions, setting up for some activities, invoicing and chasing up payments, advertising events, picking up the pieces after events (putting things back where they belong) and cleaning. All these things take a considerable amount of time and resources and are why we have needed to have a dedicated worker to look after this space.
At the end of June 24 we farewelled Jill Evans- who has gone on a big overseas hike. We thank Jill for all her hard work at the Shire Hall and trialling lots of different things.
In order to align with the Surf Coast budget year our arrangement has been extended through until 30/6/25 and we are very excited to have a new Venue & Publicity Administrator – Rhani Bayon – appointed to see us through until this date.
She is settling in really well and you have hopefully seen lots of her advertising on social media and around the town for some activities and events that are scheduled to happen soon. We hope you will become involved in these activities and please be sure to let us know what you would like to see happening in the space and we will try our best to give it a go.
