Author: Sarah Prall

HDCC is proud to support The Hadlow Down Village Fayre.

You will find us manning the Bar by the pavilion.
Plenty of Harveys available! Do come and say “Hi!”

Help us raise funds by joining our Village Lottery, its really simple to become a member.

You can find out more about our project at The Village Fayre

#HadlowDownVillageLottery, #HDCCFundraising,

If you joined us for our public meeting in July 2023 you will know that our goal, once we had washed up the results from our village survey, was to to begin updating our Business Plan.

• The business plan was first written in 2014 and, again in 2017, lots has changed since then
• We’ve made good progress on writing an updated business plan but, it has taken a bit longer than expected to pull it all together
• You can download the draft plan here

• The Plan is currently being peer reviewed and we expect to make further revisions based on their feedback.
• It brings together all of the different elements of the project, including:
  • The history of how we got here
  • The project proposal – floor plan, planning consent, elevations etc
  • The latest proposal to stage the implementation
  • Key financial assumptions about the ongoing financial viability of the community centre. This crucial element has been presented to the Community Centre Advisory Committee who were supportive of the work done so far
  • The capital project details – building costs, specifications etc from the architects and surveyors
  • How we will organise ourselves to deliver the project and run the hall afterwards

• There will be a more detailed Capital Plan and Fundraising Strategy which will be shared in due course
• We have looked at many business plans from other similar villages who have managed to build a new community centre on their playing field and have used both their plans and their cost and expenditure numbers to help guide us in this exercise
• The Business Plan will be a living document that we will review, update and republish periodically – highlighting any changes. It will be available for anyone to read and will, most importantly, be a key factor in our conversations with funders as we move on to the fundraising stage 
• If you are interested in a more detailed discussion on the business plan, we would be delighted to organise a meeting where we can answer any questions you may have.
• your comments and feedback would be most welcome, please contact Mandy or Sarah.
• We are always open to fresh talent joining our team, if you feel that you would like to support us with the Business Plan or our Fund Raising Strategy please do contact us.

Mandy Chapman mandy.chapman45@gmail.com
Sarah Prall sarah@downthelane.uk

We start the year at a very exciting point in our project. During our public meeting in June 2023 we committed to completing our updated business plan by Christmas. We have been working hard on delivering this but were a little delayed in finalising the plan by the end of the year, as we were targeting. We are, however, pretty close. We have written most of  the report,  have collected all the necessary income and expenditure numbers from the existing hall and the comparison halls we have been looking at. We will need a couple of weeks to firm up our assumptions on the ongoing income and expenditure for our new hall and we will then circulate the draft plan to a small group for early feedback and comments as promised.

Next we will provide documentation and presentation material for engagement with the Parish Council and then the wider community. Our thanks to all those who have supported our fact finding and information gathering to date.

A very happy New Year to you all! As always, if you would like to offer your expertise and support we would love to hear from you. Please contact Mandy mandy.chapman45@gmail.com