Ayton Village, Berwickshire Scotland

A historic parish

in the beautiful East Berwickshire area of the Scottish Borders

 

Change of Status

Ayton Community Hall Association is currently working with OSCR, the Scottish Charities Regulator so that we will become Ayton Community Hall Association SCIO. The SCIO stands for Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. The main advantage in this is that with an SCIO the trustees are no longer personally liable. The change over is likely to take place in late spring.

 

Drop-|In Mornings

In April 2012 the committee decided to start drop-in mornings which are held every Wednesday from 0930 until 11.00. Anyone is welcome to pop in for a tea or coffee, a scone and a blether. The drop-in mornings have been very successful giving newcomers to the village the chance to get to know other residents, some of long standing. Browsing through albums of photos of old Ayton is very popular.

 

Acoustic  Enhancement

After the hall was refurbished it soon became obvious that there was a problem with the acoustics in the hall, caused by there being too many hard reflective surfaces. It was particularly difficult at meetings and coffee mornings to hear people speaking. The committee looked at various ways of solving the problem and eventually contacted a small family company in Yorkshire - Acoustisolve. The owner of the company visited the hall and after various tests suggested a series of acoustic panels on the ceiling and walls, at very reasonable cost. The committee decided to go ahead and have these fitted. The results were really excellent! The reverberation time was reduced from over 3 seconds to 0.8, resulting in a warm, pleasant acoustic environment. The ACHA committee has no hesitation in recommending Acoustisolve to any other halls or establishments with acoustic problems.
 

The refurbishment happened. Who funded it?

During March 2010 confirmation was received that the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) would fund 50% of the £149,000 hall refurbishment cost. That meant that matched funding was available from Viridor Landfill Credits (£30,000), Scottish Borders Landfill Trust (£13,000), the Roberston Trust (£10,000), Awards for All (£10,000),the Gannochy Tust (£5000), Hugh Fraser Foundation (£7,000), Scottish Borders Council Community Grants Scheme (£5,000), the Bernard Sunley Charitable Trust (£2,000), the Erskine, Cunningham Hill Trust (£1,000).

Work on the hall began in July 2010 and the first booking in the refurbished hall was on 8th February 2011.

Cinema equipment

Earlier in the year £4,000 was secured from Regional Screen Scotland to fund setting up cinema equipment in the hall. It had been hoped that this might be in place before the refurbishment, but with the short time scale it was decided to wait until after. Film shows are now popular in the village and are held on a regular basis, usually on Friday nights. Click here to see what's coming up.

Refurbishment

Here are photos taken on 5th December 2010 as work progressed.

The main hall

 

The new kitchen

 

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