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The Farringdon Village Hall Management Committee is no more, at the Annual General Meeting held in the Hall on Wednesday 25th April there was a unanimous vote to adopt the new Administrative Conditions to enable the Farringdon Parish Council to take direct responsibilty for managing the affairs of the Village Hall.

The previous Trustees, the members of Farringdon Village Hall Management Committee are therefore no longer Trustees of the Charity.

The retiring trustees will no doubt be slightly relieved as they no longer bear joint financial responsibility for any losses or financial crises that may arise and while this responsibility now passes to the FPC, the Parish Councillors have a corporate liability which puts a limit on any claims against them.

Will this change make any difference to the users of the Hall? Well, in a word, no, apart from any changes in booking arrangements the Hall will continue to be available for Hire as before and changes will make it possible to keep the Hall open for the forseeable future.

Hopefully, Village organisations and functions will continue to use, or return to the Hall as the hire proceeds go into the Hall coffers and help keep it open for the use of Farringdon Residents and the regular hirers from the neighbouring area.

The long term future is much less certain, the Hall, like most Village Halls, cannot survive financially on rental income alone.

In Farringdon the situation is even more complicated. Massey's Folly was constructed in a pretty haphazard manner and is difficult and expensive to maintain. The building is listed and therefore any repairs have to replicate the original "design" which adds further expense.

To add to the financial woes Western end of the Folly is owned by a private trust (just who owns what is another complicated tangle) which is unlikely to be committed to maintaining the Village Hall in the long term. Indeed they would be more interested in selling the entire building for conversion into private housing at sometime in the future.

While any sale is unlikely to be considered until property prices recover it is doubtful whether conversion would be financially viable, even if house prices reach new heights, as the listed status of the building would make conversion difficult and expensive and, as in the past when this idea was being proposed as a means of financial salvation, the sale value of the Village Hall would only yield a tiny fraction of what would be required to purchase a site for, let alone build, a new Farringdon Village Hall.

Despite all this and bearing in mind the Folly has been in a state of financial crisis ever since the Village School closed in the late 1980's, the Hall has survived and provided a venue for a variety of Village functions and entertainment.

While the once popular dances are no longer popular, the hall has been a popular venue for the Horticultural Society shows and various other village events and celebrations including the various incarnations of the Farringdon Follies and the Over 60's Christmas Dinner.

As the old saying goes "Use it or Lose it"

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