Holmpton Community Association (HCA)

What is it?

It's a new village charity that has recently been set up.  It is a membership organisation, which means that the members decide who is to manage it (the trustees) and what it's policies are.  It is a new form of charitable organisation - a CIO - which makes it easier and safer to run than older forms of charities.  It has wide ranging powers to:

·         Organise social, recreational and educational events etc.,

·         Promote such other charitable purposes as may from time to time be determined (by the members and trustees), and

·         Set up and manage a Community Centre to help achieve these;

It must however keep to it's charity remit, and can only benefit the people of Holmpton, and only people aged 16 and over who live in Holmpton can be members.

The full constitution is on the Holmpton website www.holmpton.org.uk.

Why is it needed?

It solves two problems that we have been struggling with in the last few years.  The biggest is that at the moment the Village Hall is owned by one charity, but is effectively managed by another (Holmpton Village Community Association - HVCA).  This has made it difficult to progress with repairs or improvements to the building, or to get grant funding.  No one would give grant funding for the building to HVCA because it didn't own or have a formal lease, and they would not give a grant to the Village Hall Charity because it was a dormant organisation.  A single charity solves this problem.  Both of the older charities have agreed to close themselves down and pass all their assets onto HVA which will take over from them.

A secondary, but important, issue is that it is much simpler for a CIO to own a building than for other types of charities.

Why should you join?

It is the members that decide what the charity does and how it's resources are used (as long as it sticks to its remit in the constitution).  If you don't join, you will have no say in those decisions.  The new HCA will have quite a lot of assets: the Village Hall, the land it sits on, and about £20,000 in the bank.  It will also have the ability to raise more money through the car boot sales, and, where it can show a need and community support for projects, it should be able to get grant funding.

Even if you are not interested in deciding what the Association does right now, you may be interested in the future, and it won't be able to do much (particularly in terms of getting grant funding) if it can't show that a reasonable proportion of the village is behind it.  Joining, even if that is all you do, would help.

It's free, does not commit you to anything and there is no risk - even if it all collapses, there is no liability, financial or otherwise on it's members.