Helping Ansty See and Hear

Aim

Our project will install an Audio Visual system and Hearing Loop in the new Ansty Village Hall.

Ansty Village Hall need your help to See and Hear!

Ansty Village, after 20 years of fundraising, have now begun to build their new village hall which replaces a WW1 hut.  We would love to install an Audio Visual system and Hearing Loop.  The Village Hall is now the only meeting point within the village of Ansty and an up to date Audio Visual system in our new hall would enable many more opportunities, such as, film screenings, race nights, children’s parties, lectures, coaching workshops, exercise classes offering an even more enjoyable experience for the community.

Delivering the New Village Hall...

 “A modern and properly equipped Village Hall will allow the Ansty community to continue to thrive, grow and sustain its future.”  - Chair, Parish Council 

A new Village Hall has been a long standing goal for Ansty. Thanks to local fundraising and various partners and sponsors (the local councils, sports funding bodies, and the Ernest Kleinwort Charitable Trust)  a new sports pavilion and community building will be completed early in 2021. Our work is not finished.  We want to deliver a community facility capable of catering for the wide range of clubs and groups using the new Hall by providing the projection and sound systems, including a hearing loop to help the hard of hearing. 

This is your chance to help us in our task to deliver our final challenge for our new Village Hall; a twenty-first century audio-visual system and hearing loop.   This will ensure, after the many years of effort, our new long-awaited community meeting space meets all the requirements in today's world. We need your donations to ‘help Ansty see and hear’.

Keep reading to see how you can help and the rewards on offer if you do....

...one hundred years on.

Our Village Hall will be 100 years-old next year.  As a former army hut salvaged from the First World War it has given Ansty many years of good service.  It is now the only public meeting space in the village, but as you can imagine, a drafty, leaky old building is costly to maintain and falls well short in providing the  venue our clubs and groups desperately need. 

If groups like ours are to enjoy the talks and workshops in the new hall, a new projector with sound equipment will be very important. We are very happy to support this investment.  - Derry, Chair, Ansty Garden Club 

A new charity (the Ansty Village Centre Trust) was established in 2015 to bring partners together to construct a new sports pavilion and community building for the village, incorporating a new Village Hall.  The new Village Centre is being delivered in two stages:

• The new Village Centre is being built on a new site in the village’s Recreation Ground, adjoining the Village Hall, with a 150-year lease from Mid Sussex District Council. 
• Once the new Centre is built, the existing Village Hall will be demolished and the land used for vital additional car parking.

The new Village Hall will provide an attractive modern environment for community groups catering for all ages and will improve local life immeasurably. Modern sound and visual systems are a vital part in ensuring that all of our visitors enjoy the best experience.   These systems will significantly improve the ability of clubs and groups to run activities, lectures and meetings in a modern environment which will promote inclusion of disabled and elderly people . 

"Any sort of gathering expects this kind of AV facility. When I teach yoga, sound plays a big part in setting the pace and atmosphere for the class" Shyara, Yoga Teacher.

Since we started the ‘Helping Ansty See and Hear’ campaign our new building has come out of the ground in preparation for the arrival of the timber frame in July. Despite the interruptions from the coronavirus pandemic, we are looking forward to the opening of the new Centre in Spring 2021.

Impact - What the audio-visual system and hearing loop will help us deliver

The audio-visual system and hearing loop are vital to the success and sustainability of our project, providing a facility that is equipped to support a diverse range of activity and increase inclusion.  The impact of the new systems will be reflected in: 

• the increased number of hours the hall will be in use; 
• more people taking part in events and classes in the hall; 
• a larger and more diverse number of groups using the village hall; and 
• the diversification in the range of activity being supported. 

The existing hall users, such as the gardening club and the arts and crafts group, will continue to enjoy the new facilities alongside new groups including participating in exercise classes, which will mean that residents will no longer have to travel out of the village to find classes.  

Our progress towards our stretch target has also enabled us to look beyond the village hall to equip other community rooms in the centre with audio-visual systems and hearing loop capabilities which will significantly increase our capacity to support diverse groups.

How you can continue help us

We have been offered help with the installation of the new systems, but we need your donations to help us buy the equipment. 

“An Audio Visual system and a hearing loop are essential.  They will maximise the benefits of the new hall and allow many more activities that have not been possible up to now.”  Maureen, Chair, Village Hall

What can we offer you in return?

You can be sure that once construction is complete, and we have moved beyond the restrictions on social gatherings, the new Centre will open with a rich programme of events and meetings for the community and the supporters of the project.

We are offering several specific rewards to say thank you for contributing to this vital final stage in bringing Ansty’s community facilities into the twenty-first century.

The rewards listed to the right include an invitation for all donors to join us at the Hall's opening and a ticket in our prize draw. Or if you simply want a ticket in the prize draw, you can go for that.   For those donors contributing more, we are giving attractive discounts on holding an event in the new Hall.  Donations of £100 or more will also get a ticket for our '100 Club' (our fundraiser draw that has raised vital funds for the new building and offers a top prize of £250), just click to donate and claim them.  We are also offering packages that will be interest to local businesses.

All rewards represent are minimum donations but whatever you give you are guaranteed a warm welcome to the new Hall.   

Thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you there in 2021.

This project successfully funded on 16th July 2020