Phoenix Community Hall

Collingham Scout & Guide Headquarters Management Association

Bookings: Sam Priestley 07747 841924 

In the 1970s, former farmland in the centre of the village was bequeathed “for the benefit of Scouts and Guides in Collingham”. It was difficult for any one of the Scout or Guide groups to take on ownership so an Association was set up, consisting of leaders of the groups plus a number of lay people. The Association owns the land and operates it for the benefit of the Scouts and Guides.

For convenience, the title deeds for the land were deposited with the Scout Association, which has a secure trust fund for that purpose. There was already a Scout hut at that time, but the land on which it was situated was required for building, so the wooden structure was moved and rebuilt on the new site. A further wooden building was subsequently added, so the hut consisted of a large hall, small kitchen area, toilets, a small meeting room and a small amount of storage. Further storage was subsequently added by means of a second-hand Portakabin placed next to the hut.

Security was poor and there were many vandal attacks, culminating in the blaze (above) on Boxing Day night 2002, which destroyed the building.

A packed public meeting was subsequently held in the Memorial Hall, and volunteers agreed to form a new Association, which would fund, build and operate a new building. The Collingham Scout and Guide Headquarters Association was therefore re-started and became a registered charity. You can find our constitution above. We received £40,000 as an insurance payout on the burnt out building to get us started.

A lottery application was put forward in 2003 but was unsuccessful for two reasons – they did not consider that we were a priority case, and our initial plan was too expensive. The Association then appointed a new architect, Noel Barrowclough of Studio G in Collingham, and agreed a new design, consisting of a large hall, with a “lean-to” style building containing the kitchen, toilets and small meeting room. A new lottery bid was put in, the rules having changed, but this too was unsuccessful, because the Lottery people had too many bids to satisfy more than a small fraction of them.

We subsequently decided to forget about a lottery bid, and by Autumn 2008 we were a lot closer, having secured two £50,000 landfill tax credit grants, from WREN and from LaFarge, and had more bids in the pipeline. In April 2009, Noble Foods, a local company, gave us £4000 which guaranteed that we could afford to pay for the completed Headquarters.

Construction by Gusto started in January 2009 and the building was handed over in June 2009. In keeping with that company’s ethos, we have a fairly green build, with rainwater harvesting. Solar water heating and using air-to-air heat pump systems which can provide cooling in the summer, and heating in the winter.

The new building provides a main hall, kitchen, toilets and small meeting room, and although priority is given to the regular bookings of the Scouting and Guiding groups, it is available most weekends and some evenings, especially outside term times. 

Contact Sam Priestley on 07747 841924 for more information.

Current rental fees are:

• Main Hall - £12 per hour
• Meeting Room £5 per hour
• Coffee Mornings £30    
• Dinner/Dance/Celebration £100    

How you can you help?

• If you have skills which might assist the Association to achieve its goals, or
• If you want to help us financially, or can think of ways in which we can get funding, then we’d love to hear from you.

Contact:

Group email: csghqma@googlegroups.com