Hermitage Hall

Penny and John Scott (Chair and Treasurer)

Scottish Borders

Tell us about your community hall

We're an inclusive welcoming centre for community activities and events. We are a very small community of only 150 people. There is no village within our community. The houses are spread out few and far between. It's primarily a rural farming community. Many of the people are retired.

The hall was originally built in 1910. There was a deed of trust handing it over from the Buccleuch Estates to the community in 1958. It's had its ups and downs, and in the early 2000s the hall was deteriorating, and the events were few and far between.

There was a feeling amongst a group of so-called newcomers that they would love to try and rejuvenate the hall and help the established community get going again. Now the committee group is seven people of enthusiastic neighbours and friends with a good mix of people with different experience and skills.

The biggest concern at the time was the physical structure of the hall. So we took the initiative to get funding from the Awards for All Scotland program, and the Scottish Borders Council, by raising money from within the community. This allowed us to carry out a significant renovation project: new kitchen facilities, renewal of a sprung dancing floor, installation of an overhead projector/sound system, T-loop wiring, re-painting of the hall exterior and generally a refreshing of the entire hall. In winter, it used to be that as soon as the temperature hit zero we had to turn off the water at an outside source and put anti-freeze in the toilets. So we also went through a full winterising process so we can keep the hall open all year.

That led to a pretty significant increase in the types of activities, including film club, Scottish dancing, speakers, entertainers and many other events.

What activities happen in your hall?

Every third Tuesday of each month we have a coffee/home baking morning chat with a small entry charge to support the hall. We normally have around 16 people who come from around the area. There's no opportunity for people in the community to just go and knock on somebody's door and have a chat so the people who come seem to really enjoy it.

The Community Council meets at the Hall on a regular basis. We’ve had craft fairs, Christmas markets and car boot sales. We organised a wonderful Jubilee celebration for the Queen and then a hog roast party for the coronation of King Charles with 60 or 70 people.

Annually we also act as a control point for hundreds of cyclists for Chase the Sun North and the Pennine Rally. Because of where we’re located these groups have determined that we are an ideal rest location. These are good money makers for us. And it really was encouraging because most of the cyclists, most of whom had never been in the Borders before (all coming from England up to Scotland) and have all been really complimentary.

We also convinced the Scottish Borders Council to keep us as a voting site. And we were the first community hall within the Scottish Borders to get an external unlocked defibrillator that’s available to the entire community. We are also designated as the resilience centre. We’re constantly trying to build up the profile of the hall.

We are now re-starting a Speaker series every two months. The speakers are local people. The first is a collector of medals. He's sourced a wonderful story about two sailors, and how they were linked by medals that he found out about during the First World War. The next speaker will be speaking about the Baltics.

Covid really hit us hard, but we are slowly getting back up on our feet.

What's next for your hall?

The most important initiative now is that we approached Buccleuch Estates, and asked whether they would consider donating some adjacent land to us, and they did – about 2 acres. We then got funding for a professional landscape design plan to create the Hermitage Hall Garden. We engaged as many people as we could in the community to come in and talk with the landscape architects. We got a very good turnout and the plan is looking wonderful.

We also have another initiative - a Hermitage Hall cookbook. We've got 40 to 50 recipes, and one of our lovely neighbours is an illustrator. That is our attempt to bring more people to say, look what we can do together.

As with everyone, we were badly affected by increased electricity costs. Fortunately, Scottish Borders Council made available funding (on very short notice) to deal with cost of living, and we got a £1000 grant to help us. The lesson learned on that was to be alert to these kinds of opportunities. Make sure you’ve got all your ducks already in a row and then apply quickly.

We also had an energy audit done. There's nothing we can do to insulate the walls. The heating, unfortunately, is ceiling mounted, electric heating. However, we probably are eligible for solar panels or perhaps some air heat exchange system. We are looking into that now and getting quotes.

As part of the landscape plan, we also hope to put in E-chargers at the at the hall. We are a car dependent community, unfortunately.

What would your top tip be for somebody else who's running a village hall?

Make sure you get new people involved as much as you possibly can. Plan for trying to have people step away, because people can get tired out if they’re on the committee for too long. Get good people on the committee, engaging them slowly but surely.

At the first ordinary Committee meeting following election of members at the AGM, the Chair and Treasurer present a proposed budget for the upcoming year. It leads to a good all- round discussion on events/grant funding (income) to plan and alerts everyone to what our costs are going to be. We have also agreed a policy that we will never budget for a deficit, and we will always have at least 12-months operating costs in the bank account.

And coffee mornings once a month! Then you know you've got a steady interested group from the community; that keeps you fired up for success.