On this page are our standard Village Hall Policies and Information Documents

Conflict of Interest Policy

All volunteers and committee members of Arlingham Village Hall will strive to avoid any conflict of interest between the interests of the organisation on the one hand, and personal, professional, and business interests on the other. This includes avoiding actual conflicts of interest as well as the perception of conflicts of interest.

The purposes of this policy are to protect the integrity of the organisation's decision-making process, to enable our stakeholders to have confidence in our integrity, and to protect the integrity and reputation of volunteers and committee members.

Examples of conflicts of interest include:

1 A committee member who is also a user who must decide whether fees from users should be increased.

2 A committee member who is also on the committee of another organisation that is competing for the same funding.

3 A committee member who has interests in a business that may be awarded a contract to do work or provide services for the organisation.

Upon appointment each committee member will make a full, written disclosure of interests, such as relationships, and posts held, that could potentially result in a conflict of interest. This written disclosure will be kept on file and will be updated as appropriate.

In the course of meetings or activities, committee members will disclose any interests in a transaction or decision where there may be a conflict between the organisation’s best interests and the committee member’s best interests or a conflict between the best interests of two organisations that the committee member is involved with.

After disclosure, it is understood that the member involved may be asked to leave the room for the discussion and may not be able to take part in the decision depending on the judgement of the other committee members present at the time.

Any such disclosure and the subsequent actions taken will be noted in the minutes.

This policy is meant to supplement good judgement, and volunteers and committee members should respect its spirit as well as its wording.

The policy will next be reviewed in April 2023.

Date Adopted:

Equal Opportunities Policy

The Arlingham Village Hall (AVH) Committee is firmly committed to striving for equality of opportunity. The policy applies to all matters relating to employment and services affecting individuals and groups whether they are actual or potential employees, volunteers, or users.
The AVH Committee recognises that certain groups and individuals experience the negative effects of discrimination, which lead to unequal access to communal resources and services. This restricts opportunities for people and groups to be involved in their communities. The AVH Committee acknowledges the need to broaden the use of its facilities and service and is committed to converting their Equal Opportunities Policy into good practice.
To this end, it will actively oppose all forms of unlawful discrimination and will take positive steps to implement policies and practices which will counter direct and indirect discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, sexuality, disability, age, ethnic origin, nationality, commitment to dependants, religion, marital status, class or employment status.

Context

4. The Equal Opportunities Policy will provide the working framework which will guide practice. It is set within the legal context of the Equality Act 2010.

Implementation

5. The AVH Committee:

will not discriminate against employees, volunteers or service providers;

will not discriminate against individual hirers, users or groups when considering taking bookings to use the Village Hall or whilst they are using the facilities;

will work actively to make the premises fully accessible to not only the disabled, but to the elderly, young people, parents with pushchairs and suppliers making deliveries;

will undertake to encourage activities that reflect the cultural needs of different groups.

2. The development, implementation, monitoring and review of this Equal Opportunities Policy is an ongoing process designed to ensure good practice. Within resource constraints, the AVH Committee will work towards improving the quality of life of all employees, volunteers, users and hirers of the facilities.

The policy will next be reviewed in April 2023.

Bouncy Castles

Organising a bouncy castle event is not something to be treated lightly. Children have a raised risk of injury from bouncy castles, in some cases suffering life-changing injuries for which organisers have been sued for significant sums. It is the responsibility of the hirer to make sure public liability insurance is in place, especially if they, and not the supplier, are supervising the use of the castle. The hall does not provide any insurance for the use of bouncy castles, and cannot accept any responsibility in the event of any accident, mainly because there will be no-one from the hall present to supervise. The hall is only responsible for advising hirers that they must put appropriate arrangements in place. Any responsible supplier of a bouncy castle must have insurance, but often their public liability insurance will only cover their own liabilities and so will only apply if they themselves are present to supervise the use of the castle.

Public liability insurance is what is needed, provided by, either:

• The supplier of the bouncy castle, or
• The hirer (i.e. the person who hires the hall and hires the bouncy castle).

If the above criteria can be met, the potential use can be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. However, when booking, the hirer must declare that they intend to have a bouncy castle. This declaration will imply a commitment to make sure that:

• The bouncy castle will be supervised at all times by an adult (over 18).
• Public liability insurance will be provided either by the supplier or the hirer.

Before the actual booking, the hirer must confirm that insurance is in place, and must be prepared to provide evidence for this. Please understand that these arrangements are being introduced so that the hall trustees and the hirers can be sure that proper insurance is in place enabling hirers to run a happy event, knowing that they are properly insured.

TV Licence

Please note that the Village Hall does not have a TV licence. For this reason, it is a criminal offence for anyone to plug in and watch or record TV programmes live on any channel; stream programmes live via an online TV service; download or watch BBC programmes on BBC iPlayer within the hall. That applies whether you're using a TV, computer, mobile phone, tablet, games console, digital box or DVD/VHS recorder.

Risk Assessment

Please click to see our risk assessment documentation.