AMBERLEY SOCIETY
Conserving and Improving Amberley West Sussex

St Michael’s Church Hall Upgrade Project

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Melanie Edge, in her role as Churchwarden of St Michael’s Church in Amberley, set up the Hallraisers in 2023, to raise money to fund the refurbishment of the Church Hall.   The core group consists of Mel, with Michael Donovan, Sheena Skinner and Susan Watson, who are all Amberley residents, with many friends and supporters. 

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We work together collaboratively but have assigned broad leads to each of the main areas of work:

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• Decision making and liaising with the PCC – Mel Edge

• Design and project managing the work – Michael Donovan

• Fundraising events – Sheena Skinner

• Community survey, grant applications and communications – Susan Watson

 

Our ambition is:

To create a modern, welcoming and comfortable Hall that is financially sustainable and sits at the heart of the community.

St Michael’s Church Hall provides an important community meeting place in Amberley village.  It was built in the 1960s and whilst it has been well maintained over the years, it now needs significant capital work to ensure it continues to be welcoming and accessible to all villagers. 

The first part of 2023 was taken up with benchmarking visits – we visited Bury, Coldwaltham, Pulborough, Rackham, Storrington and West Chiltington Village Halls to see their facilities and learn how they maintained and replaced them.  

Next, we ran a survey, to understand the Amberley community’s priorities for the Hall refurbishment – you can see the results of the survey here.

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Community feedback identified four priorities and we divided the work into two phases:

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Church Hall Upgrade - Phase 1

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Unblocking the drains

After several decades, Michael Donovan and the clever people from Coastal Drains solved the mystery of the blocked kitchen drains.   They found a hidden pipe buried underground and extracted a calcified sausage of soap and calcium deposits that measured over 12 inches long.  It is believed that it took over 30 years to build to its megalithic proportions.

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The kitchen sink now flows freely and the issue, now that it has been identified, will be easy to remedy in the future.   The work was funded through a grant by Amberley Parish Council and The Hallraisers thank them for their support, which is much appreciated

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Upgrading the toilets

Our work to upgrade the toilets was completed in December 2023 – and we held a ‘grand opening’ at the Christmas Village Lunch, where villagers had the opportunity to see the work – and perhaps even use the new toilet themselves.

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To fund this work, we won £10,000 in grants from Amberley Parish Council, Horsham District Council and the National Lottery.   Our fundraising events, together with donations, raised the remaining £7,000.

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• Guided Tree walk (Pam Keeble)

• Wellbeing Fair (Sheena Skinner)

• Michael Blencoe nature talk (Mel Edge)

• Roving Supper (Dave & Lynne Curry and Mandy Fay)

• Scent Soiree (Michael Donovan)

• Eurochristmas Open Doors (Susan Watson and Drewitt’s Farm)

• Christmas in the Square (Mel Edge)

• Knock!  Knock! Christmas Theatre Production (Suzie Coates and Chalkpath Theatre Group

 

See the buttons at the top of the screen to see photos and information of many of these events

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If you would like to support the team or donate to a Hallraiser's event, please contact us:

Mel Edge - amberleystmichael@gmail.com

Michael Donovan - michael_c_donovan@btinternet.com

Sheena Skinner - sheenaskinner@btinternet.com

Susan Watson - susan.watson10@gmail.com

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Church Hall Upgrade – Phase 2

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We are currently fundraising for Phase 2 – the new kitchen.

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The design has had input from our kitchen heroes Sandie Conlon, Adrienne Greenwood, Pam Keeble and Sarah Wheeler and we look forward to transforming the Church Hall kitchen into a modern, commercial kitchen where meals and snacks can be prepared for Church Hall events.  Currently, the kitchen is unusable and meals have to be cooked in neighbours’ kitchens then rushed to the waiting guests – most famously, roast potatoes were once delivered in a wheelbarrow!  So there is no doubt that this essential work needs to be completed as soon as possible.

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We have already raised almost £10,000 towards the kitchen refurbishment, thanks to a grant from ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England) and our first 2024 fundraising events – the Sound Bath and the Burns Supper & Ceilidh, organised by Susan Watson with Head Chef Claire Bruce.

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We have put together a programme of Spring and Summer fundraising events (along with a shortlist of possible grants), with the aim of raising enough to complete the kitchen refurbishment in the late summer.

 

Thursday 20 June:  Live Well   A wellness talk by Gemma Ogston, author of The Healing Cookbook and founder of Brighton-based business, Gem's Wholesome Kitchen.  Gemma is a plant-based chef who features regularly on BBC's Saturday Kitchen.  Gemma strongly believes that food should be full of colour, goodness and flavour to boost our mood and health.  She is a great speaker, so this promises to be a super evening. Event organised by Sheena Skinner.

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Thursday 30 May:  Scent Soirée II - The Darling Buds of May … Smells of Summer!  After the sellout Scent Soirée last October, Michael Donovan will again be leading us (quite literally) by the nose across the globe, unearthing exotic tropical fragrances, lush verdant perfumes and vivid, spiced scents.

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Saturday 22 June:  A Midsummer Celebration   On Midsummer’s Night, the real and fairy worlds collide.  The Hallraisers invite you to spend an evening in an enchanted midsummer forest, where Shakespeare’s story of magic and mix-ups, fairies and fools will be enacted by the Amberley Players, directed by Don Gallagher.

 

Sunday 14 July:  Bonjour Paris!  To celebrate Bastille Day, why not join us for a French feast, with some new grandes chansons from singer-songwriter Catherine Cunningham and guitarist Alistair Sherwood?  The Church Hall will be transformed into an intimate parisian café... so sit back, sip your wine, listen to some beautiful music and enjoy some laid-back bonhomie!

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We hope to see you at some or all of these events – so why not note them in your diary today?   More details will follow in Wildbrooks and on Gaggle.

 

 

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