Village Halls Week
Village Halls Week ran for the first time in 2018. The campaign is an annual and national celebration of rural community spaces and the people whose time and dedication keep them going. Organised by the ACRE Network, the campaign runs in January and sees a huge variety of events happening across England.
The week is highly publicised via social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram)
**For local enquiries, please contact your local village hall adviser. For general village hall enquiries, please email Deborah Clarke, ACRE’s Rural Evidence Manager/Village Halls.
> Sign up for Village Halls Week 2020
Celebrate your hall
Village Halls Week 2019 gained substantial attention for Village Halls including being featured across 16 BBC stations.
The next Village Halls Week will run from Monday 20 January - Sunday 26 January 2020. If you would like to put the spotlight on your hall see our tips below on how to get involved.
Share your History
Thursday 23 January 2020
Thursday 23 January will see halls celebrating ‘Throw back Thursday’, an online trend that looks into the past. To share your hall’s history, simply use your social media account (twitter or Facebook) and use the hashtags ‘#tbt’ and ‘#villagehallsweek’. You could put up old pictures, old flyers, remember significant guests, share an old film or write an article on your hall’s history.
National Open Day
Saturday 25 January 2020
This year halls will be holding open days across all of England. This is a great opportunity to get new trustees, new user groups, enhance your community engagement or even get a visit from your local MP.
Your local ACRE Network member will soon be able to provide you with a marketing pack.
If you would like to take part and get your hall the attention it deserves, register your interest by contacting your local member, or the Campaign Manager, Flick Humphrey at f.humphrey@acre.org.uk
What happened in 2019?
Village Halls Week 2019 was a huge success and saw halls and their activities being featured across multiple BBC channels. We saw a series of events to bring people together and celebrate these crucial rural spaces. The launch took place in Cambridgeshire with Cambridgeshire ACRE who held an event celebrating the history of village halls. The campaign was supported by Defra with Lord Gardiner, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Rural Affairs, as a key note speaker for Community Action Suffolk’s networking event.
Other events included performances from Ian McMillan, renowned poet and broadcaster. Ian celebrated village halls in his own spectacular way by introducing his audience to a special collection. Over the years it transpires that Ian has collated peculiar posters and notes from village halls he has performed in. The event was held by Community Action Northumberland and was a fantastic way to say thank you for all of their members’ hard work.
Last year Ian wrote ‘A Tea Pot as Big as the Moon’ a poem especially commissioned for Village Halls Week which was aired via numerous BBC outlets. This Year, stand-up poet Kate Fox was commissioned by our friends at the NRTF to write a brilliant piece which amusingly captures the range of events you might find at your local village hall.
The National Rural Touring Forum supports Rural Touring Schemes, promoters, artists and communities to bring high quality & professional creative experiences to rural venues such as village halls.
Village Halls Week also saw support from loneliness advocates The British Red Cross and Lincolnshire Co-op. Both wrote blogs in support of village halls as a key tool for combating social isolation in rural communities. Village Halls Week and many of its members were also featured in a blog by Zurich for Charities. To read the blogs head to our news page.