Hilldyke Community Centre Ltd

1st Annual General Meeting (22 Feb 2001)

For detail of the opening remarks from the Chair click here

The Commitee, from left to right -  Gill Burland, Vicky Main (Project Coordinator), Ruth Coles (Chair), Enid John, Sarah Holloway, Sue Murphy and Maria Wilding.

First Annual General Meeting at the Hilldyke Centre

A very special annual meeting. Its our first one, everything starts from here.

It's special because you are special, most people here have contributed either directly or through the organisations you represent.

Some have contributed by financial help others with time and skills

The financial help has come from individuals, from family trusts, small village organisations and larger statutory ones.  We are most grateful for all of it.

Skills and practical help has been given to us in the form of setting up the building making coffee, delivering leaflets   running and helping with activities.  The St Albans District Council in the surprising guise of fairy godmother, transformed our modest hopes of a portacabin into this fine hall which makes so many activities possible

On behalf of the committee and my fellow trustees, thank you very much.

Speaking of the committee - !!
I would like you to know how hard they all work and have worked over several years to make this happen.  Enid John, one of our trustees, and being a trustee means personal responsibility as a signatory to the lease of the building, handed over as chairman last year after working so determinedly and successfully to achieve our goal.  Our other trustees beside me are Gill Burland who has taken on responsibility for all the publicity and knows every letter box on the estate intimately.   Sarah Holloway through her work at Beech Hyde School really knows the children here and many of the families and that has enabled her to make a huge contribution on the committee and in running holiday activities

We have our own on the spot treasurer, Sue Murphy who not only looks after our money but supports every activity that happens here.  We are also glad to have Maria Wilding serving on our committee.   Maria lives on the Hilldyke Road and is another representative from this community. 

Ros Webster as health visitor has established a child health clinic and a mother and toddler group run by Rona Barnard.  Ros is a valuable link for us with community services.

Tim Lutrario, Director of MIND in St Albans District has given us much valuable help and time in meetings with the statutory authorities, with the lease and working to obtain our charitable status.

We've had practical help too from Terry Jackson who put up more things on walls than we ever realised we needed and Brian Webster who helped at the planning stage and who has tried so hard to produce a vandal proof name plate but hasn't quite cracked it yet!

Pam Parker and friends, retired teachers, run a small homework group once a week for children who want somewhere quiet to work.  Hans Segers, our football star, has established regular football training and has a very enthusiastic following.

Forgive me, if just this year I am concentrating on people rather than events but their hard work has been most significant.  Its very good to welcome Bob Stables our first treasurer and Frances Fakes who with Beech Hyde Headmistress Delia Bonner and PC Sarah Cameron among others were involved earlier in the project.

It has been the steady work of our two part-time project co-ordinators, our contribution from Social Services, who are such an encouragement to the committee.  Firstly we had Sally Gubb who worked very hard to get the project established before taking maternity leave, and she has been followed, to our great relief and pleasure, by Vicky Main who has continued with the same enthusiasm.  

Over the past 12 months we have held all sorts of events for children, involving art, music and whizz kids, exercise for the 7 - 11 year olds, put on for us by Leanne Douglas and her team at St Albans Leisure.  Sarah Davis of Youth in Action has contributed a great deal including making it possible for some young people to try their hand at DJ mixing, Fran Bugg the Arts Development Officer has been involved, as have Julie Simpson and Sue Thompson of the Leisure Department.Yoga classes are now held regularly and a drop in coffee morning is held fortnightly on a Monday.

Finally we must thank Fay Tysoe who as caretaker and cleaner, does such a good job in keeping the building clean and tidy for us.

You can't have a venture like this without some downs as well as ups. Some ideas don't work and some vandals have a go.  Some of our activities have been more successful than others but they are all enabling us to build up a picture of what the centre, which is not suitable to be a youth club and cannot take its place, can offer to young people of different ages.  

There are some exciting plans for new developments in our second year which we hope more residents will become involved and Vicky will tell you more about those in a moment.

During the year the Wheathampstead Community Action Group changed into The Hilldyke Community Centre Steering Committee and has, at last achieved charitable status.   We hope that we will continue to change and that eventually there will be a Management Committee for the Centre consisting of local residents and that the Steering Group will be able to take a back seat.  We realise that this will take some time though, and if anyone here feels they would like to join the steering group we would be so pleased to have you.  Please talk to any of the committee during the refreshments.

All this newness means that for this year only we don't need to spend a lot of time voting for our committee members, none of them have served for more than a year on the Steering Group.  However over this year we shall develop a formal structure.  In the meantime we would we would appreciate the support of you all in kindly proposing that the Committee and officers should be re-appointed for the coming year.   

Thank you very much for your support.

Ruth Coles

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