In short: a village hall is managed by a committee of volunteer trustees, working within the hall's governing document and, for most halls, charity law. Day to day, that means four jobs: taking bookings, collecting the money, keeping the building safe and insured, and keeping the committee itself going. This guide walks through each of them, with a checklist of the legal and safety checks and a calendar of what falls due when.
It is written for committee members in England and Wales, whether you have just joined, have just been handed the bookings diary, or have been doing this for years and want to check nothing has slipped. Where a topic needs more than a few paragraphs, we link to a full guide on it.
Who actually runs a village hall?
Most village halls are charities. The people legally responsible for the hall are its trustees, and on most halls the trustees are the members of the management committee. Some committees include representatives of the groups that use the hall, such as the WI, the playgroup or the parish council, alongside members elected at the annual general meeting.
How the hall is set up is written in its governing document. For older halls this is usually a trust deed, often based on a model drawn up decades ago; newer or reorganised halls may be a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) or a charitable company. The governing document says who can be on the committee, how often it must meet, how decisions are made and what the hall is for. If nobody on the committee has read it recently, that is the first job. Our guide to understanding your village hall trust deed explains what to look for.
A few things follow from being a charity:
- A charity in England and Wales with an income over £5,000 a year must register with the Charity Commission. In Scotland, charities register with OSCR, and in Northern Ireland with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland.
- Trustees must act together, in the charity's interests, and must not benefit personally from the hall unless the governing document allows it.
- The land and building are often held by a custodian trustee, such as the parish council or the Official Custodian for Charities, while the committee manages the hall. Check which applies to yours, because it matters when you sign a lease, a loan or a big contract.
The Charity Commission's guidance "The essential trustee" (CC3) is the plain-English summary of what is expected of every trustee and is worth giving to anyone new.
The committee and who does what
A hall runs best when each job has one named owner. The usual officer roles are chair, secretary and treasurer, and most halls also have a bookings secretary, someone who looks after the building, and someone who keeps on top of safety checks. On a small committee one person may hold two of these, which is fine as long as it is written down.
Our guide to village hall committee roles and responsibilities covers each role in detail. The habits that matter most are simple:
- Meet regularly and keep minutes, with a list of agreed actions and who is doing each one.
- Do not let one person hold everything. If only the bookings secretary knows who has a key, or only the treasurer can log in to the bank, the hall is one illness away from trouble.
- Plan for replacements. Ask early, give new people one clear job, and hand over documents and logins properly.
Bookings: the heart of the hall
Hire income keeps most halls open, so the bookings diary is the job that matters most week to week. Whether you use a paper diary, a spreadsheet or software, the same things need to be true:
- One diary, kept in one place, that everybody who takes bookings can see. Two diaries is how double bookings happen.
- Written conditions of hire that every hirer agrees to: what the hire includes, finishing times, cleaning, noise, alcohol, children, cancellations and deposits. ACRE and the rural community councils publish model hiring agreements their members can adapt.
- A clear answer to every enquiry. Somebody who emails about a party and hears nothing for a week books somewhere else.
- Regular hirers set up once. A weekly class is fifty bookings a year. Enter it as a repeating booking rather than fifty separate ones; our guide to managing regular hirers covers how.
- Keys and access under control. Know who holds a key, and if you use a key safe, change the code from time to time. See managing key holders.
Many halls now let hirers check availability and ask for a date online, so the committee only has to approve requests rather than take them over the phone. Our page on village hall booking systems explains how an online diary, booking requests and invoices fit together.
Money: pricing, invoicing and the accounts
The treasurer usually owns the money, but the whole committee is responsible for it. The essentials are:
- A published price list, reviewed at least once a year against your running costs. Many halls charge local groups and charities less than private parties; whatever you decide, apply it consistently.
- An invoice or receipt for every hire, and a way of seeing at a glance who has not paid. Chasing unpaid hire is far easier within a fortnight than after three months. Our page on village hall invoicing covers raising and chasing invoices.
- Deposits for one-off hires, especially parties, returned once the hall has been checked.
- Two people involved in every payment, whether that is two signatories, two approvals on online banking, or one person paying and another checking the statement.
- A reserves policy, so the committee has agreed how much to keep for a new boiler or a roof repair, rather than finding out when it fails.
At the end of the year the accounts go to the AGM, and to the Charity Commission if you are registered. Registered charities with an income over £10,000 must file an annual return, and accounts for an income over £25,000 need an independent examination. Our guide to writing a village hall annual report explains what is needed at each income level.
Two money questions come up often. Room hire is usually exempt from VAT, and most halls are well under the VAT registration threshold, but there are exceptions, so take advice if your income is growing. And as a charity, the hall should be getting at least 80% relief on business rates; if you are paying full rates, ask your council.
Insurance
Every hall needs buildings and contents cover and public liability insurance. If the hall employs anybody, even a paid cleaner for a few hours a week, employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement. Many halls also add trustee indemnity, money cover, and loss of income if the hall has to close after damage.
Check each year that the buildings sum insured is the full cost of rebuilding, not the market value, and that the policy matches how the hall is actually used. Our complete guide to village hall insurance covers what cover you need, what it costs and how to compare quotes.
Safety and legal checks
This is the area committees worry about most, and it is the one most often left to one person's memory. The table below lists the checks most halls need to think about and how often they usually come round. It is a starting point rather than legal advice: what applies to your hall depends on its building, its activities and its insurer, so check with your insurer, your local council or your rural community council if you are unsure.
| Check | Usually | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fire risk assessment | Review every year, and after any change | A legal requirement for whoever is responsible for the building. See our fire risk assessment guide, which includes a free template. |
| Fire alarm, emergency lighting and extinguishers | Alarm tested weekly; lighting monthly; extinguishers serviced yearly | Keep a log book of every test. |
| Gas safety check | Every year | By a Gas Safe registered engineer. Most insurers expect it. |
| Electrical installation (EICR) | Commonly every five years | By a qualified electrician. Your insurer may ask for it. |
| Portable appliance testing | Depends on the appliance and how it is used | Not a fixed legal interval. See PAT testing for village halls. |
| Legionella risk assessment | Review every couple of years | Especially if hot water sits unused between hires. |
| Kitchen and food hygiene | Ongoing | If the hall itself provides food regularly, it may need to register with the council as a food business. See village hall kitchen requirements. |
| Premises licence or TENs | As needed | For selling alcohol and some entertainment. See alcohol licensing for village halls. |
| Music licence | Yearly | Playing recorded music in public usually needs TheMusicLicence from PPL PRS. |
| Safeguarding policy | Review every year | Hirers running activities for children should have their own. See our safeguarding policy template guide. |
| Data protection | Ongoing | You hold hirers' names and contact details, so you need to look after them and say how you use them. Check whether the hall needs to pay the ICO data protection fee; many not-for-profit bodies are exempt. |
| Martyn's Law | Not in force yet | Will apply to halls that reasonably expect 200 or more people at once. See Martyn's Law for village halls. |
The single most useful thing you can do is put every one of these in one list with a due date and an owner, so nothing depends on somebody remembering.
Looking after the building
Village halls are often old buildings, and small jobs left undone become expensive ones. A simple maintenance plan helps:
- Walk round the building inside and out at least twice a year, and note anything that needs doing.
- Keep a list of regular jobs, such as clearing gutters, servicing the boiler, checking the roof after storms and repainting, each with how often it comes round.
- Give hirers an easy way to report problems, and keep one list of everything reported so it does not live in somebody's inbox.
- Keep a list of trusted tradespeople and their numbers where the whole committee can find it.
Energy is now one of the biggest running costs for most halls. Heating an empty building is the most common waste, so it is worth making sure the heating only comes on for actual bookings. Our guide to utility bills and running costs has more.
Keeping the community coming
A hall that is used is a hall that survives. The halls that do best tend to:
- Make it easy to find out what is on and what the hall costs, with a simple website or a page on the village website showing the calendar, the rooms and the prices.
- Run a few events of their own each year. Quiz nights, coffee mornings and film nights bring in money and bring in new volunteers.
- Ask the village what it wants. A short survey every couple of years often turns up a class or club looking for a home.
- Look after regular hirers. A playgroup or a dance class that has used the hall for ten years is worth a conversation before a price rise.
If the hall has bigger plans, such as an extension or a new kitchen, a written plan helps with grant applications. See how to write a village hall business plan.
A year in the life of a village hall committee
Most of the work comes round on a cycle. This is a typical year; move it to fit your own financial year and AGM date.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Every week | Answer enquiries, confirm bookings, record payments, test the fire alarm. |
| Every month | Check who has not paid, test emergency lighting, look at the diary for the month ahead. |
| Each committee meeting | Money in and out, bookings, repairs, safety checks due, actions from last time. |
| Once a year | Insurance renewal, gas safety check, extinguisher service, fire risk assessment review, safeguarding policy review, price review, music licence. |
| After the year end | Accounts prepared and examined, annual report written, AGM held, and the Charity Commission annual return filed within ten months of the year end. |
| Every few years | Electrical inspection, legionella review, a condition survey of the building, and a look at whether the governing document still fits. |
Paper, spreadsheets or software?
Plenty of halls are still run from a paper diary and a cash book, and that can work well for a quiet hall with one dedicated bookings secretary. The trouble starts when more than one person needs to see the diary, when invoices need chasing, or when the person who knows everything steps down.
Hall management software brings the diary, hirers, invoices, payments and safety checks into one place that the whole committee can see. Village Hall Hub was built for exactly this: an online diary hirers can request dates from, invoices raised from the bookings, reminders when safety checks fall due, and the accounts, meetings and maintenance in the same place. If you are comparing options, our comparison of village hall booking systems sets out the main choices and their prices.
Whatever you use, the aim is the same: a hall where nothing depends on one person remembering, and where a new committee member can see what is going on from day one.