History
The village hall is a charity registered at the Charity Commission under number 305160. Originally the village school and owned, like the rest of the Ashburnham Estate, by the Rev John Bickersteth, it was donated by him to the village in 1962 after the school closed. There was a legal conveyance of the property to Ashburnham and Penhurst Parish Council to be held in trust for use only as a village hall and for no other purpose. The conveyance was also a trust deed and created the charity and set out how it should be managed by a Village Hall Management Committee with trustees being drawn from users such as the Womens Institute and the British Legion. The parish council was the custodian trustee with no involvement in the running of the hall which was what the management committee was set up to do.
It worked well for many years but times changed and around the turn of the century there was a move to build a new village hall on the grounds next to the cricket field and support for the village hall drained away and went to support the new hall. By 2022 the management committee was no longer able to find enough trustees to function and they wound up and appointed the parish council to be Sole Managing Trustee.
The situation today is that the charity continues with its independent existence but is managed by the parish council who are rigorous in keeping parish council business separate from village hall charity business and have separate meetings. The parish council now meets either as the local authority 6 times per year or meets as sole trustee 4 times per year. As a local authority it is served by the Clerk to the Council who is a paid employee. As sole trustee it is served by a secretary and treasurer which is an unremunerated position.
Meetings
Meetings of the sole trustee are not held in public. However, charity legislation rules that there has to be a public Annual General Meeting of the charity and this takes place each year in April.