Most of our village halls are well used and provide an important hub for our parishes, particularly at this time of year.  In order to make them affordable to local people and keep them well-maintained, a constant pipeline of events needs to be maintained.  How a hall is marketed and advertised plays a major part of maintaining the pipeline.

Many people look for locations to hold events by searching the internet – particularly if they don’t know the area very well.  An on-line presence is therefore important to all village halls.  These are some pointers to assist you – by all means let us know if you have any words of advice to add to this!

Wiltshire Village Halls Association (WHVA) – www.wvha.org.uk/

You have to be a member to register your hall on this website – annual membership costs £37 and has other benefits:

• Full support from the Village Hall Advisory Service
• Full membership of Community First
• Full membership of the National Village Halls Forum
• Access to individual advice from the WVHA committee and other Member Halls via a mentoring scheme
• Regular editions of First News
• Discounted fees for information events and training

Contact the secretary – Carol Southall at carol.southall@wvha.org.uk

Halls Hire – www.hallshire.com

No membership fee required and this website covers the whole of the UK.

Halls for Hire – www.halls-for-hire.co.uk

No membership fee required and this website covers the whole of the UK.

Facebook – www.facebook.com

Not everyone wants to be on Facebook, but it does offer free opportunities.  You can set up your village hall as a Page on Facebook and get people to support it and post comments.  Of course not all of these may be good, but you can respond to comments to demonstrate you have put something right if there is a complaint which is a positive thing to do.  You can use your Facebook page to advertise events and to share news.

You can also keep an eye out on local Facebook Notice Boards (e.g. Pewsey Notice Board, Upavon Notice Board – there are lots out there!) where people are asking for recommendations for a venue and then respond with details of yours.

Pewsey Community Area Partnership – www.pewseycap.org.uk

We have all the parishes in the Pewsey Community Area listed and their village halls also listed with a link to their website or page on one of these sites.  If you would like yours included (for free) on our website, just email me with the link to the detailed hall info and confirm the name of your hall.  See http://www.pewseycap.org.uk/pewsey-community-area-parishes/ to see whether you have already been added.