The village hall trustees are proposing to convert the current unincorporated charity into a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO), following a meeting on December 2 in the hall. Local residents were invited to an extraordinary general meeting to hear about the proposed change of status for the village hall charity.

It was stressed at the meeting that the new charity’s purposes and dissolution clauses would be identical to those same clauses in the present trust deed dated May 1975. Following a number of votes there was a unanimous agreement from all present at the meeting to apply to the Charity Commission to create a CIO.

The new charity will be a separate legal entity that can hold property and enter into contracts in its own right. Its trustees will not be personally liable for what it does or for any debts of the CIO, as long as the decisions are reasonable and lawful. Presently this is not the case as trustees can be individually sued if things go wrong.

The CIO will give more flexibility for future developments in the community and be easier to attract funding and donations. As a CIO it can register with the HMRC and will be eligible for Gift Aid, which means that the government will give 25p in every £1 Gift Aided.

Currently the Charity Commission holds the village hall in trust but once the CIO is formed the hall will transfer to the new charity, which will be known as Scotton New Village Hall.

The hall’s secretary will be submitting the new CIO constitution online to the Charity Commission for approval before the end of the year.

It is likely to take 3-months for the Commission to consider the CIO application; so hopefully if approved the new charity will be operational by April 2026.