Plans getting drawn up!

For those of you wondering what's been happening - let me tell you we have been as busy as bees!

Initial conversion plan

We have now agreed an initial plan, and are getting ready to take it to planning permission - through listed building consent and English Heritage hoops as well!

In this initial plan:

• The main entrance is ramped to allow disabled access. 
• The porch is enclosed by glass to make a warm and welcoming space - yet the iron gates are kept and the glass allows the space to feel open.
• To the right as you come in there is a meeting room, accessible from the porch.
• In the main space, there is a clear floor area, the font has been moved into the chancel, the floor raised and new heating and lighting put in.
• In the far aisle there is a pod which contains the kitchen and store area. To the right of the pod there is an exhibition space for local history and George Herbert. To the left there is a new door out into the toilet block, built into a small extension in the building (this gives us another fire exit and allows the building capacity to increase from 60 to more like 200).
• The chancel is divided from the nave by a full height glass wall, with doors in the middle to allow weddings or school assemblies to use the whole space.

Other news

We are still working to see what uses the tower might be put to. We are looking at whether we can afford to put PV cells (solar power) on the tower roof yet (we know we want to, but there’s reams of paperwork and legal steps to go through). We are also re-investigating heating options - we want to be as "green" as possible, but need it to be effective as well! There are various legal procedures to go through in making the church redundant and then the Diocese leasing the building back to the Community Group and the PCC. The PCC also need to work on how they want to re-order the chancel. Sadly the organ is now in need of tens of thousands of pounds of repairs, and so we are looking to use a high quality electric one for services from now on. Nowadays the quality of these is so good, that few would be able to tell the difference.

We are really making good progress

Having the plans means we can start to do drawings and show people what the building will look like. It also means we can start negotiating with English Heritage and get to planning approval. Sorting out the leases means the fund-raising team can begin work in earnest on some of the larger funding sources. We have now raised enough money to pay the architect’s fees up to planning permission, and we have a grant for getting the gas and water supplies up to the church. There’s a way to go, but we’re beginning to see real progress.

Laser Survey

Wessex Archaeology’s geomatics team has recently concluded a laser scanning project at St. John’s Church in Bemerton, near Salisbury in Wiltshire. This was undertaken for Bemerton Community who with the assistance of Paul Stevens Architecture are in the process of converting part of the church for use as a community centre.

This most recent phase of work at St. John’s involved using a laser scanner to digitally map both interior and exterior surfaces of the church and its lych gate. This data will be used by the architect to plan detailed aspects of the construction and it will also serve as a pre-alteration heritage record for posterity.

This work complements a geophysical survey that was undertaken in the churchyard by Wessex Archaeology prior to the installation of services earlier in the year. This survey successfully identified a number of unmarked graves dating from the mid 19^th Century as well as potential elements of the Church’s foundation structure.

Well under way

So the old broken heating is out (see What's On in Bemerton) and we are planning for gas and water installation. So it looks like we're making progress. Still the work of fundraising and getting local people involved continues. If you'd like to help, we're having a car-boot sale on Sunday 15th May. Moira Packer is super-human but she'd like to make us feel involved by helping with -

• gazebos – she has one, but she still needs 4 or 5 more – please can anyone help by lending theirs?
• publicity – the poster will go up along Lower Road, Post Office etc and there will be a copy in the Leisure Centre and also details on a number of car boot sale web-sites. Jane is going to see if we can put something up at the Harnham Cattle Market and we’re hoping for a mention in the Journal. If there's anywhere else you can put a poster up please get a copy from Peter Webster, myself or Moira.
• Getting sellers – we're not so worried about the number of buyers as making sure we’ve got enough people selling .....if you know of anyone who might be interested in a pitch please can you encourage them to go for it !!
• Volunteers to help with setting up taking down/marshalling cars – we have quite a lot to do to get ready in the morning (gazebos to get up, tables to be moved) and we also need to get the cars parked reasonably sensibly on the cricket field .... so if you know of anyone who could come and give us a hand first thing or afterwards they’ll be very welcome and it’ll make clearing up much quicker for us all.
• Cakes - thanks to all those who’ve already offered to make cakes – if anyone else is able to make a cake it will be very much appreciated !

Why not get involved?

Charity Registration At Last

Back again, with apologies to our followers and other readers for the absence of regular updates since March. The fact is that, until fairly recently, there has been very little in the way of progress with our project, largely because the money needed to to qualify as a registered charity took longer than we expected to come through. We finally managed to assemble the necessary funds, and on 14 July we became registered as Bemerton Community.

We raised the money through loans, donations and local fundraising activities. The latter have been well supported by the local residents, and we were particularly pleased with our Open Gardens event on 30 June, which raised over £1000. It was delightful that a few local primary school children got together to run a Cake Stall for us - every little helps. We have also succeeded recently in obtaining a small grant from our local council to assist with project planning.

In the meantime, St. John's has recently been regraded as a Grade II* listed building and we're now starting to grapple with the inevitable resistance to change from the various bodies and authorities concerned with conservation. While we are entirely sympathetic with their point of view, the fact remains that the building will only survive if it is used by the local community. This means that some internal alterations are inevitable if it is to be used as a financially viable community centre.

We are now concentrating on completing our Business Plan, which will enable the Funding Team to start applying for capital funding grants. The Building Team is working on producing a planning brief for the architects, and continuing the survey of similar projects so that we can benefit from the lessons learned by others. So there is much to do in the next few months.

A Quiet Three Months?

While the first three months of this year have not seen much in the way of Group activity, quite a lot has been happening behind the scenes with all the task teams making progress in their respective areas of responsibility.

Armed with the results of our survey, the User Team is now looking a little wider afield than the local community, trying to identify other possible users of the facilities we need to provide. Meanwhile the Building Team is visiting various similar projects to pick up some tips and find out what lessons we can learn from their experience. The Funding Team has drawn up a list of the various grant-making bodies that might possibly support our project, and is in the process of applying for money for the next phase of our work. We are also starting to plan some local fundraising activities.

A few weeks ago we briefed the Wilton Estate on our efforts to secure a future for St. John’s, and Lord Pembroke came to Lower Bemerton recently to see for himself what we hope to achieve. It is good to have such influential support.

Finally, we have now managed to raise the small amount of money needed to qualify for registration with the Charity Commission, so that we can benefit from Gift Aid in future.

Charitable Company Formed

Shortly before Christmas we took a major step forward in the Group's development with the establishment of a charitable company (Bemerton Community Ltd.), and we have now begun the process of registering with the Charity Commission. Once this is done we can start some serious fundraising.

Many people will look back on 2009 as the year in which St. John’s church was closed for regular worship. But it was also the year that saw the formation of our Group and the start of our attempt to secure a realistic future for the building. It was only recently, when preparing to tell our local City Councillors how we were getting on, that we realised how much has been achieved in the nine months since the public meeting about St. John’s on 30th March.

We are most grateful to all those who have either helped or supported our work in that time, and especially those who have made small donations to get us started.

We wish a Happy New Year to all our readers, and look forward to 2010 as the year in which our plans for the future of St. John's begin to take shape.

Questionaire Response

We had a very good response to our questionnaire, and thank you to all those who took the trouble to fill one in for us. We’re still working on the data, but already we can see that the results will give us a pretty clear idea of what sort of activities local people would like to see St. John’s used for.

Our next major task is to work out how the building might be altered inside to cater for as many of these activities as possible, and what sort of facilities will be needed. Once this is done we can move on to outline designs and costings.

Successful Public Meeting

We were very pleased that over 60 people came along to our public meeting on September 28th in the Bemerton Club. We were able to tell everybody a bit about the Bemerton Community Group, how it was organised, and what we had been doing since the previous meeting in March.

In our presentation we talked about the church’s formal change of use of the main part of St. John’s, our efforts to find out what sort of things the building could be used for, what kind of alterations are likely to be needed, and where the money to fund our project might come from. We also explained what we need to do next. After the presentation there was a short break for refreshments, and then we had a very useful question and answer session.

In the last couple of weeks we have been circulating a questionnaire as widely as we can within the local community to find out what activities people would like the building to be used for. If you haven’t already received it, please get hold of one and fill it in - we want to know your views. On the back of the form is a list of places where you can drop it off when you’ve filled it in. If you want to complete the form online, go to:

http://www.paulticher.com/research/lowerbemerton.htm

We need the forms completed by no later than 31st October.