Constitution

After considerable thought and discussion plus advice from Action in Rural Sussex it was decided to update the original constitution in order to reflect the latest Charity Commission best practice and legal requirements. The possibility of transforming ourselves into a Charitable Incorporated organisation was also considered but was found to be a very significantly more expensive process with, in the specific case of Findon Village Hall, negligible advantage, therefore, this idea was dropped.

As part of the update, the old "Holding Trust" which actually owned the land and buildings as a separate charity form the "Managing Trust" was wound up and both land and buildings are now held, subject to the same rules and restrictions set out in the original governing document for the holding trust, by the Official Custodian of the Charity Commission. This has the advantage that it is no longer necessary to find people prepared to take on the positions of holding trustees and neither do we have to pay legal fees to transfer ownership every time a new trustee is appointed.

As of July 2022 a new constitution was adopted by resolution of the management committee. The working copy of this new constitution is shown below (if anyone wants to see the formal constitution document, it is available but very messy because, for legal reasons all the "old bits" have to remain but then be declared void by the "new bits" - so it says the same as the working copy but takes you round the houses to get there)

and, for those who would like to see the resolution: