GVA History

This article was written by Jan Taylor in 2012 and explains how the GVa developped.

History of Gretton Village Association

Prior to 1998 there were three small charities that operated in Gretton, namely the Gretton Ward, Gretton Village hall and Gretton Playing Field.  These three charities should have run separately with their own committees, meetings and AGMs but over the years they had gradually blended into one as the same people were on all the committees etc. Even the finances operated from one bank account. This was rectified in January 1998 by a formal Charity Commissioner’s scheme to legally combine the Village Hall and the Playing Field charities under the new name Gretton Village Association.  This made the new charity responsible for the running of both the hall and the field.

The Gretton Ward Association had no land or buildings to dispose of and so following an open meeting it was decided to wind up this charity and transfer the balance of money in their account to the GVA. 

The constitution of the GVA follows the same format as for the old charities in that is set up to provide facilities for leisure for the local residents. Local residents are defined as people living within a certain area, in our case, Gretton, Gretton Fields, Alderton Fields, Stanley Pontlarge, Littleworth and Greet.  Obviously other people are welcome to use the hall and they do, but local residents are given special rates etc.

It is run by a management committee of volunteers and has 6 elected members, members from all the local groups in the area of benefit and some co-opted members. The committee members are elected at the AGM each year in October and the representative members are selected by the individual groups.

There is one main difference between the old charity and the present one and that is that the land and buildings are held in trust for the charity by the Charity Commissioners.  This makes no difference to the day to day running of the association, but it is a safeguard, as the committee cannot sell or change the use of the hall or field without the express permission of the Charity Commissioners, for example we had to obtain permission before we could start any building work on the refurbishment project.