Living only two doors down from the Centre at the time I was aware
of all the activities at the Centre, and it was from an advertisement placed in
the local newspaper by Carol Reeve who was the Chairman at the time, that I
rallied to the call of joining them. The Centre had been mainly run for the
benefit of the Folk scene for many years and was even known locally as “The
Folk Centre”.
The problem was that the folk scene was diminishing and the Centre was
then suffering financially because of it.
My first task was to examine what was financially viable and what was
not, and then make all the changes required to put the Centre on a sound
financial footing, as well as giving the Centre some new direction, returning
it to a community Centre, the reason it was bought and put in trust in the
first place.
It has taken 10 years and many changes in direction to meet growing
demands of local people and make the Centre financially sound again.
During this time the management committee have raised and spent in
excess of £200,000 on renovation work to the building, bringing it up to
modern day standards. The pinnacle of this has been the modern I.T. suite
which gave us the beginning of our adult education programme. From this we
have developed into the 11th largest provider of adult education in the
County. If we exclude the colleges from this list, we are about 3rd. This has
mainly been achieved in the last two years and through a forward thinking
partnership with both the County council education department and
Macclesfield college, and we have regular meetings to chart and progress
future developments in this area.
It has been a challenging, but rewarding 10 years and the
beneficiaries of what has happened at the Centre have been the people of the village,
especially the older residents. The saying, “From little Acorns” springs to mind,
and the village have Carol Reeve (who has moved to Wales) to thank for
planting that little acorn. Thanks Carol!
Chris
Claxton
(Centre
Manager)
