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<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 20pt; mso-fareast-font-family: PMingLiU; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">I am walking to Canterbury along the North Downs Way, the old Pilgrims Way, to raise money for the Church Hall refurbishment. This is about 90 miles and I hope it will take me five days leaving church after the Mothering Sunday morning service, arriving at Canterbury Cathedral for Evensong on Thursday 7th April. One fat Rector, 90 miles, what could possibly go wrong... Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity. So please dig deep and donate now. If you want to know why we need £80,000 for the Church Hall, read on: St Mary’s Church Hall was built in the 1960s and provides a much needed community function in Caterham where there is a shortage of community facilities.   The church hall is used during week days and evenings for a variety of groups ranging from painting classes to mother and toddler groups, brownies and guides.  It is also often hired for one off events such as children’s parties and local meetings.   During Sunday services in church the Sunday school makes use of the church hall and its facilities; and afterwards the hall plays host to the congregation whilst tea and coffee are served. The hall is also used for our weekly youth club, our Junior Church and also hosts social events for the congregation.   The present church hall was a prefabricated structure with a 25 year life span, so it is now well beyond its expiry date. It was temporary only in the sense of having a limited life span. Unfortunately we are not aware of its planning status when originally built.  It is dilapidated outside and we are faced with the decision as to its future. The hall brings in income to the church, and contributes to its mission. Despite its age and physical state it does provide a large user-friendly space. We could knock it down but despite having the St. Paul’s centre, we would sorely miss a building of this size. We could knock the hall down and build a new one, but to obtain a new hall of the same footprint and in sympathy with the church building would be prohibitively expensive, in the region of half a million pounds.   The decision was taken to see if the present structure was capable of renewal, and our architect has engaged a builder and has established that the structure is fundamentally sound. We therefore have a window of opportunity to replace the panels and windows throughout the hall, to strengthen beams, to attend to the roof and so on, before the hall becomes unsafe. At the same time we could refurbish the kitchen and toilet facilities Our hope is that through fundraising and grants we will be able to renew the current hall structure. Through a legacy and large donation we have already raised £20k, and there is already £21265 in our hall account.  Our architect has stated that that its life could be extended by at least 30 years if we renewed and modernised it now, and probably significantly longer if well maintained. This would cost around £130K including fees if all done by one builder, although we hope that we can reduce this cost significantly by carrying out some of the work ourselves and using local tradesmen, some of whom are members of the congregation.

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