A village hall retires its 22-year-old paper booking diary

The hall committee of a village in North Yorkshire had kept the same paper booking diary for 22 years. It lived in the treasurer's kitchen, which worked well until the treasurer went on holiday for three weeks.

The committee moved to Tidewell last autumn. They now publish the main hall, the small meeting room and the kitchen as three separate bookable spaces, each with its own hourly rate and a discounted rate for local groups.

What changed

• Regular hirers such as the toddler group, the choir and the Thursday yoga class book a whole term at once
• One-off parties request a slot, and a committee member approves it from their phone
• Deposits are collected at booking, so nobody chases cash in envelopes any more

The part they were most nervous about was the older hirers. In practice, the committee kept the old contact details on the noticeboard and enters those bookings themselves. About a fifth of bookings still come in that way, and that's fine. A booking system should fit the community, not the other way round.

If you run a hall or a community centre and want to see how they set up term bookings, ask in the Tidewell Customer Community and we'll walk you through it.