Brighthelm Centre Director and Chamber Ambassador Rik Child talks about the way the Centre has continued to grow, taking on an environmental mission and in doing so, embraces the unknown

The Brighthelm Centre is a centre of town venue that started life as a community centre, has also taken on an environmental mission and continues to seek out new groups, businesses and other organisations who want to use its spaces and services for their businesses. The Centre has gone through a very rapid change in the last five years, spending a good deal of its historic reserves on refurbishments to ensure the space is fit for purpose with the necessary growth to recoup its reserves being a real uncertainty. However, it has become a popular conferencing venue, performance space and continues to appeal to a wider and wider community.

The organisation was originally set up by Brighthelm United Reformed Church in the 1980s as an expression of faith and service in the community. These values are still very central to the management and values of the venue and the trustees took the brave decision during 2016 to re-invest 10% of turnover in reducing the price of hiring space at the Centre for organisations that operate in line with Brighthelm’s key areas of interest. These are environmental campaigning organisations, grass roots community groups who meet for self-help and churches seeking to use the space to meet. This was a highly risky proposition as it limits the income Brighthelm can receive while still not in a secure financial situation but was clearly the right thing to do. And it has worked. Brighthelm continues to grow and welcomes organisations it can give hefty reductions to for the benefit of the wider community.

Thank you to Rik for providing this blog. For more information about The Brighthelm Centre visit http://www.brighthelm.org.uk