Please see below or click here to download the YM Community Hall Information October 2020 .

To the Members of the Hoy and Walls Community,

Update on the YM

One of the many outcomes of the COVID-19 crisis has been its profound impact on how we all use public and community spaces. With that has come an increasing complexity of regulations related to work health and safety
procedures. All organisations are responsible for the safety and welfare of those using their facilities, and the IoHDT is no exception. The IoHDT bears all the responsibility to comply with these measures and also to satisfy our insurers’ requirements. As such, the Board has decided that it must investigate new mechanisms for the management of the YM to ensure that it is fully compliant with COVID-19 related requirements.
After much discussion and consideration, the IoHDT’s board of Directors has decided to permanently dissolve the current YM committee and to take over the management of the facility in the interim.

This was not a decision taken lightly, and will not be a simple undertaking, given the extensive advice, guidance and requirements that will need to be adhered to (including a 47-page document from OIC). However, getting this right is crucial if the Trust are to reopen the YM in the foreseeable future.
Going forward, it is the Trust’s intention to employ a part-time (temporary)
development officer to pull together and implement all the necessary health and safety policies and risk assessments to ensure the YM is fit for purpose and Covid 19 compliant. In addition, the post holder, in consultation, with the community will also be required to develop options for the continued utilisation of the YM.

The Trust does not intend to manage the YM in the long-term, so will be actively exploring options to e.g. lease/rent the YM to another constituted community group with an interest in developing its use as a community asset. It is hoped that a tender process (overseen by the Board and Community) will result in a group or groups taking over the management of the building and its activities and following an agreed management plan. All community groups will be welcome to apply including those that have supported the YM in the past.

Successful non-constituted groups will be given help to form an appropriate
constituted body if required. The Trust will remain committed to supporting whatever group takes on the YM, including financially.

The Trust’s current Trustees Liability Insurance (which they are required to take out by the turbine loan provider), does not include cover for food or alcohol being sold/consumed at events. This restriction also applied to the former YM committee as a sub-group of the Trust and meant that from last year the committee could not run their own bar or provide food cooked on the premises at any event. A separate constituted group would not be constrained by these restrictions thus enhancing their activities and ability to raise funds to support the YM.
New and challenging times require new plans and ways of working if the YM is to have any future as a facility for the Community post-covid.

Background information regarding the YM
In July 2012, a public meeting was held, hosted by Edwina Lloyd of VAO, to
discuss the situation whereby the South Walls & Brims Community Association (SWBCA) who then ran the YM, had an old Trust deed which the committee was concerned about in terms of their legal liability and a decision needed to be made as to whether the YM committee should become an incorporated body or whether they should become a sub-group of the Trust. After a discussion in which Edwina explained all the options, the public present at the meeting voted on the options and it was decided that the SWBCA would be dissolved and become part of the IoHDT. The decision was partly based on the Big Lottery funding available to the IoHDT for capital works on the Community Hall and partly based on the Committee no longer having legal liability. From this point the IoHDT took over ownership of the hall, and the legal liability for the hall and its operations. The YM committee being a sub-group of the Trust no longer has a separate constitution.

If anyone has any questions please contact Debs chair.iohdt@gmail.com, or
Moira mcossar@btinternet.com or Ian iandavidson950@gmail.com

Island of Hoy Development Trust
Registered in Scotland as a charity (SC038909)
Company Limited by guarantee (SC306586)
Registered Office: 8 Albert Street, Kirkwall, Orkney KW15 1HP
Revenge, Naval Hall, Longhope, Orkney, KW16 3PG
Telephone 01856 701356