CASTLE Caereinion Community Hall will have £7,000 worth of improvements made so it can be used for more activities such as music concerts.
The hall is run by the Castle Caereinion Recreation Association who have been awarded £5,000 by the Big Lottery Awards for All scheme, and £2,000 from Can Do: Ideas into Reality, distributed by Powys County Council.
Gary Lowsley, secretary of the Castle Caereinion Recreation Association, said: “We have been very lucky to receive this money. The reason we need it is to make acoustic improvements to the community hall.”
Gary said the hall was built and designed as a multi-purpose hall, which included things like sport, and for that reason had wooden flooring and a high rise ceiling.
“It is a useful and pleasant hall but it is a bit rubbish for things like music events.
"There is a range of activities that it is just not suitable for at the moment and we want to make it available for these events.
"Things like concerts, recitals, poetry readings and film showings and basically anything that requires sound. It should open the scope of the hall,” he said.
The improvements are due to be started in February, and will include the installation of a suspended acoustic raft. Gary is hopeful that by the spring of 2012 the hall will be publicised as being able to hold these events.
“We are very grateful to the Big Lottery Fund and PAVO who have helped us with these applications and helped us get to the position we are in now,” Gary added.
Castle Caereinion Recreation Association joins 39 other community-based projects across Wales sharing in £152,792 awarded under the latest round of the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All small grants programme.
Gareth Williams, Awards for All programme manager for BIG in Wales, said: “Awards for All is having a positive impact throughout Wales.
“Money is helping to establish groups, societies and clubs, promoting learning, increasing volunteering opportunities and helping to build stronger communities.”
Available in English and Welsh, the application form for the programme can be downloaded, completed and e-mailed direct to the Big Lottery Fund as well as being available in hard copy.
Application forms are available from www.awardsforall.org.uk or by phone on 08454 102030.