Aldbourne’s youth and community centre – known to all as Community Junction – was opened last September but still carries a £25,000 loan which badly needs paying off. So the Aldbourne Youth Council which runs the centre have organised a grand auction of promises – and some of the items you can bid for are truly amazing.
The auction takes place at a gala evening on Saturday, May 10 at the Aldbourne Memorial Hall with a welcome reception and a dinner. It is a ticket only evening, but bids can be made before the event using the bid forms that are available to download from the Youth Council website – see below.
The conversion of the building in the Square cost £220,000 and took 17 months to complete. There were 200 years of interior additions including potential asbestos, collapsing walls and a mere 100 tons of the main chimney to get rid of.
Community Junction was opened by Brian Kingham whose family trust helped establish the centre. It was Brian Kingham who joined with Robert Hiscox to save Marlborough’s White Horse Bookshop.
The centre includes a one bedroom holiday let, a charity shop, a chill zone for over 13s and a community area with outside space. The community area is used by numerous clubs and groups – providing space for everything from pilates to French lessons and from dressmaking sessions to ukulele classes.
Aldbourne’s Youth Council is for youth, run by youth with adult support. When Wiltshire Council leader, Jane Scott visited the centre in January she told the Council: “The Community Junction is one of the best examples of true cross generational community working that I have seen in the county.”
“It shows what can be delivered when a village like Aldbourne gets together with a vision and a determination to deliver that vision. Congratulations to all concerned, I wish every village in Wiltshire had their own version of the ‘Junction’.”
Among the items to be auctioned are a day at Royal Ascot (you have to provide the necessary formal dress), a box for 10 at the Royal Albert hall, lunch for eight at The Folly in the grounds of Aldbourne Chase House, a flight for two in a Cessna, a day’s use of a Barnes Coach (a 14 or 49 seater – with driver), a week in a luxury villa in Turkey (you have to get there), tea for two at the Ritz (don’t forget to wear a tie), two tickets for Mamma Mia, and coffee with Angus Maclennan at the reopened and refurbished White Horse Bookshop.
If there is money left over after paying off the loan, it will go towards the refurbishment of the much used BMX track which is feeling its age. It was opened in 2006.
The full list of items in the auction and the programme for the gala event can be downloaded from the Youth Council’s site – together with the all-important bidding slip.
Further details are available from Hazel Keen on 07717 194 335 or via email to secretary@aldbourneyouthcouncil.co.uk
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