About Us
Marshland St James and District Community & Sports Centre
Marshland Hall opened in 2018.
Previously Marshland St James was served by the well-loved Jubilee Hall.
The Pavilion on the Playing Field site provided sports changing rooms.
Sadly time had overlooked these buildings so a group of residents joined together to fund raise and build what you see today.
The Big Lottery Reaching communities worked with the Committee becoming the major funder. Marshland Hall and Tea Room are grateful to a number of other grant funders whose names are on display in the foyer. Especially the people and businesses of Marshland St James.
The old sports pavilion dated to ca1945, was of concrete/asbestos construction. It was badly dilapidated and barely fit for purpose (it had no showers/toilets, only a small changing area (single sex use only), is not insulated, has no heating, and no hot water.
In order to build the Marshland Hall (MDCSC) was set up as a Registered Charity, established in April 2013 (Registered Charity No:1155766) with representatives of the Parish Council, the Jubilee Hall and the Playing Field committees. It has the following objects:
‘To establish and run a community centre and shop, to provide and maintain a recreation and sports ground, in the interests of social welfare and with the object of improving the conditions of life of the inhabitants of Marshland St James and District’.
Our Vision: Our vision sees MDCSC as the beating heart of our community, providing an essential, vibrant, inclusive, accessible, sustainable, and safe facility that is used, valued and supported by the people of Marshland St James and the surrounding area.
Our Mission: Our mission is to promote, enable and facilitate inclusive activities which embrace and address the education, training, employment, welfare, health and well-being, social, cultural, sporting and recreational needs of all the members of our community.
We aim to: Improve the conditions of life of the people of Marshland St James by addressing five main issues in the village:
- Social isolation within the elderly population
Education, helping local people gain new skills and qualifications, improving their life chances and access to employment - Encouraging local people to become more involved in sport and fitness, improving health, wellbeing and thereby reducing inactivity and obesity
- Helping local children and young people make new friends, develop social and practical skills, improving relationships and their confidence
- Sustaining village life and community relations. To do this we must:
Keep the MDCSC facilities available, well-maintained, accessible and safe for the use of all local people - Enable a range of social, welfare, educational, training, development, health and wellbeing, recreational, cultural and sporting activities to take place at MDCSC which responds to the needs of all local people
Provide good quality services to our users
Consult with, and be responsive to the needs of, the local community
Be financially sustainable
Our Trustees
John Askew
David Gathercole
Brian Long
Jeremy Wilkinson
Josh Green
Tim Jones
Neil Watson
Thank you to all our donors!
“The Marshland Hall & Tearoom has been built by a trust and is run by the trust.”
Marshland St James and District Community and Sports Centre thanks the following donors for their generous support for the construction of Marshland Hall.
Paul Bassham Charitable Trust (£5,000)
Big Lottery Fund (£703,000)
Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Small Grants Scheme (£10,000)
Foyle Foundation (£7,500)
The Robert Hall Charity (£7,500)
The Hudson Foundation (£7,500)
Shelroy Charitable Trust Fund (£3,000)
Sport England (£65,000)
The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation (£10,000)
Tesco Bags of Help (£8,000)
The Trusthouse Charitable Foundation (£45,000)
The Geoffrey Watling Charity (£7,500)
Garfield Weston Foundation (£20,000)
WREN (£37,886.80)
The People and Businesses of Marshland St. James (£27,000)