CROWLE community groups met at the village's Millennium Parish Hall to launch a new phase of their charity fundraising activities.

They will include a jumble sale at the hall on Saturday, March 9 from 2pm until 3.30pm to help pay to refurbish the 24-year-old hall.

Their efforts will also boost reserves towards a £48,500 'Going Green' project with sister venue Platinum Hall which will complete both building's journeys to zero on-site CO2 production.

Children from Crowle Pre-School, who use the Millennium Hall every weekday as well as members of other regular user groups Crowle Players and the Scouts and Taekwondo, are aiming the jumble sale there will raise a significant amount towards the £7,500 needed for new flooring and new chairs.

Already £24,000, raised from hiring the venue, fundraising activities and payments from its solar panels, has been used to replace the Millennium Hall’s drafty and leaking timber windows with high-quality, thermally-broken double glazing.

Next, the ‘Going Green’ project, for which grants are also being applied for, will improve wall and roof insulation at the hall, add a further 6kW of solar panels alongside its existing 4kW solar panel system, replace its original oil-fired boiler with air source heat pumps and fit local electric water heaters in the changing rooms to reduce pipework heat loss and LED light fittings will replace remaining high-energy lights.

The ‘Going Green’ project will also buy a battery for each of the Millennium and Platinum Halls for solar panels to charge and reduce further needs for mains electric.