Community Hall Equipment Inventory

Who this is for

What the hall owns, cupboard by cupboard. Each line says how many there are, what they are worth, what condition they are in and whether they belong to the hall or to a group that uses it.

Trustees, committee members and caretakers of village halls, scout huts, church rooms and community centres — the people who have to renew the insurance and answer the hirer who says a dozen chairs have gone.

What this helps you track

• What the hall holds, from stacking chairs to urns, and which store it lives in
• How many of each there are, so a hirer's count can be checked against a record
• The replacement value of the contents, for the insurance renewal
• Whether an item belongs to the hall or to a group that stores kit there
• The condition of each line, so the committee can plan replacements

How to use it

1. Fill the header with the hall, the address, who is doing the count and the date.
2. Go store by store — main hall, kitchen, chair store, loft — and give each type of item a line with the quantity held.
3. Say who the item belongs to. Halls accumulate equipment owned by user groups, and the insurance question is different for those.
4. Enter a value per item on the basis your insurer uses, and note that basis at the foot. No values are supplied here.
5. The line values, totals and summary are calculated in the browser and the workbook; on paper, multiply across each line and total the column.
6. Take the sheet to the committee meeting before the insurance renewal, and re-count after any large event.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser
• Excel / Google Sheets workbook

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The workbook uses plain formulas only — SUM, IF, COUNTIF and the like — so it opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets without anything breaking, and every calculated cell is grey so you can see which figures it worked out.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Should equipment owned by user groups be listed?

List it, and use the belongs-to column to mark it. It is stored on your premises and will be missed if it disappears, but the cover and the responsibility for it may sit with the group rather than the hall.

How often is a count worth doing?

That is for the committee to decide — most halls tie it to the insurance renewal or the annual meeting. What matters more than the frequency is that the count is dated and signed, so the next one has something to compare against.

What about crockery and cutlery?

Count it in sets or by the dozen and say which in the item column. Nobody counts two hundred teaspoons twice, but 'crockery, approx 8 dozen' on a dated sheet is still worth having.

Is there somewhere to record what needs replacing?

The condition column, and the notes area at the foot for the detail. Anything marked poor is the list the committee should be looking at when the budget is set.