Seen here (L-R), John Passmore Edwards (Jeremy Joslin) and the Institute Trustees: Terry Pinnington (chairman), Mayor John Bennett (treasurer), Jayne Ninnes (deputy mayor), Denis Hollow (deputy chairman), Rev. Richard Selby-Boothroyd, Bill Glanville, Frank Goff, Ray Wyse and Esme Jelbert (secretary and building manager). Thee are more photographs in the Gallery.

The mayor's speech can be read here and John Passmore Edwards's address can be read here.

Wireless broadband will be available in the Institute in June. We expect to get a download speed in excess of 6Mb/s throughout the building.

For more information contact webmaster@hayle-pei.org.uk

Thanks to the kindness of author Dean Evans, we have reprinted the section of his book relating to our building. Dean has just published and updated biography of John Passmore Edwards entitled "Funding the Ladder- the Passmore Edwards Legacy" and copies are now available for sale. To order click here.

To read the section on Hayle, click here.

John Passmore Edwards was born in Cornwall in 1823. He died on April 22nd, 1911.

Throughout Cornwall and the whole country, the centenary of his death will be observed through exhibitions, talks and events intended to highlight the life of this extraordinary philanthropist. His Times obituary recorded:

He did more good in his time than almost any other of his contemporaries.

In Hayle we will be marking the year with a number of activities. In conjunction with Harvey's Foundry Trust and the Hayle Archive we will be preparing an exhibition which will be displayed at the Passmore Edwards Institute in Hayle. The Old Cornwall Society will be inviting Dean Evans, officer of the Passmore Edwards Society and driving force behind the Centenary, to give a lecture and we will be hosting the Cornwall Family History Society in September where you can research your family history and perhaps throw some light on Passmore Edwards' family tree.

For more information see Passmore Edwards Centenary.

At the end of November we were delighted to receive the offer of a grant of £2,000 from the Cooperative Membership Fund to assist us with completion of the work in the Trevail and Trevithick Rooms. This comes at a great time as we need to cover the cost of a heater in the Trevail Room and complete the refurbishment of the Trevithick Room, especially the window frames that need complete replacement.

This is wonderful news and helps us to keep our plans on track.

The team that had run the Hayle Pump, some since its inception in 1994, has generously donated £1,000 to the Passmore Edwards Institute.

The trustees are extremely grateful for this generous donation which helps us to continue our extensive programme of renovations. Thanks to Goudie Charles, Jeff and Sarah Turk, Joy Scott-Mance, Don Metcalf, Brianna Breeze, Valerie Becalick-Ham and Tim Appleton for helping us in our work.

[A new team has now taken over the Hayle Pump and you can find out more at www.haylepump.org.uk.]

Our auction on the 25th September raised over £1,400. This is a lifeline for the Institute because we have been impatient to get work done and have stretched our resources to the limit. On top of the continuous renovations and refurbishment that have now seen every room improved, we also have to buy a heater for the Trevail Room on the ground floor. This will cost nearly £1,000 alone and we cannot fund big expenditures like this out of room hire income alone.
The generous support of the community is also very important to our grant applications where we need to show how much we are backed by the town. This has paid dividends and, in November, we are commencing a £15,000 grant-aided project to restore natural light to the core of the building by installing a Victorian-style ‘lantern’ – just as the architect intended. This all-glass structure was an original feature of the building, but was damaged over 40 years ago by weather. With this major improvement completed, we have only a few more ‘big’ jobs to do and the building will be ready to last through the 21st century.

Thank you to all of you who helped by organising, donating and bidding. A special thanks to Esme for a huge amount of organising and collecting and to our 'resident auctioneer', Harry Blakeley.

Cornishman, 7 October 2010

Thanks to the hard work of our building manager, Esme Jelbert, and to amazing community support, we have raised almost £2,000 at the auction on 29 May 2010 towards our ongoing refurbishment of the building . Thanks also to our honorary auctioneer, Harry Blakeley, for dealing with over 300 items in a lively way.

Auction attendees will have seen the major work being undertaken in the Trevail Room at a cost of many thousands of pounds. The trustees think you will like it when the work is finished.

The AGM for the Institute was held at 6:30pm on 26 February 2010 in the Passmore Edwards Room. The Chairman reported on another successful year and you can read the full report here.

The certified accounts can be read here.

The AGM approved a revised constitution for submission to the Charity Commission. The new constitution is based on the Charity Commission's standard model.

The Institute was delighted to receive a marvellous collage of original art works by members of the Hayle Art Club - longtime users of our rooms.

The collage contains subjects from the local area in a variety of styles and is now proudly displayed in the newly-refurbished Denis Hollow Room.