The ECC Chairs are not a Gift!

When the Town Council was looking to build this community centre one of the groups who signed up was The River Church. To make this formal, a Memorandum of Understanding was agreed. Both sides agreed to the following:

"The PARTNER (The River Church) will commit to the hire of the Eatons Community Centre for a three year period from 15th August 2008 and will provide theatre style chairs for the Main Hall and a projector for the meetings rooms and will be part of the management committee of the centre."

The article is presumably from a press release. In the article the chairs are referred to as "a gift". But the Memorandum of Understanding is an agreement. The River Church gives the chairs and the projector and in return the Town Council has guaranteed the ECC will only be used by the Church on a Wednesday nights and  Sundays.

So in return for some chairs the Church gets a guarantee to use the ECC. Whether at £5,500 over a 3 year period, which works out at £35 a week, is worth this guarantee is a commercial decision by The River Church.

My definition of a gift is: "Something that is bestowed voluntarily and without compensation." Obviously the chairs are part of the Agreement and they are not being bestowed without compensation. The chairs are NOT a GIFT.

Document

Memorandum of Understanding