What would guidelines be on parish houses/centres/halls?
Steverzwijn-PGO
Posts: 10 ✭✭
I’ve been trying to get a local parish house approved for quite some time now, but it always gets rejected. Curiously, I’ve been seeing more parish house submissions lately as well.
I did some research, but can’t find any guidelines specific to a parish house. It does meet certain criteria based on its cultural, historical and social value, but I think it lacks a clear general guideline in order to make it ‘100%’ eligible or ineligible (100% is relative of course). I found a lot of accepted ones in my research, but that still doesn’t give any clearance on the subject.
The one I submitted looks a lot like a private house, since it used to be the priests house back in the 20th century. (Thus, one of the rejection reasons often is ‘Private property’, besides that it doesn’t meet acceptance criteria.) Now, it’s a parish house where activities take place like card nights and lectures, and it has a grass field for kids to play. It also has the name of the Parish house displayed.
What do you guys think?
@NianticCasey-ING could this be something to make a guideline clarification on?
Answers
If it still houses members of clergy for their primary residence, I would still avoid nominating it.
You've listed several reasons why you believe it is eligible. In your nomination, include as much of that information as possible. Personally, I would avoid stating "this is non private residential," as some reviewers vote against what that are told to do, but you can write something like "Originally built to house priests, this building is no longer residential and only used as an events hall and educational programs for the congregation, as well as community outreach and open events for the general public."
A few things that may hold reviewers back is not understanding what a parishioner house is, interpreting it as a private residential property, or not understanding the values it provides. Address those as best as you can in your description and substantiation.
Niantic clarification would help, but it may have too many details involved to explain it clearly in worldwide guidelines. If it is not used as active housing for clergy, I see them as having little difference from general events halls and community centers that are typically eligible.
Thanks for the answer! It’s no longer a private residence. I also try to avoid being to direct to the reviewers in any additional info, but tried to describe it similarly to what you suggested. I also provided a url link with more info on it, but I don’t know if it was opened of course.
And you’re right about the difficulty to make a worldwide general guideline on it. I think the misunderstanding of what it is, is indeed the biggest trouble for my nomination. Thanks for the advice again!
Have you got the URL for it please
Sorry, missed your comment! This is the link that I included in the supportive description: https://www.uitinvlaanderen.be/agenda/a/t-huis-de-tooren/3d3e8b12-a74b-480c-b9f9-1887b69b8583
This was the only thing I could find that could provide additional info. The parish house doesn’t have a website of its own, and all activities are just posted on this page and show up on the electronic info sign in the town’s centre, or on posters spread over the town.
I've submitted a few and had them approved, though in those cases the building was not and had not ever been a residence.
I simply stated what the building was used for and why it was important to the church community and local community.
Yeah, but you should check out the link I posted. It has a picture of the house. It was a house once, so it also looks like a regular house. What distinguishes it from a house is the name of the parish house on the window, and opening hours on the door window. I submitted a few times with that window in the support pic, but it didn’t help.
Can you try submitting the window with the Parish name as the Main picture instead of the support photo? Often times when people see a building without an easily identifiable sign as the main pic, they tend to be skeptical (especially when it looks like a regular house)
I did that with the first submissions, but then switched over to a wider view to give that a try. It was now, again, rejected for the only reason of being private property, but it isn’t.
Parish Houses/Halls are 5* candidates for me.
These are recreation centers that are property of the Church Community, where the town organizes just about all community events.
This could be the school using it to host a party, boy scouts renting it to sell christmas trees, town organizing end of year concerts, uses as the Start/End location for local sporting events etc.
But since you need to rent it out, there are Reviewers who reject it as "Generic Business". Our local one was already rejected 4 times due to this.
The one I submitted is a small one (very small town lol) that once served as a priest house, but it’s an important aspect of the church commune here.
I think people don’t care about my description, nor the supportive info. They can even look it up via a link to validate that it’s not prp. Yet, it keeps on getting rejected for the one and only reason that it’s prp. I tried to upload a pic here to show, but it doesn’t work.
I tried that, I used this picture.
I tried that.
That’s the one I used for my first submissions.
This was the one I used as supportive photo.
And this is my latest attempt.
My description is (this is translated from dutch):
Parish house of the St. Pieter and -Pauwel parish from XXX. Once a priest house, now a community house for young and old where activities take place on a regular base. It’s an important aspect of the local church commune.
Support:
Originally built as a priest house, this building is no longer a private residence and is used for community purposes only. This parish house is property of the town and 'de Kerkfabriek' and has a lot of cultural and community significance. The name is on the window and the grey sign left. Location, more info and activities: https://www.uitinvlaanderen.be/agenda/a/t-huis-de-tooren/3d3e8b12-a74b-480c-b9f9-1887b69b8583
That first one was a good quality nomination. I think you're getting screwed over by bad reviewers on that. Is there street view visible of the parish house?
Yep, you can even see the grey sign and read the text on streetview. Guess I’m gonna keep on trying, but eventually I’ll lose I think. I’m from Belgium, small country, so changes are high it gets reviewed by the same reviewers over and over again. They probably aren’t bothered with reading the whole thing and just look at the picture.