WiM 2013 Venue Proposal:
Bromley Methodist Church
Venue name:
Bromley Methodist Church
Location:
Bromley, Greater London / Kent (BR1 3NS)
Proposed by:
Sarai Woollins (linked to church)
Jonny Dao (London Rev)
Matt Truscott (Tech)
Why BMC would be awesome for WiM:
 It’s in a brilliant location – really easy to get to and close to all the amenities we could need
 The building itself is ideal – lots of large rooms, including 3 kitchen areas!
 When we e-mailed the Minister to ask about potentially holding WiM there, her immediate
response was ‘When do you want to come?’!!
 One of the primary focuses of the church is outreach and involvement with the community, so
they are very keen to support events for young people (like WiM)
 BMC is keen on promoting involvement in worship by all church-goers by encouraging
everyone to ‘have a go’, which is very similar to the A&V ‘Drawing out hidden talents’
 During the Easter holidays there are almost no activities at the church (apart from a weekly AA
meeting, which BMC never cancels – fair enough!)
 There are concerts there (Salvation Army, etc.) fairly regularly, which are generally quite well
attended by the BMC congregation
 Sarai has close links with the church so they feel confident that Rev is a trustworthy group &
are happy to pretty much let us get on with it
 BMC has close links with several churches in the area, where the concert could be promoted
 There are two possible performance areas which are nice shapes so hopefully not too stressful
for the tech team!
 The church has 2 normal pianos, a grand piano and an organ which they’re happy for us to
use.
About BMC
Bromley Methodist Church’s mission is to:
 Ensure that there is a welcome at BMC for everyone, whether religious or not
 Come together as a loving community with Jesus Christ at the centre, thus
discovering new meaning, purpose and joy in life
 Bring together people from a wide variety of backgrounds in friendship and
fellowship
 Encourage young people to grow in themselves and in Christ
 Contribute to the community through outreach
 Encourage and support one another in developing our religious understanding,
personal skills and relationships with God
 Support members, friends and visitors in their highs and lows
 Provide visitors with an introduction to Christian morals, beliefs and practices
BMC is a large church just outside the centre of Bromley, 12 miles from central London. It is a
modern church (they knocked down the beautiful old stone one to build a shopping centre!!) which
means it is spacious and very practical for large group activities.
BMC is part of the local Methodist circuit and also of the Bromley Central Ecumenical Parish, thus
having links with lots of other churches. These links with other churches, of a wide range of
denominations, are very important to BMC’s members and joint services, social events and
fundraisers are a common occurrence.
From a personal point of view, the reason we knew of BMC as a potential WiM venue is because I
(Sarai) have been a member of the congregation there for over 20 years. My mum and I joined the
church not because we were Methodists but because the congregation were so friendly – and this
has continued to be the case ever since. The leadership team and members of the church are very
welcoming to visitors and everyone I have spoken to at BMC about WiM has been really excited
about the prospect of our potential visit, with many of them asking when the concert would be so
that they can put it into their diaries! So aside from the practicality of the venue, I think the attitude
of the congregation would make it a fantastic, friendly place for us to hold WiM 2013!
Facilities & venue map
Downstairs
Stairs
Large
kitchen
Stage
Epworth hall
Foyer
Small kitchen
Hall
Office
x5
Vine
chapel
Concourse
x5
Vestry
Rear
foyer
Main chapel
Utility
room
Stage
Upstairs
Tea & coffee
making area
Doors (all can be locked)
Fire exits
Wesley hall
Serving hatches with
shutters (can be locked
closed)
---Lounge
Widmore
room
Sliding doors (can be
locked closed)
Kitchen cupboards
forming tea & coffee
making area
Stairs
NOT TO SCALE
Downstairs
 Main chapel – with organ, piano, projector & PA system
 Vine chapel – small chapel with piano
 Large hall – with stage, stage lighting & attached toilets (1 men’s & 1 women’s)
 Epworth hall – medium sized hall with piano & option to divide hall in 2 with dividing doors
 Large kitchen – with 2 large ovens, fridge, freezer, microwave, urn, kettles, 2 main sinks, 1
disabled access sink & plentiful supply of cooking equipment, crockery, etc.
 Small kitchen – with oven, fridge-freezer, microwave, urn & kettles
 Concourse – with chairs & tables
 Office – lockable & with photocopiers which could be used (at a small cost)
 Men’s toilets x5
 Women’s toilets x5
 Disabled toilet
 Entrance foyer
 Rear foyer
 Utility room
 Vestry (this is the only room to which no access would be available)
Upstairs
 Wesley hall – medium sized hall with small kitchen tea/coffee making area & option to
divide hall in 2 with dividing doors
 Widmore room – smaller room
 Lounge
 1 men’s & 1 women’s toilet
Outdoors
 2 small garden areas
 Large car park which can be locked at night
Potential WiM uses of rooms
 Main chapel – Performance
 Vine chapel – Rehearsal space
 Large hall – Rehearsal space / sleeping room / eating room – this is a large enough room that
it would probably be possible to eat/rehearse at one end & leave beds out at the other end.
It also has a plentiful supply of chairs & tables for eating
 Epworth hall – Rehearsal space / sleeping room
 Large kitchen – Preparing & serving meals
 Small kitchen – Serving breakfast
 Concourse – Breakfast area (it has plenty of chairs & tables and is attached to a separate
small kitchen so no-one would have to get up to allow others to eat – hurrah!)
 Office – admin/instrument storage
 Wesley hall – Late night room (nice to be well away from sleeping rooms & able to make tea
& coffee in there)
 Widmore room – Prayer room
 Lounge – Chill out room
NB: It may not be ideal having the prayer & chill out rooms near the late night room. Possibly they
could be reshuffled with the vine chapel – but that would be a good rehearsal space as it
already has a piano. Or maybe the Vine Chapel could be a prayer/quiet room as well as a
rehearsal space, with the Lounge being a day time chill out room?? Just a few ideas though –
obviously the WiM Co & Base Co would be able to choose room uses as they wished!
Location
9 miles to M25 (one straight road!)
Key
Bromley Methodist Church
Restaurants
(Zizzi, Nando’s, Pizza Express, Ask, Chimichanga, Noodle Bar, Curry house, Mexican, La Pasta Italian,
Wetherspoon’s, Chinese, Greek…. There are lots more which aren’t marked!)
Gyms/swimming pool/bowling alley – with showers
(There are also several other smaller gyms with showers in the central Bromley area)
Local churches with which BMC has links (potential venues for Sunday morning singing)
Potential busking venues (2 parks & the pedestrianised area of the high street – all very busy)
Railway stations (duh!)
Bus stops nearest to the church and railway stations
Supermarkets
Poundland, Wilkinsons & Primark (vital for all those random bits & bobs!)
Getting to BMC
By car
The church is less than 10 miles (pretty much along one straight road) from junction 4 of the M25.
By train
Bromley is in Transport for London zone 5 and has two railway stations:
Bromley South station is 15min by direct train from London Victoria. There is a train approximately
every 5 minutes on weekdays and at least every half an hour at weekends. Trains run in both
directions from around 5am until gone midnight daily. There are also trains to and from Kent
approximately every 30min.
From Bromley South station there are over 10 buses which go directly past BMC, stopping opposite
the church. These take approximately 5min to get to BMC and run at least every 5min.
Bromley North Station is 45-60min by train from London Charing Cross, London Bridge and London
Waterloo, with one change required. Trains run on this route around every 15min, from 5am until
midnight from Monday to Saturday. Trains do not run to Bromley North Station on Sundays, but it is
a 10min drive/bus ride to Grove Park Station, from where it is possible to get a train to London
Charing Cross, London Bridge and London Waterloo seven days a week. Alternatively, trains run
from Bromley South Station every day.
From Bromley North Station it is a 2min walk to BMC.
By coach
London Victoria coach station (for National Express coaches) is a 10min walk from London Victoria
railway station. From there it is a 15min train journey to London, as detailed above.
Other people’s comments
Well I’m likely to think the venue’s brilliant, because a) I suggested it and b) it’s been my church for
the last 2 decades! But don’t just take her word for it – Jonny and Matt have been to look round the
church too and this is what they have to say:
Jonny Dao
Jonny, as a member of BMC’s most local Rev (London), came to visit BMC and, after seeing it,
volunteered to be a ‘joint-proposer’ of the venue with me. As a previous WiM Co and and seven-time
WiMmer, his views are much more expert than mine!
Let's see - Bromley Methodist Church would make a most excellent WiM venue, because the church
is HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE for starters. It boasts easy access via front and back ways, church area
(square!) that can only be entered in via one doorway (so if tech needed to do work early, it
eliminates any possible hindrance to accessing any chill-out/prayer areas. Speaking of which, the
Vine Chapel is located just outside the church area itself and would be perfect for either prayer
space or chillout area AND is large enough to hold a sectional rehearsal. This also holds one (of
three) pianos - the others are located in the church area, and somewhere on the ground floor.
There's one large kitchen and one smaller kitchen - both have their hatches for easy serving and selffilling hot water tanks for ease of making tea (always a plus point). The larger one has two hatches,
one that opens up to a rather large hall area - which has its own stage area and is large enough to
hold meal-times here (perhaps a possible cabaret night venue) - and one that opens up to another
room which can divide in two (could potentially be a splinter or sectional rehearsal venue?) - and is
well stocked with chairs and tables. Oh, and the large kitchen houses a fridge, freezer, dishwasher,
oven and hot shelf trolley :) The immediate area between the smaller kitchen and the church has a
breakfast bar area that could prove useful for serving breakfast each morning.
The first floor you can access from the front door landing and has several other rooms, one large
room that has its own bar area and water tank that can serve similar purposes for tea making
especially. There's also an insane amount of room to hold rehearsal time in among other activities.
There're several other smaller rooms, one which could act as another chill-out space (one which
normally holds comfy chairs), and one (the Wesley room) which is a potential meeting room. Also,
there are plenty of areas for storage, which can be locked.
As far as the local area's concerned, BMC is very well served with superb transport links, being a few
seconds away from Bromley North station, but is easily accessible from Bromley South (the latter
can be reached in 20 minutes or so from London Victoria (and sometimes London Bridge) rail
stations). There's a Sainsbury's just 10 seconds away on foot from BMC and a little further, there's
also a myriad of eating places, including Chimichanga, Nandos, a noodle bar, Subway, McDonald’s,
Pizza Express and Wetherspoon’s. Also less than 15 minutes’ walk away there’s a Boots and a gym
located within a shopping mall, which will prove useful for shower time. There are also potential
busking areas and a Baptist church, C of E church and at least one other church which are within
walking distance and have great relations with BMC, so spreading the word would be a cinch.
Matt Truscott
After the technical dramas of WiM 2012, Matt came along to visit BMC to give a technical opinion of
the chapel….
From a technical perspective, the church provides everything we need to hold a WiM concert. There
is a good amount of space for the choir and band and movable seating to provide us with more
space when setting up. There are also sufficient power outlets for the PA system and the rest of the
tech gear. From an acoustic perspective, although the church has a slight amount of reverb, the
room is a regular shape, which means compensating for this should be not a significant problem like
it was at WiM 2012. It’s also a good venue generally, with lots of space both indoors and for parking.
Photos
You should be warned that BMC’s upstairs kitchen recently had a bit of an issue with a burst pipe –
resulting in complete chaos downstairs! So the beautifulness of the photos is somewhat hampered
by the presence of dehumidifiers, plastic sheets and pipes and the absence of flooring! But
hopefully you’ll get an idea of the spaces – and the repairs are already underway so obviously the
venue will be back to normal by WiM-time!
Main chapel
Organ
Vine Chapel
Piano
Piano
Large hall
Toilets attached to large hall
Kitchen serving hatch into large hall
Stage in large hall (Cabaret??)
Epworth Hall
Not usually a storage area!
Concourse & small kitchen
Serving hatch from kitchen into Epworth hall
Large kitchen
Not usually full of pipes!
1 of 2 cookers
2nd cooker & 1 of 2 urns
2nd urn & 1 of 2 serving hatches
Dishwasher! 
Looking into the large hall through the serving hatch
Some other downstairs areas
Main toilets (5 men’s, 5 women’s, 1 disabled)
Wesley room
Main entrance foyer
Slightly chaotic at the moment!
The kitchen area which has caused all the problems!
Widmore room
These tables & chairs could be moved & we could use the noticeboard & whiteboard
Lounge
Normally carpeted & with comfy chairs!
Other upstairs areas
Another noticeboard which we could use
Toilets (1 men’s, 1 women’s)
Upstairs foyer/corridor – and Sarai! 
Outside
BMC (& Mavis going for coffee)
Car park (about ¼ of it)
View from the back entrance – that brown
building at the back is Bromley North station!
Literally 2min walk away
Restaurants on a street about 5min walk away Possible busking area