Hi Stephen,
we’re a Boarding School with sporting facilities, a large auditorium and a gymnasium so we hire out pretty regularly. It lives with our Admin Manager as a function of their role. Cleaning, security etc are all factored into the cost when we quote it out, being a boarding school, we can also offer catering.
We’ve never had issues with significant damage but we are also careful about who we’re hiring out to – eg no 18th birthday parties
Our biggest determining factor is that it cannot interfere with normal school use so the majority of the hires are in holiday times (regional rugby carnivals, hosting touring groups in our boarding houses, even playschool on stage in our auditorium!) or it is built into the contract, (eg the local basketball club want to train in our gym, it’s only available on days/times we don’t need it) – hire rate basically covers our costs of cleaning, staff admin time etc
The primary purpose for us is about engagement with important community groups for branding or direct enrolment benefit – ie hosting the regional rugby carnival means Mum and Dad are seeing our facilities in between Johnny playing his games and our sport staff might spot a big talent they want to recruit. Similarly, having Playschool put on a concert in our Auditorium means those Mums and Dads who will be looking for a primary school in a few years time will be exposed to our school early in their journey.
