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We've been successful with our bid to the BIG Lottery, Reaching
Communities Fund
(www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/). The £55,125
granted by the fund (all we
asked for) will be available over four years starting mid-June of this
year (2010). The major part of the money is provided to
enable us
to take on a builder to provide the toilets indoors, a new kitchen and
to divide the former classroom to create an upstairs (mezanine) and a
downstairs. We expect work to begin very soon and (because
the
classroom and kitchen space is still in use by the RSME) it will extend
well into 2011. After these two years (ish) of building, we
want
to develop the activities in and around the hall (we'll be looking for
yet more funding and other support) to strengthen our community and
achieve the basics of a vibrant village centre. For example
we
hope to improve on the playground facilities, provide indoor sporting
equipment, provide some community computing facilities and where
possible get extra
Click here to read the
BUSINESS
PLAN -
what's our overall intention
A
strategy for turning the former school building into a hall for our
community is set out in the business plan. This plan will
form the basis for fund raising over the coming months and sets out the
changes we expect to be able to make and the sequence in which we hope
they will occur. Approximate costs are included, as is the
strategy for finding the money to do the work. Because
funding bodies are concerned to foster communities and are happier to
provide funds for projects which strengthen them, we have called our
project 'A Community Hub for Gilling East'.
At last the former
village
school in Gilling seems set to be reborn as our village hall.
Little-used for many years, the ownership of the building has
been uncertain and it has fallen into disrepair. However,
legal
issues are at long last resolved so that the Church is now able to
lease the building to the Gilling Village Hall Management Committee
for
community use. Longstanding tenants of part of the building,
but
mostly concerned with their model railway track in the grounds, The
Ryedale
Society of Model
Engineers has also formalised its occupancy of
the site and the stage looks set for a unique and mutually beneficial
relationship.
Gilling Village Hall
Management
Committee
is registered as a charity so that it can take advantage of
the many funding opportunities currently available to generate cash to
bring the building and its facilities up to a modern standard.
Grants, together with fund-raising in the village and perhaps
some sponsorship, should enable us to create a Hall which will bring a
new focus for the communities of Gilling, Cawton, Grimston and Coulton.
Whether you're a badminton player, need a hall for a birthday
party or wedding celebration, or are just happy to join in a relaxing
coffee morning, the hall will be available. We look forward
to
hearing your views as to what should be our priorities for the
refurbishment.
In
short - watch this
space!
The floor is back!
Under-floor heating pipes
laid
Beginning to hose on the
screed Screed
floor complete
NEWS
February 2011
Did
your pipes freeze over Christmas? The
ones outside the Village Hall did as you probably noticed if you walked by in
the days after the New Year when the thaw came!
However, inside the hall the temperature stayed comfortable thanks to
the under-floor heating provided by the ground-source heat pump. If you’re sceptical about these new-fangled
devices (as I sometimes am) you’d have expected that when the ground outside was
so hard frozen with exceptionally low temperatures (coldest December since the
Vikings came I heard), there’d be precious little heat available to be had in
the ground. If the system were going to
struggle it would have been over the last month! Well it didn’t! The nice warm hall was ideal for work to
progress indoors adding insulation to the walls and, I’m very pleased to
report, to the ceiling, making the heating system even more effective. We hope the main hall walls and ceiling will
be clad and plastered within the coming weeks, a really significant
achievement, perhaps we’ll even be able to use the hall soon (when we’ve
connected up the loos)!
Work
has started on the floor of the ‘classroom’ and the former kitchen. The old wooden surface is taken up and much
of the underlying concrete is removed ready to install the final phase of the
under-floor heating. Then, the second
phase of the lottery funded work can begin.
Very quickly in the spring we hope the new (mezzanine) floor will be
added and the new kitchen built. We’ve
changed our plans as to the siting of the kitchen. It will now be part of the ground floor space
at the end of the building and the former RSME kitchen will become a store
room. We hope the revised kitchen plan
will enable us to create a café atmosphere.
With the old screen closed, (yes we plan to retain it), there will be a
nice area for coffee and a chat – very important. We think the changed kitchen location will
also make it better for functions.
Our
fund-raising effort is now concentrated on replacement windows for the
‘classroom’ end of the building (about £4000), floor coverings (£4000ish) and
new lighting for the main hall (£?), and we need paint and tiles (how much
paint do you need to paint the walls and ceiling of the hall?). Outside we’re progressing with the bid for
funds for the second phase of the playground (for younger children). Then we’ll need sport equipment, crockery,
projector and screen, computers and …………
March 2011
It’s
hard to remember when we started work on changing the old school to make a
village hall. Looking back, I’ve got
minutes of meetings from March 2004, but I know things began long before
then! However, that’s almost seven
years, a long time! In the early days we
met and talked about surveys to see if the building was safe, then it all
seemed to be about digging trenches and getting muddy. The next ‘phase’ seemed to involve breaking
concrete, carting it away and laying more!
Only recently does it seem as if we began to put things back together
again. Or should I say ‘professionals’
started putting it back together again.
Now toilets are installed, the main hall is plastered and looking
impressive and by the time you read this the building of the new upper floor in
the former classroom will be well on the way and the kitchen being
installed. It’s beginning to look as if
we might actually be able to use the building soon! Perhaps it’s indicative of the stage we’ve
reached and the progress we’ve made that concerns are now about regulations –
fire regs, access regs etc!
Following
a very productive period of funding success we’re now set clear to install the new
windows in the classroom and in the dormer window on the south face of the
building, hopefully the toilets will soon be connected to the mains sewer and
of course the ‘classroom’ end of the building (upper floor and kitchen) is
going ahead. So what next? Well, we’ve got a price for floor coverings
for the whole building and we’ve been checking out the price of paint (some
painting is already done in the toilet corridor). Choosing the colour scheme for the hall is
causing some difficulty; if you have any thoughts please pass them to one of
us!
We
expect to be able to hold more events in and around the hall as the spring
turns to summer. The recent quiz night
at the Fairfax
was very successful generating welcome income.
Watch out for another quiz night date! Also
we’ll be organising an AGM
(don’t worry, not too much boring stuff and there may be some ‘refreshments’)
as soon as we can get the hall tidied up.
April 2011
Did
you by any chance see a lorry with a large iron girder moving down past the Fairfax and on to Pottergate? It was about five metres long and half a metre
high (the girder I mean). I missed its
arrival and before I knew, as if by magic, this great lump of steel was inside
the village hall – no windows broken, no walls knocked down, how was it
done? Well, if you saw the girder (beam)
being manoeuvred into the hall you probably realised that it was the main support
for the new upper floor being built in the former classroom end of the
building. Now firmly located across the
width of the old classroom, the beam is ready to support the joists which will
form the new floor. Very soon the
structure will be complete and work on the kitchen and cafeteria area will be
taking shape. No sooner had the beam
arrived in the hall than the new windows in the classroom were installed. This is the second stage of the main window
replacement with only the ‘dormer’ windows to go (we’ll be sorting out the
small widows along the roadside eventually).
We have to lay the under-floor heating in that end of the building and
we also expect the drains to be laid to connect the toilets, then it’s all
systems go for completion of much of the remaining major work. By summer we should be able to use the hall
for some events.
Now
we’re turning our minds to tasks such as painting the walls and ceiling (any
rock climbers who fancy painting whilst swinging on ropes in the hall are very
welcome to volunteer), and finishing off small bits of work inside and outside. Covering the floors is a major cost which
must wait until the painting is done; we’re currently looking for some grant
support to meet the cost of this. Soon
the hall will be in a usable condition and our thoughts will need to turn from
construction and refurbishment to running and maintaining it. Hopefully, when we reach a more operational
stage more villagers will be able to join in and participate. We’re always keen to have more members on the
management committee, and as we change to running rather than building it will
be good to have some new blood. We’ll
also be looking for a band of ‘helpers’ to be called ‘Friends of Gilling East
Village Hall’ – but more of this later.
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