CLEARING OUT THE CRAP! (PICTURES)
These are early days — the research has yet to be done, the plans drawn up, the old buildings need careful demolition (they have an asbestos roof and support timbers have rotted) and we haven't any money!
But the challenge is there...to create a structure that will house a resource centre, meeting room(s), library, teaching facilities, storage. A building that will use as many energy-saving, "green" construction and operating techniques as possible, that will act as an demonstration of what can be done with a bit of commitment.
So it was
that a bunch of volunteers began the project by emptying the old workshops
of the accumulated stuff that had gathered there before and after the
Sumac Centre took over. Much of it was garbage, but there were materials
that could be recycled, reused, sold, and it all had to be dragged out,
sorted and dealt with without the roof collapsing around our heads.
At times more was "rescued" from the skip than remained in it, as people's scavanging instincts got the better of them. But eventually the skip was so respectably full that a second had to be ordered.
Now we have to try to avoid allowing anything to creep back into the emptied workshops...