Workdays at Our Future Home

18 September 2012

Workdays on:

Sat 22 and Sun 23 Sep, 10.00am to 3.00pm
Sat 29 Sep, 12.00 to 5.00pm and Sun 30 Sep, 10.00am to 3.00pm
Sat 6 and Sun 7 Oct, 10.00am to 3.00pm

At the former Hawthorn Junior School, Hawthorn Road West, Cardiff CF14 2FL

UPDATE

Check out the latest photos of our work

We are within a mouse’s whisker of completing the purchase of Hawthorn School in Llandaff North, and have planned three work weekends for the whole Cardiff Steiner community to come along and get involved in helping develop our new, permanent home.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a beautiful light and spacious Victorian school, the oldest public building in Llandaff North, but it has also been closed and boarded up for three years, so needs some refurbishment work and some TLC.

We’ve appointed a main contractor, who should be starting work on 1st October, to get the building up and running in time for our move there in January 2013. We’d like to get in there before the contractors arrive to do some preparation work, and are asking our families, friends and supporters to come along to the workdays and help out.

If our work at St Anne’s is anything to go by it’ll be rewarding stuff – good people, good food, good work, good fun and a huge sense of achievement as we work together towards a common goal.

We’ll be tackling  a range of jobs including:

• De-stapling all the walls, taking off any extraneous bits and pieces, and making surfaces as smooth as possible using fillers where necessary (oh yes…you thought you’d seen the last of the staples at St Anne’s, but do not fear, there are much less than there were at St Anne’s)
• Taking up carpets, using Stanley knives to cut them into manageable pieces; easing up plywood underlay to view underneath and if appropriate taking them up and sawing them into pieces (we need to find out whether there are decent wood floors underneath)
• Spraying weed killer on all areas of weed growth in the garden (weather dependent)
• Removing the bricks around the outside drains, cleaning them, cleaning and /scraping areas of tarmac and spraying with weed killer
• Putting all debris into skip located on the last weekend only.

Some jobs need basic housework/DIY skills only, others require the skills for the job. Enthusiasm is the main thing and training can be given on the day. We’ll provide some ladders, a pressure washer, gloves, weed sprayers, fillers and various tools, but would ask helpers to bring their own pliers, screwdrivers, claw hammers, chisels, scrapers, spades, rakes etc.

Helpers should be aware that working in such buildings can be dangerous and people will need to sign a paper to say that they understand that by coming onto the site they do so at their own risk. That said, we are not doing any particularly onerous or dangerous work. The means of cleaning/washing hands etc may be primitive, but we will have a First Aid box, soap and hand disinfectants. You’ll need to wear sensible/stout shoes, and old/work clothes are essential.

We’d ask you to bring food to share lunch together, and it would be fantastic if some people could volunteer to keep the cups of tea coming and organise the food for the workers.

For safety reasons we cannot allow children on the site, but if anyone is happy to look after children off site then please let us know.

If you think you can come along, it would be useful to know who is coming and when, by emailing ask@cardiffsteiner.org.uk, but we know it can be hard to pin down availability, especially when childcare is involved, so you are equally welcome to drop in over the work days as your time and schedules allow.

Thank you and we look forward to welcoming everyone to our new home!