Community group sets out to Save the Hall
By Andrew Wagstaff
The Citizen
Thursday, Feb. 2
PARRSBORO – The Parrsboro Citizens Band is not selling its hall. Quite to the contrary, a group of local volunteers has launched a campaign to restore and preserve the historic building as a cultural centre.
Band member Michael Fuller, who is heading up the a new Save the Hall committee of local volunteers, said the Parrsboro Band Association can no longer afford to operate the hall. But they are not giving up on the building just yet.
“The committee has been formed as a part of the band association to look at the possibility of saving the band hall for the future,” said Fuller. “We’re trying to see what kind of public support there is to preserving and restoring the band hall, and eventually make it into a community cultural centre.”
With only three meetings behind them, the committee of Fuller, Colin Curleigh, Bruce Graham, Pam Halstead, Krista Wells, Conrad Byers, Kyle Dinaut, Tim Fedak and Brenda Wheaton has launched a membership drive to build support for the cause. It has also met with political representatives to garner their support, all in the effort to “save the hall from the wrecking ball”.
The history of the King Street building in Parrsboro dates back to 1894, when it was a Presbyterian Church. It went on to become a part of the school system, serving as an auditorium, as well as a meeting place for the local sea cadets, and eventually the home of the legendary Parrsboro Citizens Band.
In recent years, however, the future of the once-prominent building has grown less secure. Membership of the band has dwindled, and fundraising has dropped off, turning a cultural mecca into a financial burden.
“We have been able to maintain it over the years because of bingo, which paid the taxes, the heat and the lights,” said Fuller. “But in the last couple years bingo has dropped off, so much that we are no longer in the black. What little we had in our kitty we were now spending on maintenance and costs for the hall, and no we find ourselves in the position where we can’t justify hanging onto it.”
Starting in the New Year of 2006, the band closed up the hall and began holding its weekly practice nights at St. George’s Anglican Hall instead. It began exploring options such as selling the building to another cultural organization such as Ship’s Company Theatre, which makes steady use of the hall in the summers for its Second Stage shows, but soon learned that it would not be that simple.
The band had originally acquired the building from the Town of Parrsboro for $1, on the condition that, should it ever decide to sell it, the town would have the first option to buy it back for $1. The town has indicated that it would be prepared to exercise that option, according to Fuller.
Rather than go down that road, the Save the Hall committee was formed to gain public support and ensure the band hall remains an important piece of the culture and heritage of Parrsboro.
“The heritage of a community is evident when you walk down the street, and see the depth of history from the architecture of the buildings,” said Fuller. “That’s where you see how old a community is, and if you let all the old buildings go you lose that. Some of them have to go, but this building figured significantly in the cultural life of Parrsboro from 1894-2006.”
Despite its outward appearance of peeling paint, the building itself is in good shape, according to the committee, which has had contractors determine the foundation to be rock solid and the building to be structurally sound.
One of the committee’s first orders of business has been to start the membership drive for the band association. For $5 each, people can pronounce their commitment to support the campaign to save the hall, according to Fuller.
“It’s not so much a fundraising campaign, but we want the weight of the community behind us when we go looking for funds at the provincial and national level,” he said. “It’s a ways and means committee to find out what we can do and how we can do it in terms of saving the hall from the wrecking ball. We’re afraid that if we are apathetic and don’t do anything, it will be gone.”
A restored, refurbished band hall could provide a venue for concerts and performances both amateur and professional all year-round, according to Fuller, who said the proposed new cultural centre would not take away from other community organizations that already operate halls.
“We want to add to the community for now and the future, and make it a better place to live,” he said.
To place your support behind the Save the Hall cause, contact the committee’s membership chair Brenda Wheaton at 254-2059.
