Basement work near completion

While not nearly as public, or exciting, or even clean as the Film Festival work has continued, thanks to Kerwin Davison, on reconnecting the decayed sewer connection in preparation for construction of the accessible main floor washroom.

For those unaware, Kerwin investigated the old connections to make sure there would be no slow up in making the new accessible washroom operational.   After incredible effort removing some concrete with a pick ax, pulling up floor boards (carefully in order to not damage them and make sure they could be replaced), and digging out the old pipes, Kerwin found them to be decayed past the point of utility.   They had to be replaced, immediately.

Now this came as unexpected and bad news for the Board who had to immediately revise its plans for further projects in The Hall and divert funds in order to ensure the washroom could be connected.   Johannes as Treasurer examined our resources carefully, and determined that we could do it but would have to place other plans on hold for a while.  This is not completely bad news as we are ahead of ourselves on our Strategic Plan, having already accomplished some things that were forecast to be taken on next year, however it did dampen the enthusiasm for a short period.

Kerwin, with some volunteer help, has now almost completed connecting the piping and has worked incredibly hard to get this done.

But of course while he was down there, there was no way that all he could work on was the piping.   He and Rob Bentley rerouted the ducts from the furnace to create a shorter, more energy efficient run through the archive room, removing the false wall to do so (it is now back in place, ready for insulation when we can afford it);  tidied up the wiring from the electrical panel; and ran a new, flexible water line to the single sink in the kitchen which we needed for operations.

There is no way that the Board can thank Kerwin enough for his time, expertise and enthusiasm.   Working not just behind the scenes, (in this case below them) he accomplished an amazing amount of extremely necessary in a remarkably short time!

The Paint has started to flow on the inside

The inside of the building is now much brighter now with a new coat of paint. November 2010

The Paint has started to flow on the outside too.

As of November 5th the contractor had cleaned and primed the facade of the hall and on one corner tried out the heritage colours. If the weather co-operates the entire facade will be restored with these colours. Then of course the next move will be to raise the funds to paint the rest of the building the same way.

Let us know how you like the new rags on the old girl!

Electrical upgrade completed.

With the generosity of Kerwin Davison the Band Assoc has been able to put in a new breaker panel, 2 new emergency/exit lights and several new plugs that were needed. Thanks to Kerwin for his ongoing help with the hall.

First Aid Campaign Initiated

The board of directors has determined that there is a serious maintenance need at the hall that needs our immediate attention. We have been reluctant to mount any kind of public fundraising campaign because we were hopeful that the capital campaign was not too far off and that appealing to the general public would be left until that time.

Unfortunately the climate for government funding is not positive for our type of project in the immediate future. This leaves us no option other than to protect our heritage building for the present while awaiting the green light from public funding sources. This maintenance work will consist of the following.

• reshingle the east facing roof of the main hall. It is very porous however the contractor, Rafes Construction, has assessed that there is no rot to contend with at this point.
• replace two sections of sill that are showing signs of significant deterioration. This work will support future development
• continue restorative treatment of the exterior siding by scraping and painting. We anticipate restoring the original colours, ivory and clay.

We estimate that we need to raise in the vicinity of $10,000. We do have a healthy level of funds in our capital account thanks to generous donations from, RMA Tourism, Dick Lemon and NS Heritage Trust. Of course it is important to us to maximize the effectiveness of your donation and all funds raised from individuals. These raised funds are worth their weight in gold as they can help lever funds from other public sources. Please be confident that we will do our best to maximize the value of your contribution.

To make a contribution please go to the menu on the right hand side of the screen and click on the link, on line payments.

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