News

Colne Housing management team paint the hall red!

08/01/2010

It was a team building day with a difference when Colne Housing’s management team decided that they wanted to do something worthwhile, and that would actually make a difference to one of the communities in which the Colchester based housing association society operates. The result was a full day’s labour at Tollesbury Community Centre.

The ‘Save our Schoolroom’ project is the brainchild of Tollesbury Community Association, who is raising funds to restore the former Congregational Church, and now Community Centre, to its former glory. Complex problems with the lease meant that it wasn’t possible to raise the grants needed to bring the building up to standard, so it has continued to deteriorate and earlier this year the annexe (Schoolroom) was closed due to safety concerns.

The team from Colne undertook numerous essential tasks during the day including, a rather impressive ‘Groundforce’ style renovation of the garden serving the schoolroom, painting and tidying a community shed in the rear gardens and painting the walls of the room to be the new kitchen.

Colne also part funded the new kitchen with a donation of £10,000 from the Colne Community Fund, an initiative developed by the Society to provide financial assistance to organisations operating in the local community.

The result of the team’s hard work was clear to see to all, when the new kitchen was officially launched on the 10th January 2010.

Mark Powell Davies, Chief Executive Colne Housing commented, “Tollesbury has a great sense of community spirit and the ‘Save our Schoolroom’ project is incredibly worthwhile. It was extremely rewarding to achieve something as a team that actually made a visible difference to the local village.