RESTORATION OF THE CLONGOREY COMMUNITY HALL
Background
The Clongorey Community Association was born at a community meeting held on March 25th 2002. Prior to that meeting a community soundings meeting was organised by Vincent Heavey at his house. The purpose of this was to take soundings from the community on whether or not it would be viable to restore the community hall. The eventual objective was to create an active community association that would help to enrich the lives of people in the area. The hall was seen as an essential foundation stone and focal point toward achieving this objective.
The first priority of the association therefore was to restore the hall. The building had fallen into disrepair over the years since the Clongorey GFC had faded out and it needed a lot of work. The initial estimates were of the order of fifty thousand euros to get the basic structure including roof repair and replacement where necessary.
Funding
The new committee set about their task. First up was how to raise the money. After a lot of research they finally settled on a racenight as a tried and tested way to raise funds. Some committee members had experience in running such an event so it was a safe start for our fund raising efforts.
The racenight was held at Eleson House, Kilmeague in April 2002. It proved to be three times more successful than first thought possible. The success was fuelled by a lot of goodwill within the community toward what was going on. It was also driven in no small way by efforts of the committee to find sponsorship and sell horses for the night. Some committee members excelled. Vincent Heavey in particular ended up by contributing over 50% of the eventual earnings between the work he did in Sponsorship and horse sales. Most importantly it was an excellent evening and the first opportunity in a while for members of the community to get together and meet each other. This proved to be particularly beneficial to new entrants to the area as a means to help their integration process.
The net returns came to just over twelve thousand euro. Many people returned their winnings to the fund, which helped to bolster up expected takings.
Restoration Project
The hall had to be gutted in order to get it to a point where the good bits could be isolated from the bad. Luckily, the overall structure was solid so there was no need to get into any heavy re-enforcement or re-construction work. Both the floor and roof however, were in poor shape although the roof, on further inspection proved to be more robust than initially thought.
The word got around the community quickly that work was about to commence and volunteer effort began to pour in from all sides. Initially it was one night a week with additional work at the weekends and then it moved to three nights a week and weekends. There were carpenters, plumbers, roofers, tilers, painters, electricians, and lots of people to help with general labouring tasks.
One of the internal supporting walls was removed to create additional open plan space in the hall. Next came the floor. All the floorboards had to be replaced in the new section of the hall. A raised floor had to be put into the old section of the hall. This was a lot of work and a new central heating system was fitted under the raised floor as work progressed.
A new ladies and Gents toilet area was created in an appropriate section of the hall which was serviced with water and an effluent/sewage drain.
While this work was continuing the roof also began to get some attention. Once again the new section of the hall just needed some tile replacement and basic repair. The old area was in slightly worse shape and sections had to be stripped to enable re-enforcement type repair work to be done. Then the tedious job of slate repair and replacement and trying to make sure that areas that were leaking were made watertight with various methods only known to the roofing experts.
As the work progressed it became clear that the race night fund was beginning to diminish rapidly. Almost all Labour was being provided free of charge but materials costs, especially timber, was expensive. At this point we began to get sponsorship for materials as well as Labour from local people and local business. Things began to rock and roll. The committee also attempted to get help by applying for Lotto support but it was rejected outright. It appeared from the response received that Lotto money would only be given to existing and successful organisations. No help was forthcoming for a community seeking to get something off the ground, so the Clongorey Community association was very much on its own.
Around September of 2002, the floor was fitted, the roof was watertight, and most major elements of the reconstruction were under control. The focus switched to the painting, decorating, tiling and other finishing touches. The association received a stainless steel kitchen unit, cooker and burco boiler from local donors, which enabled the kitchen to be completely kitted out in readiness for the grand opening.
A number of painting days were held where many members of the emerging youth group donned their painting gear and got to work on both the inside and outside of the hall. John Cooke provided all the exterior paint free of charge and the painting crews did a great job in applying it to every nook and cranny.
Opening Day
At last came the official opening in October 2002. It was a matter of some considerable pride to the committee and supporters that forty to fifty thousand euros worth of work had been done for a twelve thousand euro race night. It was made possible by voluntary local labour, and by free issue and heavily discounted materials from local individuals and businesses. The association did not receive a cent from any government agency.
Father Jackie O’Connell performed the opening ceremony and the hall was officially re-opened by Mr Kevin Donoghue. A large contingent of the local community assembled that evening for a celebration to mark the re-birth of a community focal point and a great achievement for the community association.
Acknowledgements
The community association would like to thank those people and businesses that provided sponsorship by way of money and or materials.
Similarly, a great debt is owed to all those who supported the racenight by way of sponsorship and participation.
In all, over 50 people from the community helped out in a practical way during the restoration project. This included everything from painting, to earthworks, to labouring etc. The Community Association is indebted to these people.
Finally, a special word of thanks to three individuals that co-ordinated the work on the project from start to finish and spent significant amounts of personal time on the site. A Special Thank you to Vincent Heavey, Philip Jacob and Sam Byrne. Back to top
Article by Pat Hickey, August 2004.
Background
The Clongorey Community Association was born at a community meeting held on March 25th 2002. Prior to that meeting a community soundings meeting was organised by Vincent Heavey at his house. The purpose of this was to take soundings from the community on whether or not it would be viable to restore the community hall. The eventual objective was to create an active community association that would help to enrich the lives of people in the area. The hall was seen as an essential foundation stone and focal point toward achieving this objective.
The first priority of the association therefore was to restore the hall. The building had fallen into disrepair over the years since the Clongorey GFC had faded out and it needed a lot of work. The initial estimates were of the order of fifty thousand euros to get the basic structure including roof repair and replacement where necessary.
Funding
The new committee set about their task. First up was how to raise the money. After a lot of research they finally settled on a racenight as a tried and tested way to raise funds. Some committee members had experience in running such an event so it was a safe start for our fund raising efforts.
The racenight was held at Eleson House, Kilmeague in April 2002. It proved to be three times more successful than first thought possible. The success was fuelled by a lot of goodwill within the community toward what was going on. It was also driven in no small way by efforts of the committee to find sponsorship and sell horses for the night. Some committee members excelled. Vincent Heavey in particular ended up by contributing over 50% of the eventual earnings between the work he did in Sponsorship and horse sales. Most importantly it was an excellent evening and the first opportunity in a while for members of the community to get together and meet each other. This proved to be particularly beneficial to new entrants to the area as a means to help their integration process.
The net returns came to just over twelve thousand euro. Many people returned their winnings to the fund, which helped to bolster up expected takings.
Restoration Project
The hall had to be gutted in order to get it to a point where the good bits could be isolated from the bad. Luckily, the overall structure was solid so there was no need to get into any heavy re-enforcement or re-construction work. Both the floor and roof however, were in poor shape although the roof, on further inspection proved to be more robust than initially thought.
The word got around the community quickly that work was about to commence and volunteer effort began to pour in from all sides. Initially it was one night a week with additional work at the weekends and then it moved to three nights a week and weekends. There were carpenters, plumbers, roofers, tilers, painters, electricians, and lots of people to help with general labouring tasks.
One of the internal supporting walls was removed to create additional open plan space in the hall. Next came the floor. All the floorboards had to be replaced in the new section of the hall. A raised floor had to be put into the old section of the hall. This was a lot of work and a new central heating system was fitted under the raised floor as work progressed.
A new ladies and Gents toilet area was created in an appropriate section of the hall which was serviced with water and an effluent/sewage drain.
While this work was continuing the roof also began to get some attention. Once again the new section of the hall just needed some tile replacement and basic repair. The old area was in slightly worse shape and sections had to be stripped to enable re-enforcement type repair work to be done. Then the tedious job of slate repair and replacement and trying to make sure that areas that were leaking were made watertight with various methods only known to the roofing experts.
As the work progressed it became clear that the race night fund was beginning to diminish rapidly. Almost all Labour was being provided free of charge but materials costs, especially timber, was expensive. At this point we began to get sponsorship for materials as well as Labour from local people and local business. Things began to rock and roll. The committee also attempted to get help by applying for Lotto support but it was rejected outright. It appeared from the response received that Lotto money would only be given to existing and successful organisations. No help was forthcoming for a community seeking to get something off the ground, so the Clongorey Community association was very much on its own.
Around September of 2002, the floor was fitted, the roof was watertight, and most major elements of the reconstruction were under control. The focus switched to the painting, decorating, tiling and other finishing touches. The association received a stainless steel kitchen unit, cooker and burco boiler from local donors, which enabled the kitchen to be completely kitted out in readiness for the grand opening.
A number of painting days were held where many members of the emerging youth group donned their painting gear and got to work on both the inside and outside of the hall. John Cooke provided all the exterior paint free of charge and the painting crews did a great job in applying it to every nook and cranny.
Opening Day
At last came the official opening in October 2002. It was a matter of some considerable pride to the committee and supporters that forty to fifty thousand euros worth of work had been done for a twelve thousand euro race night. It was made possible by voluntary local labour, and by free issue and heavily discounted materials from local individuals and businesses. The association did not receive a cent from any government agency.
Father Jackie O’Connell performed the opening ceremony and the hall was officially re-opened by Mr Kevin Donoghue. A large contingent of the local community assembled that evening for a celebration to mark the re-birth of a community focal point and a great achievement for the community association.
Acknowledgements
The community association would like to thank those people and businesses that provided sponsorship by way of money and or materials.
Similarly, a great debt is owed to all those who supported the racenight by way of sponsorship and participation.
In all, over 50 people from the community helped out in a practical way during the restoration project. This included everything from painting, to earthworks, to labouring etc. The Community Association is indebted to these people.
Finally, a special word of thanks to three individuals that co-ordinated the work on the project from start to finish and spent significant amounts of personal time on the site. A Special Thank you to Vincent Heavey, Philip Jacob and Sam Byrne. Back to top
Article by Pat Hickey, August 2004.
