It’s coming!!

Earlier this week the Abbotswood community association trustees accompanied by TVBC Cllr Alison Johnston, Barbara Wyant – Abbotswood community development officer and Marianne Piggin -community engagement officer, had the fantastic opportunity to visit the site of the new Abbotswood community centre.

As you can see from the pictures the building is coming on well and provides a modern and spacious facility for the community. A large airy reception area with an office leads on to 2 meeting rooms that can be interconnected to provide a larger versatile space. Down the corridor you will find what is set to be a modern and well equipped kitchen. At the end is an extremely impressive bright hall, with large windows to each end. There is a small garden area off the hall also, great for summer events!

The trustees are working tirelessly to get things ready for the buildings hand over to the community association in early summer this year. The centre will provide the Abbotswood estate and surrounding area with a real community hub; open to all it will be hireable for residents for private functions, local social classes such as exercise classes, baby groups, coffee mornings as well as local businesses for meetings and alike.

If you run a class or business and would like to be added to our list of interested hirers please send your details and preferred booking times/days.

To give you a bit of insight into the 8 trustees, we are volunteer residents from Abbotswood who are taking on this project around our own lives and full-time jobs. We are a mixed bunch all committed to the same goal, to make Abbotswood a great place to live!! Running the community centre is just part of this, we will continue to run fundraising community events such as our sell out quiz nights to provide social activities and to support the buildings sustainability.

What we really need is more of the community to become involved in this project to help it to be a success. The trustees need to build up a wide range of people to assist in different areas. We are not looking for huge time commitments just a few hours here and there would make such a difference. We are particularly interested to hear from people who may have experience in the following who would be able to offer a small amount of time:

• Accountancy and bookkeeping
• Events organisation
• IT and marketing
• Secretarial skills
• General volunteers for events and activities –could be making drinks at a coffee morning, helping with the gardening, assisting on events or just generally helping around the centre.

Got an idea for a community club? The trustees are keen to support residents in running their own groups from the centre and we would be happy to discuss your ideas with you and offer you the support to get it off the ground.

We also have room for more trustees to join the team, it’s an exciting time to be doing so and if you would like to give something back, make new friends and learn some new skills along the way drop an email to chair@abbotswoodromsey.co.uk to find out more.

We hope you will all get involved and make use of this fantastic community facility!

Wishing you all well,

Your community association trustees
Abbotswood Community Association