Anne Netherwood

I called them the “Dream Team” but their fellow parishioners called them “The last of the Summer Wine” as all three of the volunteers are over retirement age.  The project was to create a store room above the vestry at the church of St John Weston Rhyn in order to prepare for the main re-ordering work in the summer.  Because the walls are stone and brick with a rubble core, they had to order special sleeves for the resin anchors to stop the resin running away before it had set. The volunteers’ first job was to fix the supports to the wall with the anchors. Then the joists and strutting were fixed.

Once the floor was in place an electrician re-wired both the vestry and the new store room.  Then the volunteers fitted the ceiling with some insulation above it.  The ceiling had to be sloped uo arount the window.

Then the volunteers fitted shelves in the new store, with a hatch and ladder for the time being.  Eventually there will be a door through to the new mezzanine meeting room.

The new ceiling has made the vestry much brighter. All finished in less than three weeks – congratulations to the volunteer dream team!

The next job will be moving all the things which are stored in the entrance lobby at present.  All churches have to store things like the Crib which is set up in the church at Christmas, and the big wooden cross which is put in place on Good Friday and then decorated for Easter.  There are also all sorts of other things that need to be stored, including craft materials for children’s holiday clubs. All of this will go into the new store.  Then the volunteer team will be stripping out the existing toilet to make way for the new extension.  The church will be using a portable toilet while the building work is going on.