It
seems a lifetime ago that we were forced out of our beloved Carnegie Library
but it’s only been 2½ months. We’ve more
or less settled into The Cambria but it is not ideal for our club as it is
first and foremost a pub. This was made
very evident when a session had to be hastily rehomed in lead tutor Caroline’s
house (living room, garden and kitchen) as the pub was having its floors
re-sanded. Our residency at the pub is
further threatened by the arrival of Euro 2016.
Then of course, once the football is done and dusted Wimbledon will
strawberry and cream its way onto the scene.
We
always knew The Cambria could only ever be a temporary solution and Caroline
has been searching out alternative venues.
The best options have been narrowed down to a wonderful room in The
Camberwell Bus garage or St Faith’s on Red Post Hill. So we conducted our very own version of the
IN/OUT campaign and voted for one of the venues.
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| Sophisticated voting system employed - written on the back of an old envelope to avoid vote rigging |
It was
neck and neck between the two venues for quite some time but due to late
arrivals (Sean & Suzie) the vote shifted at around 7:48pm just before the
match between Belgium and Italy kicked off. So after the votes were counted (I assure you
there was no vote rigging whatsoever and we have photographic evidence to prove
it) St Faith’s won out as our new venue.
During
all the disruption the students have been remarkably resilient and are managing
to focus despite the many distractions around us. The learning ethos still burns bright at
Ruskin Readers regardless of where we are forced to park our pencils and
worksheets.
Victoria
Warne of LCF, the group who gave us our grant, has also been hugely supportive
and the Adult Literacy Fund donors are insisting on aiding us further until all
our rehoming problems are resolved.
To all those who have helped with our rehoming issues: The Cambria, Simon Parham for his generous donation towards rehoming costs, The Adult Literacy Fund donors, Julie Parham for finding the bus garage, Amanda Edwards for suggesting St Faith’s – we cannot thank you enough.
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| Simon Parham presenting his very generous donation to Caroline at The Cambria |
I hope St Faith's will be a lovely new home for the group. Was thinking I'd never have thought of a bus garage for a reading group - but reading happens everywhere so why not? And had you chosen that venue you might have been able to do some mobile groups on a bus .
ReplyDeleteI know, a bus garage, who'd a thunk it. Apparently it's where they do training courses and there's even a bus driver's seat in it. Would have loved to have a go at that. Never mind, St Faith's it is. Let's hope we won't have to stay long at the church before Lambeth give us back our library.
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