Building work underway

Building work on Phase 1 of the development began in September. Our builders, Walter Webster of Dewsbury began by organising access to the site, not an easy task given the small working area.

Furthermore, the main entrance is also at street level. So all rubble and supplies have to be transported up a ramp to Friargate.

 (As ever, thanks to Chris Edwards, our meeting house manager, for making the visual record.)

Access to street level is via a ramp …

… because all materials have to come and go from Friargate …

… which is quite a tricky operation …

… and sometimes calls for a helping hand or two.

The first stages of work involved the demolition of parts of the terrace …

… and the removal of parts of the garden level building…

The work on the excavation of the foundations, pile-driving and the laying of the foundations began in October:

Excavation for the new garden room

Pile driving

Reinforcing steel in the foundations

Delivery of concrete by truck in Friargate, but access to the foundations is by hand barrow

The footings for the garden room in place.

Fundraising group in action

Saturday morning in the Meeting House ...

This week letters have gone out from our project fundraising group to just over 200 Friargate Friends and Attenders.

The letter sets out details of the targets meeting has set itself to raise towards our building development project. (This is in addition to the main part of the costs covered by financial reserves of the meeting.)

Following an insert in "The Friend" and a nationwide mailing, Friargate Friends have already been encouraged by the many contributions coming in from individual Friends throughout the country, as well as from many other local Quaker meetings.

The letter also sets out the timescale for our fundraising: efforts will need to continue for the three years of the building project. This also means that individual donations can be spread over this period, not just now. A three-year contribution schedule was also sent out, so that meeting can plan expected income more reliably. Some letters were posted, but most have been delivered via our meeting house pigeon holes.

Another hundred to write and address.

... so this is what fundraising involves.

Preliminary work begins

Chris Edwards, our meeting house manager, reports that following the many visits by contractors and builders as part of the tendering  process, other work is now in hand in the garden. Chris has helpfully provided some photos for the blog.

Archaeology
Now that the community archaeology project has removed the wall, it's time for the professional archaeological survey to begin. And inevitably, the examination of the site begins with – a hole. The photo shows archaeologist Kurt Hunter-Mann supervising the removal of top layers of earth immediately behind the now-demolished section of wall.

Building works

Meanwhile …

close nearby another hole is dug. 

This time it's close to the location of the lift tower and is being dug to examine the ground conditions, and to help determine what kind of foundations will be necessary to support the new building above. Architect Mark Druery and structural engineer Dominic Rawcliffe are in charge of this process.

And finally …

More preparation work in the garden, but this time not involving hole digging. Our versatile Treasurer David Peryer shows how it's done, getting hands on with the removal of the unwanted children's slide round the tree in front of the Woolman Room, soon to have much-improved garden access and light.

Now we need to dispose of a high quality stainless steel children's slide (not in picture, as already removed), in need of a good home. Anyone interested?

Fundraising for the Project

Fundraising for the Friargate Project took off in May. On one Sunday, a plant stall raised £135.



On the same day there was a lively auction of promises under the leadership of our able auctioneer Andrew (Bone) Jones.

Friends didn't hold back with their comments and advice on how the lots should best be dealt with but Bone coped well with calls from the floor that would have been ripe for  a music hall.

"What's this lot? Taxidermy, you say?" - "No, I said taxi service."


Gardening, learning to make a pot, music and language lessons, portrait painting all went under the hammer, and over £2000 was raised towards the cost of developing our community meeting place.

She did it!

On Sunday Danielle Palmour finished the Leeds Half Marathon in 1 hour 54 minutes. (See post of 24th April). And through her sponsorship raised the grand sum of over £600 for The Friargate Project. Sponsorship is still possible via her page at just giving.com. So it's possible the final total might be even higher.

Thanks to Danielle (who by the way is also a member of the project fundraising team) and congratulations!

Greetings to other Quaker Meetings

As part of our fundraising activities, we are sending a copy of our appeal leaflet to every Quaker meting in the Yearly Meeting. The mailing consists of an envelope, the leaflet and to save paper, a pre-addressed envelope re-use label.

Contacting every worshipping Quaker group in the country is a special event, and Friargate Friends are hoping to send personal greetings to Quakers in other meetings.

On every envelope there's a small box, ready for a personal message. Today, after meeting for worship, Friends began writing their own greetings to Friends around the country. There are over 500 letters, so it will take us a few weeks to complete. But Friargate Friends are keen to use the opportunity to contact meetings known to them, and to meetings near and far. There's also a good number of oohs and aahs as names of Friends on envelopes are recognised.

A mailing task has been transformed into an opportunity to send greetings from York to other Friends around the country.

Half marathon for the Friargate Project

Friargate Friend Danielle Palmour is taking advantage of the turn in the weather to train for the Leeds Half Marathon in May. And she has decided to donate any sponsorship funds on the day to The Friargate Project. A great idea!

To show support for Danielle on 12th May go to her page on the just giving website. Just put in her name, or go direct to

http://www.justgiving.com/Danielle-Jeanine-Palmour1

Go Danielle!

Sun shines on Archaeology Volunteers

Another Monday afternoon's work in the garden for the volunteers, but this time with a difference, as they were not battling the elements. So work continued with removing the wall, cleaning the bricks and sorting them.

Chris Edwards has taken some photos of evidence of the event (below).

In the coming weeks progress on the project will continue, including an extra afternoon next Sunday (21st April).

Removing the Wall: The archaeology group continues

The wall in the garden has now been measured, drawn and photographed. Volunteers have now begun carefully dismantling the wall. Each brick is cleaned before being examined and sorted. It is hoped some of them can be incorporated into the new building work.

Brenda Tyler continues to capture the progress of the work. Here's her latest painting, on show in the meeting house:

A spud starter

The first donations have already started arriving from Friends in York Area Meeting who received a copy of the appeal leaflet with this month's Quakevine newsletter.

Meanwhile Friends at Friargate held their first fundraising event on Sunday after Meeting, by providing a baked potato lunch with lots of trimmings.

Janet Rowntree, aided by Inga and Simon Brereton (see photo) as well as Deborah "no photos of me please", daughter of our warden, organised.
A large number of Friends stayed on, though some needed to dash off to New Earswick for Area Meeting, and enjoyed being encouraged to queue jump.

Martin demonstrates the art of eating without a knife...

... and some folk couldn't do without a mug of builder's tea.

On our marks

Things are coming together for the start of our project fundraising. The latest edition of Quakevine (York Area Meeting newsletter) monthly has news about the the first fundraising activities.

Things are happening online, too. Our new website has just launched, with a special Friargate Project page. (Same address as before: yorkquakers.org.uk)

And from today our secure online donations page with justgiving.com is open for business, too.
(To donate there, go to Friargate Quaker Meeting, or Friargate Quaker Meeting House.)

Reminders

During the week Friargate Meeting House can be very busy, with so many different groups using the building.

Very pleasing, then, when our meeting house manager gets compliments like that spotted in a recent letter from the director of a regional social care group: 

It's always so calm where you are, and a nice atmosphere. I think we may be back in the summer.

– A reminder of the qualities of our staff. And of the values we are hoping to take forward in our development of this community project.

Spot the friar

Volunteers of the Community Archaeology Project have been out braving the January and February weather on Monday afternoons. One of the team's tasks is making drawings of the wall to be demolished.  Artist Brenda Tyler, of Friargate meeting,  has also taken time to paint the volunteers themselves, and one of her pictures is on display in the meeting house.

Brenda suggests that the figure on the right might well look like one of the medieval friars come to see what's going on.

Appeal Publications go to print

Since last year, the fundraising team has been working on two publications to spread the word about the project. Today, we were able to sign off the final versions of the Prospectus and the Appeal Leaflet and send them off to print.

The small Appeal Leaflet will be widely circulated. It summarises aims of the work. The larger Prospectus sets out the background, plans and finances in more detail.

After getting several quotes for the work, we have finally gone for Big Sky Environmental Design and Printing in Findhorn, Scotland. They're a community-based printers with a strong commitment to environmental values. They only use recycled paper and all inks are vegetable-based.

It's great to be working with a company sharing sustainability concerns with Friends.

To print or not to print

Hundreds of people use the meeting house every week. We want to keep everyone informed about the building development project, what is currently going on and what will be happening over the coming months. One of the ways we're doing this is via Update, a simple news sheet that will keep everyone up to speed every few months. Update 1 has been in circulation since January, and on the table in the meeting house foyer. Comments so far have been very positive, but yesterday there were two critical remarks. About the paper.

The first was that it would be more environmentally-friendly to spread the word online, and save the paper. Point taken.

The other was that the paper quality could have been better, as it was a bit flimsy and off-white. Well, the thinking behind it was that if we were going to produce something printed with a short life, it would be best to go for recycled paper. And this is not just any recycled paper, this is low-grade, unbeached recycled paper made with the waste paper nobody else loves. To most people asked, the quality seems good enough for our purposes.

A print run of Update is 500 sheets = one ream of paper. And here are the stats for the paper we're using:

79 litres of water, 16 kWh electricity, 7.5 kg wood pulp less. On just one ream of paper.
Food for thought.

Still early stages

It's now over 18 months since our Quaker Meeting began thinking about the local implications of the Yearly Meeting Framework for Action 2009-2014. In particular, Friends have been concerned about the right use of our resources, and how we relate to the community around us.

First we discussed in our business meetings, then consulted other users of the building, and finally, with York Area Meeting Trustees, made the commitment to go ahead. The City of York Council gave the green light with planning permission in the autumn of 2012.

Now our Finance and Premises Committees, working hard with our architects, are taking the project forward stage by stage. There are all kinds of sub-groups looking after various aspects. It's amazing just how much expertise Friends are bringing to bear on the work. Architectural experience, financial management, landscape gardening, archaeology, environmental sustainability and communications strategy are all part of the day-to-day project work. A fundraising group has been set up and the countdown has begun to the launch of our appeal in March.

Under the able guidance of our resident archaeologist Friend, Andrew "Bone" Jones, a Friargate Community Archaeology Project has been set up to find out more about the historic site of the meeting house garden, before the builders move in. Apparently, there are already over 50 volunteers signed up to the project.

At the meeting house this week Ailsa Mainman, Director of Research at York Archaeological Trust, gave a talk about the Urban Monasteries of Medieval York. This set the background for the work of the archaeology project. Amazing, just how much of York was owned by the monasteries. Our meeting house is built on the site of a huge 12th century Franciscan friary, L-shaped and extending right down to the river. The inside wall of our Woolman Room is just one of the few tangible reminders of the friary. Knowledge about the friary is limited, so our community team is keen to see if they can add to what is known.