3rd Gidea Park Scout Group Change Log

THE BUILDING THE ROWSWELL HALL EXTENSION

The Building Of The Rowswell Hall Extension

With the exception of the first three, all photos were taken by Mark Hutton and Malcolm Goodwin.

Part 1 - The old Hall

The guide DC Mrs. A.I. Wingham dedicates the foundations after church parade, March 11th 1973

The new hall is just an extension to our existing hall. The original hall was constructed during 1973. In the original hall all of our camping and activities equipment was kept in a few very small cupboards. By the early 90s we had accumulated so much kit that our cupboards were so full we had to spend twenty minutes unblocking the entrance before we could get any kit out. Some of the kit had to be stored at the houses of some of the leaders and members.

The idea of building an adjoining store building to a design similar to the original hall had been discussed since the 73 hall was complete, but nothing had been done. After years of meetings and fund raising it was decided that work would commence during the winter of 1994. To keep costs down, as much work as possible would have to be completed by the Leaders, members and parents of the group.

Left To Right: Rev Bill Occomore, Bill Archer (Ex D.C.) Mrs. A.I. Wingham (The Guide D.C.) The D.C. Bill Adams, Mr. Sixsmith, Rev Frank Leech, F.W. Rowswell and Allan Mathews . 1973

Inside the main hall after the opening in 1973.

Before work started on the extension the site for the new hall was covered in trees and dense vegetation. After the new hall was completed, the surrounding land would need to be re planted. The work would not stop there, the old kit stores would need to be dismantled to extend the venture room.

1993 Preparation Work

The first step was to construct a Tin hut on the other side of the old hall. The tin hut was to be used to contain some of the building materials and tools that we used. The hut was built entirely by the Venture Scouts on a concrete slab that used to be the base of the Red Cross equipment store. When they stopped using the Red Cross hut (In front of Liz in the picture) they took there kit store with them. The original idea was to build the hut on our site and then build the new hall around it. Building it here was a much better solution. The idea was that all the raw materials would fit in this hut as would all the tools, the new hall would be built and this temporary hut could be dismantled later after only being here for about two years. The hut is still here (2006) and still houses wood for building the new hall. It has survived so far without the need for any kind of repair, much to the amazement of its constructors most of whom left the Unit a long time ago.

Liz, Jem and Andy build the tin hut. Andy has to watch his nose doesn't get stuck.

Jem and Andy attach the roof

The hut was obtained from somewhere and stored as a "kit" at the GSLs house, when all the pieces were brought to Gidea park they didn't quite fit together as expected so a lot of improvisation was involved.

The walls and roof were full of holes and the whole thing is held together by a few rusty bolts.

The church put several sensible constraints on the hall building project. We weren't to work on Sundays during church services and we weren't to disrupt any Saturday weddings and the exterior work of the building had to be complete in under a year.

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