What Went Down–2 May 2010

After the sessions meeting and the AGM, we’re happy to say that things are finally moving along at RRY, both planning-wise and in the garage!

Walking into the garage today was quite hectic, I must admit! I was expecting the usual view on what we’d been seeing for the past 4 months, but lo and behold, the entire place seemed new somehow! Alex had, as I found out, been at work the previous weekend, putting in some personal/upgrading touches to The Garage (as it is now officially known!) and my gosh it looks much better! A new white “ceiling” hung above my head, whilst a neat circle of chairs surrounded a new table, with a bookshelf to the side, and– a prayer nook supported by an umbrella…nice! You can check out how our garage looks now by hitting the jump to the end of this post!

What we were also planning, was, well, a planning session…so that’s what happened as well!

RRY need more youth, we don’t deny it. But this time we’re going all out to advertise and publicize our garage to as many people as we can. Alex and Juan put it well: we’re not doing this to get recognition or praise: we just want to offer a relaxed atmosphere for Christian youth to socialize with others who feel as fired up about Christ as they do. Mainly, we also want to have interactive Bible sessions, DVD topics and also trips and activities to grow all our relationships with Christ, and be a true example to God’s grace and love.So, with that in mind, we started planning where, how and when to place our ads and flyers. You can see the results of our efforts in the  below, as well as on the main page. (I’m placing a sticky post there for the time being, you can also check them out on the ABOUT page.)

The Garage: Look at it now!

Ads & Business Card

Garage Renovation–Week 4

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him; and he’ll bring it to pass.

I can really identify with this piece from Psalm 37:5, because our efforts in painting have paid off! We’re done! 

So now we’d got that out of the way, we had another task at hand–or should I say foot: the carpets. Now you must understand that these carpets are new, but not new. (what?) This is how it went down: Shaun had brand new carpets laid in his house, and then got himself insurance for them. Lucky he did, because the very next day a huge storm flooded the place. So, the insurance paid off and they stripped out these almost-new (and wet) carpets, and eventually they found their way to the RRY garage. 

The guys and the carpets

The carpet goes under the knife!

Anyhow we began the laborious process of putting the carpets down. First, we decided we’d have a brown carpet for the main area, and a purple one for the other bit. As you might have realized by now, the carpets were not straight and we had to do some shuffling ’round to make sure it was against the wall. Next, we got sadistic: knives! No, not true, we just got out the Stanley Knives and started carving up the corner bits and edges (Some cut straighter than others, we found out!) and very soon, we had the semblance of a proper carpet going, with one or two exceptions:

1. The carpet was not rolled up, but folded, and this meant we had ridges in it.
2. The carpet had spent one too many days in Shaun’s shed. Result: it was kind of grubby, not badly, but still noticeable.

Regardless of the setbacks, after we took a broom to it (The vacuum cleaner had lost its extension) it looked a lot better, and the garage had already become more of a hangout and less of a “space!”

Catch up with us next week as we (might) coninue the job! (There may be a church picnic so we’re not sure!)

If not next week, then the week after that, as we plough on toward the goal!

Garage Renovation–Week 3

“You have to be fit to take part and you must be able to keep going  and going.”

This line from Johan Smith’s excellent book “Survivor Youth Edition” sums up what we were doing very well! Although we aren’t done, by quite a long shot, we really have made progress, and it takes perseverance on all our parts to keep the work coming and renovate the garage for the youth!

Anyhow, we decided to keep painting today, and yes, admittedly, it did need a second coat! Not that the first one was bad, but is was simply a case of a degraded wall…which, clearly, needed an extra coat to make it look much neater. So an extra coat it was, and, indeed, it did look a lot better! We also managed to fill in the little corner bits with paintbrushes (the latter of which we lacked last week) and soon, the place was looking veritably spick and span, made even neater by some handy woodwork by Peter, who managed to tack some drooping insulation sheeting back up to it’s proper spot on the ceiling.

When we’d eventually run out of things to touch up, we decided to call it another day, and proudly admired the work we’d done so far.

What we’re planning for next week:

• cutting the carpets to size (a nasty job, I reckon, but it’ll be worth it!)
• getting a logo for the youth! (any suggestions, anyone?)
• plodding on with whatever’s necessary next…

 Keep checking for latest updates to the site and of course be sure to check up on us next Sunday with Week 4 of the Garage Renovation! 

Garage Renovation–Week 2

…faithfully administaring God’s grace in it’s various forms.

And boy were we doing it in it’s various forms today! We decided this was the Painting Day and so, carrying rollers and paint buckets we charged into the garage once again to get on with the job.

Well, almost: first we had a look at the rabbits and hamsters who call “home” a hutch outside the garage, and fed them some clover. But I’m digressing. As I said, we started off with a darkish green colour (kind of like the colour for the verse) for the inner part of the garage, which is actually the outer wall of the manse, as the garage is an add-on. Next we scraped of some very dodgy looking white (erm, I think it was meant to be white) paint from the walls.

We were doing so well and moving so quickly that we lost track of time and before we knew it, we had to pack up and call it a day! There’s quite a bit still to be done but we could definitely see the improvements so far!

Be sure to check on us next week when we’ll update you on the new developments!

Garage Renovation–Week 1

…the old has gone, the new has come!

This verse from 2 Corinthians 5:20 springs to mind when we got our first peeks of our new “space” in the UUPC manse’s garage, soon to be home of RRY. I can say though, that it is a long way from being the “new,” because this place mustn’t have been used for at least 4 years. (the dust testifies to that!!)

Anyhow, once we were in (a mission in itself, the main garage door only opens from the inside and the side door sticks!) we took a look around at what was to become our new place. It had some very odd things in it, amongst others:

• A large table tennis table
• 500, sorry, maybe 10 year old carpets
• several cm thick dust
• a pre-war TV (not really, it had a VCR on top!)
• plenty of wood

The first problem was this: we had to get all of this stuff out first so we could start cleaning! So, after several trips back and forth to Shaun’s bakkie to dump all of the old stuff, we could haul in the buckets, and, armed with Handy-Andy, a couple of scrubbing brushes, and lots of determination, we began to attack the years of grime that had built up in the place.

As if that wasn’t already bad enough, we got a pretty nasty surprise when Pete went to clean one of the side windows: he found a good 100 or so wasps, who had built a nest there, and promptly began to attack him. Luckily he managed to get away with only a sting on his ear, and later he “waxed” them all out with a very effective Raid Bug/Wasp Killer.

So there we had it, after a good hour-and-a-half of scrubbing, brushing and splashing, the garage smelled like Handy-Andy and really looked a lot better! (We could now see an oil mark on the floor where it was previously hidden by dirt!) Here’s hoping things only get better!

That was 2 weeks ago, and already we’d found almost-new carpets, and a host of other goodies for the place! Check the blog of Week 2 for more!