The Road to Aquativity: May 2012

...next Saturday to be precise. We're all hoping for fine weather and big crowds. Preparations have been going well for the last few months, but this final week will be busy. Just look at everything we have lined up.

Main stairs

The raffle we've been selling tickets for will be drawn at the Donkey Derby - first prize is £100, not bad for only £1 per ticket. And of course, lots more prizes too.

While the fundraising team have been working extremely hard to prepare for the Donkey Derby, including selling many hundreds of programmes in advance, others have been getting on with the work at the building. A few highlights:

2 sets of stairs are now in place and usable so we don't need to rely on a ladder to get upstairs.
The fire exit and associated internal ramp are now ready for use.
Nearly all of the internal sterling boarding is complete for the boat store, just a couple of boards to go.
Noggins are in place along the steel girders ready for plasterboarding.
Noggins are starting to go into the ceiling to stiffen the structure and help hold the plasterboard.

Fire escape stairs

About 80% of the ceiling insulation for boat and dry stores are in place.

So what next? Here are just some of the jobs we'll be taking on in the coming weeks:

We've had some door bar brackets made up, these need fitting on the boat store doors so we can open up those doors and let some light in to help us when we are working.
We need to finish the last few sterling boards for the boat store.
We need to fit noggins in the boat store ceiling between each pair of joists.
We need to complete the ceiling insulation in the boat store.
Once noggins and insulation are complete we can get on with fitting 2 sheets of plasterboard on the boat store ceiling.
Then we can do the plasterboarding (2 sheets again) on the boat store walls.
We need to sterling board then batten and plasterboard the underside of the 2 staircases.
We have a plasterer waiting for us to give him the nod to skim the ceilings and walls when they are ready.
We can then complete the sockets, switches and lights in that area.
Our boating manager can start planning the detailed layout of the boat store and start preparing to fit racking etc.
Primer then painting floor, walls and ceiling - we'll need to choose some paint!
Dry store completion.
Ground floor galley, changing, plumbing, showers, toilets.......

Boarding complete around the doors

Boarding finished on this wall

We're doing a lot of this ourselves (that is, a bunch of volunteers working evenings or any other time we can spare), to make the money we have go as far as possible. And we're begging, borrowing ~~or stealing~~ equipment and materials wherever we can. Of course, some jobs require specialist skills, so some money is going out. And doing everything ourselves would mean we have a very long time before we're done, so everything is a balance of money and time.

Meanwhile, we have various grant applications in train for building fittings, boating equipment (including kayaks, sailing dinghies, a canoe and a couple of pulling boats), and pontoon for access to pre-rigged boats out on the lake. Still plenty of money needed before we are fully operational!