A community hall in the South West of the Province has been able to increase its available facilities for surrounding residents due to a £4000 grant from Northumberland Freemasons.
Ninebanks Church and Community Hall Group, responsible to Whitfield, with Ninebanks Parochial Church Council, have undertaken refurbishment work to the village hall kitchen and small meeting room, including loft and wall insulation, re-boarding and re-plastering of walls, new windows, kitchen, heating, lighting and flooring, allowing them to enable greater community use of the hall and increase income. Future events are to include craft classes, a spring fair, sharing library, coffee mornings and the return of the Womens Institute.
A public building has occupied the site since the 1800’s, when it was a reading room for Lead Miners. Extended in 1934 the building consists of a large hall, small meeting room, kitchen and toilets, and has played an important part in village life being the only place people, both young and old, families, new and established, can come together for social events and meetings of local importance.
W Bro Alf Adams, of Haltwhistle Lodge No 5090, recently met up with a number of the community members, to view the newly refurbished kitchen, who all expressed sincere thanks to the Freemasons for the help and generous support.
Stuart Cairns, Secretary to the Trustees of the Freemasons Benevolent Fund explained “By nature of its remote and rural location, the St Marks Church, and Community Hall at Ninebanks plays such a major and important role in the lives of that community.
The Trustees of the Benevolent fund received advice that the Kitchen at the Hall was old, almost on the point of being unusable and needed to be replaced.
Helen Manson, the Representative from the Hall advised that they faced total costs of £5,800 to refurbish the kitchen and that via fund raising efforts to date they had raised £1800 towards those costs.
In view of the service and value of the Hall to the community the Trustees of the Benevolent Fund had no hesitation in agreeing to Grant an Award of £4,000 to cover the shortfall and enable the much needed kitchen refurbishment to go ahead.”
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