Jeremy at Lansdown Hall

Yesterday, I arranged with Jeremy C. for us to meet in Lansdown Hall so that he could show me the progress of the various improvement works. I am leading the town council working group which is responsible for the restoration of the listed building and for the upgrade to its facilities. We recently heard that planning permission was granted and so we must now finalise the plans and raise some more money. Next week we have a meeting of all the parties and I just wanted to make sure I understood what has been achieved so far.

Jeremy is the head of the Trust who are tenants of the Hall and we are working very closely to make the facilities as good as possible for the community of Stroud, as it is going to be their 'parish hall' from now on. I was impressed at how much better it now felt just to be in the hall, even though only a few issues have been finished. But I have high hopes that the massive improvements will be appreciated.

Being a lover of music and live music in particular, I think the near professional quality sound amplification and speaker system will be a huge benefit. We have supplied a completely new three-phase power supply into and around the building, a very good fire alarm system and in future we hope to bring in a new heat-pump based heating system. Much more too.

As we walked round, I asked Jeremy if I could take a picture for my blip and he was quite happy. I suggested that he keep talking and I would just grab snaps. Here he was telling me about the new though temporary bar area which a local company had built and fitted for free, in return for a having a small sign on the wall telling everyone. You can see it behind him. Several different businesses have chipped in with time and expertise and it is the Trust strategy to involve the community as much as possible.

Last summer I blipped THIS shot of our working group, including the architect and a possible funder, looking at the Hall and hearing about our future plans. Today Jeremy and I were standing at te back of the Hall, just to the right of this view, and it was rather dull. I had a few problems with the lighting but as I mentioned recently I am trying to learn about recording in low light situations. Here the back lighting from the elevated window cast quite a lot of shadows, but I like that.