Team building opportunity helps to refurbish Grange Pavilion

The Physical Learning Spaces team have used their team building day to help refurbish the Grange Pavilion.

The PLS team are responsible for refurbishing all of Cardiff University’s teaching spaces and comprise of staff from Programme Management, AV and Estates.  After three years they have amassed a lot of knowledge, health and safety awareness and industry contacts so were confident they could make a contribution to the Community Gateway project and offered to help at the Grange Pavilion on their Christmas team building exercise.

Lynne Thomas, Project Manager for Community Gateway arranged a site visit and agreed priorities and then the team set about dividing up tasks, compiling lists of tools, materials and resources required and putting in place the necessary risk assessments and plans.  Suppliers were approached and all were glad to help, these included:

• Knox and Wells provided paint, brushes and overalls,
• Stride Treglown provided £100 of Screwfix vouchers
• Tables, chairs and shelving no longer required by the University were identified
• Bect provided Transport and labour
• Karl Luke from the Learn Plus Team also agreed to join the team.

On the 21^st of December the team arrived on site, the pavilion was closed for the day and the site was split into four work areas; the cafe, the toilets, the store and outside area and the orange and yellow rooms.

During the day the team achieved a great deal including: fixing broken furniture and broken lights, installing baby changing units, painting the ladies toilet, clearing out and installing shelving in the main store room, fixing the front shutters, providing new tables and chairs in the orange and yellow room and putting up shelving and installing a big Community Gateway poster on the wall in the orange room.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day agreed that the team hope to strengthen their ties to the Pavilion.

“We are now all aware of the fantastic work being done and are constantly on the lookout for furniture, materials and resources that can help”  said Alun Jones Business Change Manager.

Ali Abdi, the Community Gateway Facilities and Partnerships Manager said:

"The Grange Pavilion refurb has been fantastic, coming back after Xmas to see the changes was amazing. I am particularly excited that the main space is a lot brighter with more lights and that the repairs and touch up paint jobs has made a real difference to the space – thanks to everyone involved in making this happen!"

We hope to work with the PLS team again in the future!

For more information on the Community Gateway project or to volunteer please contact communitygateway@cardiff.ac.uk or follow us on Twitter @CommunityGtwy