Sunday 30th October06
The Friends had a very interesting meeting with Keith Dowell and Mark Maffey from the Trust outlining the future for E and F levels West Wing at the SGH.
F level is the area that we are expanding with the Trust to provide a new modern Refreshment area that will replace D & F level Tea bars that we run at present.
We will be taking over two doctors offices that are next door to our present F level Tea bar and completely refurbish the whole area with funds from the Trust and more than £50,000 of our money.
We asked about how secure we would be if we do invest this money and agreed with Keith Dowell that we would make an agreement, kind of quasi lease, that would ensure that if the Trust needs to move us again in the future they would foot the bill and try to find us a comparable site.
This is the best outcome that we can expect from the Trust and we are raring to go now to get this refreshment area up and running early in the New Year.
We will be running it as part of the Trust and therefore are looking at plans together with Mark Maffey, an architect with the Trust, to satisfy both of our requirements. This is a new venture for the Trust and us together. Before we have had a space in the hospital and run it as League of Friends and made profits for the Trust. This new venture will be a refreshment area that the Trust wants as part of its new Out Patient Departments on E and F level West Wing and are willing to fund it with us as a joint concern.
Very exciting and we hope this is the start of a new era for FriendsSGH and the Trust working together for the General Hospital.
The closing of the PAH shop and Tea Bar is still a sad and upsetting concern but we must look ahead now and we feel that the Trust haven’t just “chucked us out” but have offered a new venture, that we couldn’t afford to do without their help, to move everyone on to a new year and a new us!
Many older volunteers of the League feel that we are moving away from the “old” League and we are. But we are gaining new volunteers who have different aspects on volunteering and a different view of how the FriendsSGH should progress. This is exciting and we need to grasp the opportunities offered with both hands.
We are awaiting our new website that is being built for us and we can’t wait to get going with it. More news of that next time.
Sallyanne