Volunteers Give St. Margaret's Church Hall a Makeover

---

Four days spent cleaning sanding and painting the interior

One of the volunteers works on a finish

March 1, 2024

A group of volunteers have given a community hall in Putney a new lease of life after four days of hard work.

They gave up their time to clean, sand and paint the interior of the building at St Margaret's Church on Putney Park Lane.

A well-used community hall in Putney has been given a new lease of life – thanks to hardworking volunteers from a local decorating and DIY specialist.

The venue is used extensively throughout the week as a nursery and for Brownies, ballet, kickboxing and private functions.

Volunteers hard at work in St. Margaret's Church Hall

They were helped out by a four-strong team from DIY retailer Leyland who got involved as part of the company.s commitment to giving all employees a paid day off each year to help good causes in the community. The Leyland quartet was made up of Lee, Tony Margerrison, Oskar Walek and Douglas Runebjork.

Lee Brindley, store manager at Leyland Putney on Upper Richmond Road, said, “We’re so pleased to be able to help revitalise the community hall, which is well-loved in the local area.

“It looks so much better than it did and will be a huge boost for everyone that uses it.

“We scrubbed down the walls with sugar soap and then painted with three coats of brilliant white.

“There is also a long wooden cabinet that runs the full length of the hall. We sanded that down and treated it with primer, undercoat and eggshell.

“We’ve had a great time doing it and have bonded as a team.”

The hall when the work was finished

Leyland also donated the materials for the makeover project, including paint brushes, gloves, roller trays and scuttles, masking tapes, plastic protective sheeting, sandpaper.

Jonathan Crane, a member of St Margaret's Church parochial church council (PCC), thanked Leyland saying, “The community hall was built in the 1970s and hasn’t been painted many times since.

“The team has been really fantastic. The hall looks so much better now.

“We’re a very lively church but, like all churches, we’re short of money. We completed some work on the main church building recently but just didn’t have any money left to look at the hall.”

Leyland has 33 stores in prominent locations across London, stocking a comprehensive range of thousands of products across all departments, including paint and decorating essentials, building materials, electrical fittings, tools and plumbing equipment.

Value Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site.