Oh Happy Day!

A song to listen to while you read this blog and look at our photos.

It has only been a few days since opening but we have been overwhelmed by the love and encouragement of everyone who has come to Hope & Soul so far. Thank you so much for your support – we hope to continue seeing you at this fantastic community venture that is for everyone.

For those of you who haven’t managed to come to Hope & Soul yet and might still not know exactly what it is, we can now give you the full details.

Hope & Soul is a community venture, second-hand store with key pieces of barely worn, stylish clothing, vintage jewellery, as well as some locally made necklaces, along with some upcycled furniture and fittings. Upstairs is a coffee bar called the Olive Branch and a soft play area known as Carol’s Corner, both dedicated to two special and sorely missed ladies – we hope they look down in favour on what we have done in their honour, God rest their souls.

The Olive Branch serves top-notch cappuccinos, lattes and espressos (or tea if you prefer), which you can enjoy with a homemade scone or cupcake. Hope & Soul and the Olive Branch is that it is staffed entirely by volunteers. All profits are ploughed back into the mother charity, Via Wings, to continue our work of showing God’s love in a caring, practical and non-judgmental way.

Here are a few photos (finally in colour) from our first day of business.

Look forward to seeing you soon

@

Hope & Soul

33 Dromore Square, Dromore, Co Down

Mon-Sat 9am to 5pm

Thu  9am to 9pm

Rejoice

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Mahatma Ghandi

Tomorrow, after three weeks of hard slog by a fantastic team of volunteers, Via Wings’ new venture, Hope & Soul, is due to be launched. The doors open at 9am (at 33 Dromore Square) on both Hope & Soul and the Olive Branch.

Here are a few snippets of what you will see…

We hope to see you tomorrow – all welcome!

33 Dromore Square, Dromore, County Down BT25

I got my hope, I got my soul

Hello Happy Campers

Well we hope you’re happy and that you’ve come back here for a light break from your day-to-day routine. We want to brighten your day with our enthusiasm and our vision.

Activity at Hope & Soul is brisk. We don’t want to say fast and furious as we are really excited. There’s still a lot to do before Friday – and if anyone has a spare sink (as you do), please contact info@viawings.co.uk – but we are getting there.

We don’t want to tell you exactly what has been going on or we’ll give the game away and we want it to be a surprise. But Linda, Donna, Karl, Ian, Willie, Bryce and many more people (some new, some old… some older than others, others younger than most – we love and appreciate you all) have continued the creativity, the painting, the sorting, the organising and the setting up of inventories.

In a little over 2.5 days from now, Hope & Soul will be opening. Yes,this extraordinary event marks the beginning of a community led venture that we hope will give new direction, new hope, fill souls with joy and most of all bring our community together.

Before we go for the day, we thought we’d give you some entertainment, the retro sound of the fantastic and irreplaceable Nina Simone. We like the sentiment of the song – we may not have all the things that society says we should have, but what we have is our LIFE and no one can take that away from us. And if we have life, we have hope and soul.

Listen and enjoy…xx

Fast Track

It’s only been a few days since we last reported to you but things have stepped up. Well our volunteers have been working as had as they have done for the past two weeks but now all the labour-intensive prep work is almost complete, the prettifying process has begun.

The painting has continued, lining paper has gone up, as well as an eclectic, boho mix of wallpaper on the first floor.

Tom Knox has built a counter (bet you can’t guess what that’s for), a cabinet has been half painted and some pretty decorations added.

We have a donated till, a ‘trelace’ is being painted and the old strip lighting has been replaced.

Meantime, Sue and her team are busy ‘planning’ for the coming months, Gail requested we only take a photo of her with a paintbrush and Ashley asked us not to upload this photo of him with a vacuum cleaner, in case his wife saw it (sorry Ashley).

Our posts this week will be short and sweet but fast and furious (well less furious and more adrenalin-fuelled panic) as we slide straight towards Friday’s OPENING DAY!

Tempus Fugit*

The days whizz by when you’ve got a lot to do, and boy have we been up against it. Every single minute counts when you’ve only ONE WEEK LEFT. Yes, in exactly one week’s time, Via Wings will be opening the doors of its new community venture, Hope & Soul. But we will make it, because we have plenty of hope and plenty of soul. In fact, as Will.i.am would say, we have “soul on a pole.” In reality, this means we have a large, supportive team of people willing to work day and night to get Hope & Soul open on time.

So what have we been doing? The little room at the top of the building has been stripped of layer upon layer of paper and paint, thanks to stalwarts Anita, Cheryl and Debbie. Jackie, Linda, Nathalie and Rosie have sanded and painted over a dozen chairs, and a dedicated team of people, including Michelle, Ray, Mary and Helen have painted the walls up the stairwell and the first-floor room, while Patrick and Karl have even been painting through the night! Courtney and Julia have been cleaning up, and Brendan has been pushed from pillar to post fixing and mending things, hanging doors, and generally turning his hand to anything required. Meantime, Gail and Sue have been organising people and sourcing materials. If we’ve forgotten to mention anyone, we’re very sorry but a BIG THANK YOU to EVERYONE who has contributed so far.

Next will be wallpaper and floors, pictures and furnishings…on Monday we will be revealing one of our BIGGEST TIPS so far.

Meantime, WE NEED YOU!

You might not have the time to help with decorating, but you can still make a difference. Do you have any old-fashioned china tea sets – mismatching, old flowery china cups, saucers, plates and milk jugs? Are they collecting dust in the back of the cupboard? We would be over the moon if you have anything you’d like to donate.  ALSO, do you have any ‘occasional tables‘ that you no longer need? We would happily take them off your hands. Priceless antiques accepted but anything appreciated. You can drop them into the House of Hope (3 Iveagh Terrace, opposite Dromore Police Station), 3 The Square, Dromore (our new premises – there, we’ve given it away) or email sue@viawings.co.uk.

By the time this goes live, everything will have changed, but we’ll be updating again early next week. And please keep a date for next Friday, when Hope & Soul will be officially opening. More details to follow…

*For those who are interested to know the meaning of tempus fugit… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempus_fugit

Hope & Soul

Hello folks!

Sorry for going quiet on you but we have been extremely busy. Before getting into the nitty gritty of our recent activity, we have a BIG REVELATION for you — we have a name for our new venture – woohoo!  Yes, the new Via Wings project is going to be called Hope & Soul.  We made the final decision on the name today and already one of our volunteers is cranking up the creative genes and designing the new signage for our premises.

Now you might think that this doesn’t reveal much, but , as mentioned before, we are sticking to the same mission and therefore you know that whatever the nature of our scrumptious new project, it will be something aimed at spreading love and a positive outlook. We also wanted to maintain a link with our other main project, the House of Hope. And you thought that this was merely a new premises for the House of Hope? Wrong again!

Ok. Back to our volunteers. We are blessed to have such a supportive and dedicated group of people. When you see people from the whole community building something together like this, it gives you a good feeling about the future and what can be achieved with a little commitment and a shared vision.

Over the bank holiday weekend and this week, the last of the wallpaper was stripped off, the floors were sanded and the painting was started. One room has been painted already and our Centre Manager Sue Johnston already has it earmarked for her office (together with other staff members, of course).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The old fireplaces have also been spruced up but there is a long way to go with three floors of skirting boards and door frames on every floor to be glossed. And that’s just the start – go Tina (and everyone else who pops in to help).

On the ground floor, 36 donated chairs are being given a makeover. At moment we’re at the sanding stage, a long, arduous task that is driving Jackie into fits of giggles.

Our final reveal or tip of the day is the brass lamps that hang outside the premises. Dull and rusty, they had certainly seen better days, and while many would have written them off , we have to make use of everything we have. Thanks to a great wee tip, these lights have been transformed with the help of some tomato ketchup and a cloth. Yes, you heard it here first – ketchup cleans rust from old brass lamps.  Now we know that, we don’t want to think about what it does to our insides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s it for today. Have a good weekend and come back soon. We’d just like to remind you to keep spreading the word – we are opening two weeks from today. Yikes!

Getting our hands dirty

If you haven’t worked out where our new venture is going to be, then here’s another clue – the view from the first-floor.

Since getting the keys, volunteers have been hard at work stripping off several layers of vintage wallpaper in various styles, textures, thicknesses and colours.

         

No offence to those generations of former occupants, but we are stripping it back to a blank canvas. Then we’ll be (imagine the sound of brakes here)… uh-oh, don’t you lure us into revealing more than we had planned.

Back to the volunteers and their “stripping” – even our Centre Manager Sue Johnston and Chairperson Gail Redmond have been getting in on the act.

Now don’t be getting carried away with all this talk of stripping. We’ve heard the rumours, and “no”, it’s not going to be an adult-themed shop! Nice try, and we appreciate the fact that you’re talking about us, but we are sticking to our same mission of showing God’s love in a practical, caring and non-judgmental way.

There will be volunteers continuing to prep the place for decoration over the weekend, but if you do find where this destination sensation is, you won’t be able to take a sneaky peek inside as we’ve temporarily blocked the view.

But please keep chatting among yourselves, tell your friends while enjoying  your BBQ or party over the bank holiday weekend and we’ll show you a little more next week.

And please don’t forget that we are a charity with a big heart. Please open yours and help us by giving something to our Dare2Care project (see About Via Wings) or send us a wee donation through www.justgiving.com/viawings. You can also see our website at www.viawings.co.uk and our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/viawingsdromore.

THANK YOU

We have the keys!

The keys to what, you may ask.

Well, it’s the keys to our new premises, and it’s right in the heart of Dromore. If you’re in the town at all, it won’t take you long to work out where exactly it is.

That’s your first clue of the day.

The second clue of the day concerns what we’re doing. These are our first tools…

We’ve started stripping old wallpaper off the walls. So if old wallpaper is coming off, you’re probably thinking that it will be replaced by something else. Correct. The walls might be almost bare but the colour, material and texture of the new wall-covering is still under wraps.

   

The final snippet of information is that there are three floors here, and all of them have to be decorated and ready to go by 22 June.

Yes, that’s just a little over three weeks away, so while you get excited at the prospect of a new “destination” in Dromore (or whatever it is that we are creating), we’ll be running on adrenalin and a heap of kindness from all those lovely people who are helping us sprint towards our goal.

Hello world!

Hello people

There’s something exciting happening in Dromore, County Down.

Via Wings is launching a new project on 22 June 2012. We don’t want to say too much just yet, but we’ll be giving you updates on how we’re getting on with preparations, as well as giving you a few snippets of information and some photos to whet your appetite.

As with other Via Wings projects, we are doing this for everyone in Dromore, to give the town a wee boost by providing a new space where residents and visitors are welcome.

Tell us what you think it is and what you’d most like to see in Dromore.

Most of all, tell your friends about this new venture.

Look forward to seeing you on or after 22 June but meantime do come back and read our updates. 🙂