Another great Saturday...

The day started out looking murky, cold and wet... but it turned out OK. Once again we had a team of over 30 people through the site. 

We ...

• Finished the weatherboard
• Fixed up corners and beading
• Filled holes
• Prepared scribers and installed some
• Plumbers did work on the showers
• Painted the house!
• Tidied the site
• Hung more doors
• Finished pink batts
• Bolted down internal frames

Well done again team... the house is looking good! We hope to get inspections done this week.. and next week just maybe we start on Gibbing the internal walls.

Photos: Top to bottom

1. Painting the house begins in earnest.
2. Ray one of our plumbers mixing plaster for the shower base.
3. Les the other trusty plumber, looking like he knows what he is doing. (Plumbers can do anything!)
4. From the Saturday before, two Habitat directors working hard during lunch time consulting about the tasks ahead!

Work day 26th September... plans for the day.

Here is a list of jobs for the day tomorrow...

• We will finish the pink batts (if you worked on them last week you are excused this week)
• We will finish the weatherboard and trimmings.
• We will put no-more-gaps in any gaps.
  
• We will begin painting the outside of the house.
• We will do the scribers
• We will finish hanging the internal doors.
• We will put sealer on the internal doors.

We hope the weather will improve so that we can do these things. If the weather looks doubtful ring 4774848 to check if it is on.

The worst job over... nearly.

Saturday saw a great mob of enthusiastic volunteers making a big dent in the list of jobs on the house.

• The weather board is all but completed.
• There's primer coat on the eaves.
• More doors were hung.
• The pink batts are nearly all in.

We had new volunteers along whose introduction to the Habitat site was to do the worst job on the house... pink batts! If you are one of those I promise not to give you that job next week. We ran out of batts in the afternoon but there's not much to go. (My eyes have just now stopped feeling like they are full of sand!) 

A neighbour from across the road introduced herself and her daughters to us and brought us hot muffins for afternoon tea.

Another good day of work..... well done team!

Sad News

It is with sadness that we report the death of Dan Maguire. Dan has been a volunteer on house number 11, 12 and the current house at Ashmore Street. He was quiet and unassuming and had a difficult burden to carry in life. He told me once that coming to Habitat helped him, and the company on the Habitat site was good for him. With love, sadness and respect we remember him.

Photo: Dan is the man in the centre of the picture with glasses. This is at the dedication of Shona's house.

Another happy day in paradise.

Well we did not quite finish the weather boards. We were into all the fiddly bits and that slowed us down. What we did looked neat. Les and Ray the plumbers got all their pipes in and tested. Jane and Dave Rogo started hanging the doors.

It was another good day with some hard workers doing their thing. Thank you to all who showed up and to all who brought food along. We hope Martin gets well by next Saturday. Maybe he will come and tell us all the things we did wrong? Just blame Dave.

September 12th day...

Having been inspired by the Governor General's visit we will be wanting to rip into work tomorrow. We will complete the weatherboard. We will hang internal doors. We will install a meter box. We will do the batten around the suffiet. We may even look at scribers. Enough to keep us busy. As usual check the phone message on 4774848 if the weather is doubtful. We are going so well, and enjoying the journey. :-) See ya there!

Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand and Lady Susan visit with Mike and Christine

Today the patron of Habitat for Humanity in New Zealand, Sir Anand Satyanand and his wife, Lady Susan, visited Mike and Christine's home.

Saturday 5th September.

We had somewhere between 32 and 40 volunteers turn up on Saturday. We made a big inroad into getting all the weatherboard done on the house. The women from the Waverly Church provided heaps of delicious food for morningtea, and as always food came from Jean, Christine and the whanau. It was a good day even though Martin was worn out trying to keep an eye on us all.

Well done to all the volunteers. We are ready for the Vice-royal visit tomorrow. After the official part we are having a bit of a feed to celebrate the roof going on and the exciting progress so far. All volunteers welcome. The official party will arrive at around 3:30 p.m.

Work day Saturday 5th September

Tomorrow we will rocket ahead with the weatherboard. We can only go to the top of the windows. We will also be tidying up the site for the Governor General's visit on Thursday afternoon. He will be coming up to the site at around 3:30p.m. that day. The sun is shining today and the forecast is good so we look forward to basking in the sun as we work tomorrow.

Come anytime after 9 a.m. We will have another fun day. It should be as easy as falling off a log tomorrow, the nails will be in place.

See you there.