We’ve recently welcomed Karen Hart to The Mill team, she will be helping us develop the Build The Mill project.
Hello. I’m Karen and I started working with The Mill as project co-ordinator for Build The Mill on 6 April this year. That was 16 days after the building closed, and so my groundwork has been, by necessity, through the medium of the laptop and Zoom. It was fortunate then that I was already a little acquainted with the orange and white striped ‘much-loved and well-used’ building on Coppermill Lane.
When I was offered the chance of doing this piece of work with The Mill I was delighted. It meant I would be back in Walthamstow, where I’ve lived all my life until getting married and moving in 2016. More than that, it’s an opportunity to be part of developing a well-respected community building which contributes considerably to The Mill’s sense of place.
The circumstances under which I’ve started working on the building project – without an actual building! – prompted me to ponder how The Mill is so much more than just bricks and mortar.
A recent look at The Mill website, showed the array of activities and events successfully being continued at the ‘virtual’ Mill – Pilates, Kids Art Club, Yoga, Climate Change workshop, Get Drawing… and if you’re exhausted by just going through the list you can have a Coffee and Chat on-line! This response by staff, volunteers, and the community to maintain the Mill’s wide-ranging schedule, when the building has been pulled away from under and over them, is amazing. This underlined very clearly to me that The Mill is more than the premises, it is the organisation and community as well.
But what of the building? Well if it could talk, I’m pretty sure 7-11 Coppermill Lane might be saying thanks for the rest! It has certainly earned some time off having worked tirelessly over recent years to support the local community offering the space and the welcome of a home-from-home.
The trustees, staff and building users have been trying to get momentum behind a plan to get the building the attention and investment needed to enhance aspects of accessibility and environmental sustainability. They’ve also been looking at ways to better the overall arrangement of spaces and improve the condition of the fabric and infrastructure of the building. I have just finished a scheme at Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel, which restored the Victorian property and provided a new community centre for the charity. As there are several similarities between both the organisations and what the projects set out to achieve, I’m hoping my recent experience will bring the required thrust to get things moving.
My wish is that at the end of the Build the Mill project we have a building that serves the community and that offers a financial and environmentally sustainable future for The Mill: Building. Organisation. Community.
If you would like to talk to me further about the project, or would like to know how you could get involved, please email karen@TheMillE17.org
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