By Michaela Buerdsell 

Thaxted Centre for the Disabled, now known as CraftAbility is a charitable centre that provides an opportunity for people with disabilities to make crafts while tackling loneliness and isolation. This volunteer-run centre is open from Monday to Thursday and assists members with a variety of crafts such as basket making, knitting, and cane chair repairs. Since this is such a wonderful initiative, Domainex got in contact with CraftAbility to see if we could help the centre before its 60th birthday celebration. Our volunteer team consisting of six members from Domainex travelled from Sawston to Thaxted to help renovate the CraftAbility centre.

The first part of the renovation was to clean the gutters from debris. This was done on a cold, rainy day which made cleaning the gutters a tough challenge, however, the work proceeded as planned. Following the muddy morning cleaning the gutters, the afternoon was spent gardening; planting flowers, and placing flowerpots around the building. Whilst the weather was less than ideal, the volunteers enjoyed the work and felt it was very rewarding to work on improving the Centre for the users of CraftAbility. 

Learning from the previously performed work, the second part of the renovation work was scheduled for a day with more favourable weather conditions. To begin, we removed the peeling paint from the fascia board to give us a flat surface to work with and prepare the surface. During this, everyone got covered in small white flakes of old paint, which faithfully remained on us for the rest of the day! We then painted the fascia board with a new coat of white paint which dried very quickly in the 26˚C sun. 

Once the facia boards were finished, a selection of succulents and some ferns were planted around the building or arranged in a pot. To finish off, the garden was watered, and the area swept to remove the flecks of old white paint. 

All in all, I and the other volunteers genuinely enjoyed this work and found it really rewarding. I am grateful that Domainex supported the opportunity to help a great charity by providing the equipment and time for all the volunteers. Happy 60th birthday CraftAbility!