A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS

I love to decorate. I am no Martha Stewart, I could never be on HGTV, but I love to decorate. And I love to decorate especially when I am spending someone else’s money (lol)

During the month of March we did an overhaul of our offices. We actually took possession of the office across the hall, renovated it to accommodate our classroom, and then moved half of the office. On the classroom side, we have a big, bright classroom, a very welcoming reception area, and a kitchen. I think that all of the staff were most excited to have a real kitchen. Now we don’t have to use the men’s bathroom to get the water for the coffee. Maureen also has a nice big office on that side too. On the original side,(which we are now calling the tutoring side) we painted the entire office space. We also made 3 rooms out of the back room so we have 2 new tutor rooms and a reading nook. The library stayed in the same place but we removed the reception desk so it feels open and welcoming. Now, 2 staff can walk together in that one space. The paint colour is bright and it feels like we won the lottery. We even took the calendar that we created along with the photography class in 2008 and framed the pictures to put up on the wall. Better late then never.

I also felt what some of our learners feel every time they come in here. A fear of math. I had to figure out square footage for paint…that’s math. I had to determine if we had enough money in our budget to make the changes…that’s math. I had to make sure that we had enough space to make the move worthwhile…that’s math. The worse one for me was to measure if a desk could make it through a door in order to move it…THAT IS MATH. I finally believe the teachers that I had back in the day…math is everywhere. The other area that I now sympathize with our learners is in reading directions. Sometimes they are hard and I just want to put something together without looking at the directions first. Reading ahead of time can save you a lot of time in long run.  Reading is good.

You can check our some pictures of the renos on our Facebook page. If you are down near Sherbrooke Street and want to drop in to see our updates, please do. We love to show off and we usually have a big smile on our face while we tell/show you everything we accomplished with a little help from our friends.