A thirteen-year-old-girl who has just been crowned World Champion at Taekwondo is calling on the local community to help her team compete at home and host a prestigious national martial arts tournament.
Georgia Ellis was crowned World Champion blackbelt forms at Taekwondo in Ireland last week. Another member of the team, Demi McFarlane, came second in the continuous sparring category.
The team has another tournament in October against teams from Wales. It is custom for each team to host the tournament on a rota basis, but, because space is so tight at The Trinity Anglican/Methodist Church, where the team practise, they can only allow some of their rivals to come along and compete.
Parishioners and community members based at The Trinity want to complete the building of a new Community Centre and Theatre. The centre will provide a much needed focal point for a community which ranks as one of the most deprived in the country.
The church has already raised £600,000 towards the total cost but need a further £100,000 if they are to complete their vision of offering a centre that can meet the growing demand from groups in the area.
Pastor John Crawford said ‘the area round the church simply does not have enough places for groups to meet and for individuals to access much needed services. Trinity Church itself runs a variety of activities which are extremely popular but unfortunately we just don’t have the space to accommodate everyone. It’s desperately sad having to turn people away when we could have an excellent facility that could offer so much more.’
Georgia said: ‘I really enjoy taking part in Taekwondo tournaments with the teams from Wales and it is good to go to there to compete. However, it would be even better if we had a venue big enough so that all of the teams could come here. It would be fantastic if we could compete at home and have all of our supporters with us.’
Shirley Kirkham, Georgia’s mum, who helps run the classes said: ‘It is a real shame that not everyone from the Welsh teams can be here at the tournament because of space. We can’t afford to hire a larger venue, but if we had the new community centre in place that wouldn’t be a problem at all. When we were preparing for the World Games it was impossible to the get church building for extra training as so many other groups use it, and in the end we had to settle for taking the team jogging around the local parks. Taekwondo is really popular in this area, and whole families take part.
"We want to stay in this area and if we had more space we could open up the classes to even more people. It would be fantastic if, next time it was our turn to host a tournament, we could accommodate everyone without a problem.’
The church wants to use a redundant building next to the church that has been empty and an eyesore for a number of years. Their vision is to have a centre for people to use and a theatre facility with a resident Performing Arts Academy. This multi purpose facility including a community café and seminar and meeting rooms will be a unique venue for this highly deprived area.
Whilst funds are being raised, line dancers, the taekwondo group, keep fit groups, childrens’ groups and mother and toddler groups are all competing for time in the church building itself, which is being used every day of the week to try and accommodate the community’s needs.
Tina Whitehead has been a parishioner at Trinity for more than 25 years and she takes part in Line Dancing in the church. She said, ‘Some sessions are really limited because of the availability of the building. We would love to run our classes of an evening as well as during the day but there is no time in the schedule. We can get up to 25 people for one class between the ages of 3 and 85, and if we get any more we just won’t fit! Understandably, some people also don’t feel right doing activities like this in the church building, as they feel it should be a place for peace and quiet. The community of Trinity is wonderful, and by having a new community centre we would be able to reach out to even more people and also welcome people from other local communities to use our facilities.’
Michaela Sandringham and her family use the church every week. Michaela said, ‘I take classes in taekwondo and my children go to the kids club, where they create artwork for display, play games and put on performances. Because space is so tight in the church itself, when we do taekwondo we have to be extra careful not to knock over any of their work. If we had a purpose-built building we could all have our own space. There is nowhere else for kids to go in this area. If we could raise the money for this centre, the opportunities to provide even more facilities would be fantastic.’
Local residents are desperate for the church to be able to carry out the project. In an area that ranks highly on all the economic indices of deprivation it suffers from chronic unemployment, high levels of benefit dependency and low levels of educational achievement. The area attracts all the wrong sorts of headlines being featured in a Panorama programme on gun crime.
In amongst all this the church stands as a beacon of hope for the community. Over the last two years, due to burst water mains, the area has suffered major floods. It was at these times the church stood out for the local people, helping feed them and campaign for much needed help and support.
John Crawford said ‘Trinity church has worked to provide much needed community services but we’re finding it increasingly difficult to do this with the facilities we have. The new centre will provide a valuable resource - not only as a meeting place for local people but as a focus from where services and activities can be developed for the local community. We want it to be a place for the people – a place they can call their own.’
Local Councillor Ken McGlashen added: "As locally Elected Councillors my colleagues and I are proud to continue supporting Pastor John in his ongoing efforts to bring a much needed facility to an area that is one of the most deprived in our Country. Pastor John and his predecessors have already raised a huge amount to realize this dream of a place for local people young and old to find self esteem, a new direction in life, just an aspiration for many in the Page Moss area.
"Pastor John and Trinity Church have proved their worth over the past years, they have been at the centre of the community, a place of refuge for families when homes were flooded, twice in three years, families where fed, comforted, given hope when all was lost, created a new close community spirit out of this adversity, this we want to maintain, with Trinity Church in the vanguard.
This new facility when completed would put Trinity Church as a major provider of after school education, learning, leisure, in our area. We wish Pastor John and Trinity Church God speed in their efforts to complete this project.’
The scale of the challenge is huge. The project will involve extensive refurbishment of both the inside and outside of a redundant 1930’s building. The church hopes to start the project in November 2010 and would like to complete it in February 2011.
If you would like to donate or help raise money for the new community centre contact John Crawford johncrawford.home@yahoo.co.uk
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