The Beiseker Community Centre is receiving a helping hand from the Beiseker Lions Club.
The Lions are contributing funds to fix up the interior of the hall and a group of volunteers will complete the work.
“There was a need,” said John Richter, a member of the Beiseker Lions Club.
“A community centre is important for all communities because it’s a focal point for social activity and so on keeps people in your own community instead of having to go elsewhere to do things such as have their weddings and social functions and so on.”
Part of what they’re fixing is a result of water damage, in the drywall, for instance.
It’s a problem that has been occurring for the past few years now and a 2009 engineer’s report recommended the Village caulk certain areas of the roof and replace several rusty screws.
Mayor Ray Courtman says the innovative design of the roof is meant for a different climate.
“They’re internal gutters, they’re mounted inside the wall like on most buildings, you see the gutters are along the outside of the wall, these are mounted inside of the buttress wall on the roof,” he said.
“It just wasn’t designed for this kind of a country. It was designed for maybe out of the West Coast or something where they don’t get a lot of freezing weather.”
Courtman said the ice builds up and blocks the eavestroughs, which later melts and pools on the roof, causing leaking.
According to Courtman, the biggest leak is at the main entrance of the building.
During a Village council meeting on Feb. 11, council discussed potential fix for the still-leaking roof because the potential solutions haven’t worked.
“We’re looking now at a plan to close those inside gutters and replace them with outside gutters like everybody else had,” added Courtman. “Hopefully that will solve the problem.”
Village Councillor Warren Wise said he had never heard of such a configuration before coming across the gutter system at the community centre.
Right now, he says, the damage is fairly extensive and the Village is trying to control the effects of the snow sliding down the roof.
“This is conceptual right now, we don’t profess to be experts in the field and we do want to get some people with some experience to get involved,” said Wise. “We’re just sort of monitoring what’s going on right now.”
With the Lions fixing up the community centre’s interior that increases the urgency of fixing the roof’s problems.
“I would hate to see them spend money fixing up the interior to have the roof leak all over it and ruin it again,” said Courtman. “They’re going ahead with some of the renovations that won’t be affected by the roof and then hopefully we will have a solution to the roof problem by the time they’re ready to repaint and fix the drywall where the water damage has occurred.”
