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Retreat Center

Timeline and areas

  • Refurbishment OF RC
    • December 2025 (RC Kitchen Floor)
    • Male and female dorms
    • Other accommodations
  • RC Kitchen ready for
    • In person retreat in May 2025

Steps (to sort)

(Before WR)

  • Area around RC Kitchen
  • Move Furniture Stores
  • Move storage rooms
  • Move Book Stores
  • Move RC Store ?
  • Move Guest rooms (some rooms are used during the WR)
  • Move Bodhi House Rooms
  • Sangha Room
  • Junk Yard
  • Removing roofing in front and behind the kitchen
  • Removing cold room
  • Get rid of old Cooker, spin dryer (barn) ?

Furniture Store

  • Furniture store emptied by the end of December (furniture and books)

  • Cleaned by the work monk.

Temporary Sala

  • Completely empty for end of December

  • plus 3 rooms to be emptied

  • and clean the place

  • RC keep the grey mat big

Guest Rooms and Bodhi House

  • liaise with Guest Monk Nun and bodhi house and empty the room

  • RC needs 5-6 rooms for helpers (3-5 is taken, 4-(6) plus 17+18)

  • Rooms 12-13-14-15 will be vacated before the WR (10, 11, 12 used already)

    • Need to arrange this room to be ready for the WR

  • As soon as possible, at the end of April (transition down), people go out of RC, bodhi house as well. May Month need to be emptied. Going back to old standard

  • Don't book anyone after the WR?

  • Work monk help with cleaning the rooms of RC

Storage puzzle

  • Move second bay of the workshop to the new workshop first 
  • or using the containers to store the books and furnitures temporarily

Maria's Note about Kitchen

Ideally, the former dining area can be cleared at the beginning of the winter retreat as the floor needs to be looked at and repaired.
That needs to be liaised with the site manager Eleanora

In the DINING AREA (linoleum) are at present : two cupboards RCK6  and RCK7, the big grey Gram fridge B1 (All marked on the attached present kitchen plan)
 and the small freezer next to the big fridge, the chest freezer B3 has stopped working and the little one was taken from the RC kitchen container.
All that needs to be moved into the KITCHEN AREA  (red floor tiles).

There is a counter fridge with drawers next to the back sink.
It needs repairs to its drawers and to be moved to the other side of the sink.

The area between the combi oven and the counter fridge  I need to find a table /cupboard that will fit into the space between that fridge and combi oven.

The previous cupboard will not fit anymore due to the combi oven .
I would like to find out if one can put the filter for the combi oven on the shelf of the combi oven table, as that will free up more space for a longer cupboard.

Everything else, please move out, take off the walls and the ceiling.

If some furnishings, shelves, etc are not being used in the new main kitchen, please let me know. Some of it could be used in the Retreat Centre Kitchen.

 Empty both larders, including big metal cabinet

Empty sangha room except the white cupboards: 

Empty flower shed: but leave the  high up shelves 

The kitchen does not need any of the blue containers nor the walk in fridge behind the kitchen.

There are also the old cooker  from the old kitchen and the industrial spin dryer from the monks' scullery. 
Can they go on eBay, free cycle or taken to the recycling. They are now in the back of the kitchen under the  extracting duct.

Most of the old RC kitchen and dining room furniture will be used again, which is stored in the RC kitchen container.

It would be good   to put the RC kitchen in place and have it as back up for the main kitchen and store surplus main monastery kitchen cupboards etc in the freed space if there will be a storage issue.
It is possible to use the kitchen with RC kitchen equipment as it was used in the past when the old kitchen was refurbished.  

Drawing of Monastery RC kitchen furnishing .png

Time off

Maria: February (ideally)
Jenna: January 

Jenna Notes

Transition: Retreat Centre Household

1) Temporary Furniture Store / RC Men’s Dorm:
* Non-RC Furniture and Books to be removed by end of December at latest.
*  RC Furniture left in room – we will sort this.
* Then Room deep – cleaned by work monk/nun teams (hasn’t been cleaned for 4 years!)
*  IMPORTANT:  Where can furniture and books go? Will Old workshop be empty?
                             

2) Temporary Sala / RC Women’s Dorm:
* If Possible, vacate by end on December?
* Doors in side wall to be reconverted to windows by contractors 
   Hopefully during Winter Retreat Jan or Feb?. (To check with Eleonora about this).
* We will then set up women’s dorm during winter retreat (March)


3) Other Rooms in RC Currently used by Guests and Bodhi House:
* Winter Retreat: It’s Ok for these to be occupied during winter retreat as usual.
*  But we will need some room for RC helpers during this time too. We suggest:
    RC uses about 5 rooms to include 4,5,6 and two of the male guest rooms (17,18)
* This would leave 6 rooms for male winter retreat helpers and 6 for female.
    Guest monk: 16,19, 20, 21, 22, 23; Guest nun: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 ,15 (see below)
* Note: 3 Rooms off Sala – currently used for storage (13,14,15) to be reconverted to rooms
   For winter retreat female guest use.
* April: We will continue to need some rooms for helpers in April.
   As suggested winter retreat helpers could stay on until the end of April.
   Suggest that from start of April, new guests only booked into Karunasom/ male guest area
   But people staying on after winter retreat can stay on in RC up to end of April if needed.
* We would ask that s rooms are vacated, they can also have a deep clean.
* Also suggest maybe no new Bodhi House bookings in RC from April.
* May: We need to have RC completely vacated by start of May to prepare rooms.
* Items in the RC Rooms to be labelled. NB almost all furniture is RC furniture.
   A few items go to monastery – eg table in room 7.


4) Items to be Returned to RC:
* In Heartwood House there are currently about 6 beds belonging to the RC.
   These were borrowed by a previous Lodgings monk when the monks moved into the
   House as there were no beds there. But on the understanding that they were just on loan 
   And would be given back when retreats resumed.
* So we will be needing them back by the beginning of April at the latest. And the Lodgings
    Monk will need to find some new beds and also mattresses which also came from the RC.
    The bedding belongs to Heartwood.  I will contact the Lodgings monk and copy you in –
    I forgot to mention this when we spoke.      
         
          

To Do

  • label with tape what is RC, what is SALA
    • Red is RC
    • Yellow is SALA

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