The Basement Fire / Flood Update. WE NEED YOU!

The Base­ment is a social cen­tre in Cen­tral Man­ches­ter with a veg­an cafe, activist library, book­shop, com­put­er hub and exhi­bi­tion space. We have been bad­ly affect­ed by the mas­sive fire on Mon­day and we are appeal­ing for help so we can get back open again as soon as pos­si­ble.

The Base­ment Social Cen­tre in Man­ches­ter was bad­ly dam­aged in the huge fire which start­ed on Dale Street on Mon­day morn­ing. It is now closed for essen­tial repairs but we hope to open again in the near future, In the mean­time apolo­gies to all our user groups, cus­tomers and friends.

Luck­i­ly we did not go up in flames; how­ev­er we have suf­fered smoke dam­age and more sig­nif­i­cant­ly severe flood dam­age from our sprin­kler sys­tem

Some of us were able to briefly go in and sal­vage impor­tant items; the scene that greet­ed us was grim but rather less apoc­a­lyp­tic than we first feared. There were pud­dles of water rather than the 2 metres we were warned about but many books, leaflets and art works are well beyond repair. Ceil­ing tiles have come down and we can not yet be sure how bad­ly affect­ed the IT hub and kitchen are.

We are not cur­rent­ly able to gain access to start the clean up or even ful­ly assess the dam­age, this is because the area is still deemed unsafe until adja­cent build­ings are demol­ished. Lat­est reports sug­gest we will be able to get in some­time next week. This is incred­i­bly frus­trat­ing and obvi­ous­ly damp things will fes­ter so we are fac­ing a huge chal­lenge,

When we are able to start we would be huge­ly grate­ful for any help with the clean up. Its going to be a mas­sive task and the more vol­un­teers the bet­ter. We will also need finan­cial sup­port because although we do have some insur­ance it will not cov­er all our loss­es. Exten­sive ren­o­va­tion and restock­ing will be nec­es­sary and we real­ly do need you.

We have all been touched by many mes­sages of sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port we have received. Thank you every­body. Cheers also to the Fire Brigade who have been ace.

We now ask that you think about turn­ing kind words into action. We have a new web­site which includes a place to reg­is­ter offers of prac­ti­cal help and also an online dona­tion facil­i­ty. Any con­tri­bu­tions you can make, phys­i­cal or finan­cial will be much appre­ci­at­ed.

Please go to http://thebasement.clearerchannel.org/new/

The Base­ment will rise, phoenix like, and be stronger and more glo­ri­ous – but we will need the help of our friends and sup­port­ers to do so

Love and under­wa­ter kiss­es

The Base­ment Col­lec­tive
mustsocial@yahoo.co.uk