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Cob Maintenance, 2019
Oct.7, 2019
A lot of cob maintenance has been done to ready the cob courtyard for the winter. What remains to be done:
table vandalism needs cleanup
missing shingles
plaster area mssing
hole near the ground
graffiti on cupboard door needs paint
counter needs protection with paint, broken door
wood rot needs cleaning at angle of counter
cracks i plaster around door
May 14, 2019: the cob courtyard needs some staff attention
shingles missing, rain gets inside wall
messy youth hangout, litter needs cleaning
person seeking shelter -- not practical
Ever since the staffing of the park was reorganized in 2012, basic maintenance is forgotten. The cob café, very popular and much visited from June to September, has some shingles torn off, so the rain can get into the walls. It would take half an hour to put on new shingles, but it's nobody's job to do it or even to notice.
Also, some youth have adopted the area inside the loop -- they moved in a table and a tree stump and have been hanging out in there for a month or more. There's lots of litter -- it needs cleaning up, and the sitting area should maybe be removed -- or maybe not. But staff need to pay attention.
The person curled up under the green roof, with their snacks set up on the shelf, needs the staff's help finding a better place to shelter. But the staff can't help if they don't go down there and notice.
Email from Jutta to dufferingrovefriends listserv, May 14, 2019
Park friends, if you want to help preserve the cob café, call or *email the staff supervisor: Keith.Storey@toronto.ca <Keith.Storey@toronto.ca>* *(416 392-4084)* and ask him to assign his staff to replace the missing shingles before more rain gets inside the walls. It takes half an hour to fix!
The cob café needs attention now, but I'm told the staff are not assigned to go down there until later in the season. Instead they mop the floors a lot at the rink house.
Over the past 7 years I've had to be doing a lot of reminding about the need to take care of what works well (e.g. the cafe and the playground). But now it's time to pass the torch to other park friends whose kids enjoy that part of the park. Call or email and ask for the shingles to be replaced and the litter to be cleaned up. Your reminders to staff will help: the more the merrier.
table and bloody napkins on the ground
May 16: tarped in the wrong place
May 16, 2019, email to Keith Storey
The cob has been tarped, but in the wrong place. The wall is still unprotected where the shingles are gone. Also, the table in the nook where the rough youth have been hanging out for the past month or two is still there, and some crumpled napkins on the ground behind it look like they might have some blood on them. Photos below.
The kids love to use that nook for playing fort, so it would be great if a staff person could take 10 minutes and move the table out and clean up the litter. Plus maybe they could move the tarp to the right place since showers are forecast for later and overnight.
I've cc'd Erin, Erella and Lori, since they seem to have been in touch about this issue as well.
May 17, 2019
new shingles ready for fixing
May 18: new shingles, wall is protected
May 28, 2019
May 25: worst shingle damage ever
May 28: good tarps for a rainy day
Erella Ganon had set up a meeting with a reporter at 2 pm on Saturday May 25, to talk about the cob cafe. They found a lot of new damage to the cob shingles. It must have been done on Friday, since it was fine the day before. Stupid.
The next day the mess of broken shingles was still there, and lots of litter and a half-burned backpack. There were three program staff in the rink house, but they hadn't heard anything about the damage, nor had they gone to check the playground (if they had, they might have noticed the cob). They said that no-one is scheduled to go down to the playground yet. It was a warm sunny Sunday at the end of May, with lots of people in the playground. That evening there were heavy rains -- but no tarp.
But by Tuesday the open parts were well tarped, so that no more rain could get in. Sounds like there's a plan to repair the shingles again this week.