How many Sausage Sizzles would it take to Carpet a Classroom?

How many sausage sizzles would it take to carpet a school? Hello, it's Sally here with Martin from Floors Floors Floors at St Agnes.

Hello.

I'm going to share a bit of a collaborative story about how a community and lots of people have connected to come together instigated by Martin and a question that he was actually asked by a client whose name is—

Matthew McCurry.

Matthew. And that question was, how many sausage sizzles would it take to carpet a school? Which is a very interesting question and an odd question. So I'm going to ask Martin to tell you some of that story as to why it was that question and what happened

Well, it was, I think it was the beginning of July this year. I recognized Matthew as a customer because one of the girls had actually dealt with him and we carpeted his house. And he came back to us, he said, I'm really pleased with what you've done. He said, so, um, I just need to ask you, how many sausage sizzles does it take to carpet a school? And I said, oh, that's a strange question. So I said, right, tell me, tell me Tell me the story. So he explained to me that he was the principal of the school or learning centre within the Women's and Children's Hospital, and carpets have been down forever and they just wanted to tart it up and make it look a bit better, look and feel a bit better. Yeah. So I said to him, you're pulling on my heartstrings here, Matthew. I said, so I feel obliged to do the job at cost. So we said, oh, we said, we won't make any money on it, you just pay us what it costs to buy the carpet and the labour and the rest of the stuff. So he was quite happy with that. Yeah. I said, well, you'll have to come down and have a look at it. So we went down and had a look at it, and, um, I got word back from the girl who'd been there. She said, why are you putting carpet down in this school? Well, that's what the clients asked for. It needs a bomb through it. The place is a wreck. A lot of things are non-functional. It needs painting, it needs electrical work, there's a non-functional kitchen in it. The vinyl flooring that's down is not in the best condition. The fixtures and fittings and cupboards and that that are there Old and need upgrading. So I said, right, I said, I'll have a word with him and tell him to come back in. So I rings him up and I said, come in on Saturday and see me. So we had a sit down and I said to him, well, you need a lot more work because like I was saying before, I like to do things properly.

Properly, yeah.

So you need a lot of work doing in this school. He said, but we've got no budget for maintenance. We know what needs doing, he said, and I do little repairs myself and the hospital janitor does a few things. Yeah. He said, we're caught in a bit of a hole where the maintenance fund's concerned. He said, there's just no money for it. So we said, right, I'll get it all done for you.

Yeah.

He said, how? I said, ask me how, I just—

I just will.

Yeah. Thinking, I

could

just send that.

Yeah.

So, um, I set about asking people what they could do in a nice way. Some people came on board and then realized it was too much for them, or they didn't want to go through the hassle and the expense of contributing. But eventually, with persistence, through forum, a local forum called Tetrigully What's Up. We ended up with a gem.

It's on Facebook.

Yeah, we ended up with a gem of a lady called Tracy Davies who works for Broadfeather Design Company in Stepney, and she was actually a customer of mine anyway, so she said, I'm fully on board with this, um, and I will do anything I can to make this happen. So It sort of started growing from there. Word got out amongst different trades that we were going to refurb the school inside the hospital.

Yeah.

Great people started coming on board, and then eventually somebody came on board who wanted to project manage it, and he was a bit apologetic to me. He said, it's your baby. I said, it's everybody's baby.

All collaborating.

You can change the baby's nappy whenever you want, just let me know where I need to be and when I need to be. So from the, the actual physical side of it, I wouldn't say I've taken a bit of a step back. I'm just waiting for my stage to happen because we've managed to get 2 great suppliers of ours, Signature Floors and Polyfloor, to contribute all the products.

Oh, fantastic.

Yeah. It's $28,000 worth of products.

Wow.

That's at cost. We've got the installers who are going— the installers that we want, because we could get anybody to do it, but there's only 2 people that we want to work on this project. We've got the right people that are in line to actually do the flooring. Yeah. Last week, Dulux Jules came on board

for the

painting. Yeah, we went down last Thursday because they wanted some volunteers to help shift furniture. So I got there and Kate Hall from Jules, who's the estate manager there, she's so enthusiastic it's not funny. And I said, how many of you are coming? She said, oh, 2 or 3 of us, me, Nev, Brian, and somebody else. Yeah, I said, brilliant, what are we going to get done? We'll get the senior classroom done.

Yeah.

Great, great start.

There's a few classrooms?

There's— it's not a big place. There's the sort of 2 main classrooms, a library, office area, and kitchen.

Nice. So it's quite a big project.

So I get word from Matthew on Friday, and he's a bit emotional where this school's concerned because his heart and soul's

in

it. 17 painters turned up.

Oh wow.

One guy drove He came from Port Lincoln because his daughter, who had cerebral palsy, spent time at the school.

Yeah.

And he just had to be involved. So instead of painting just one classroom, they painted pretty much everywhere apart from the junior classroom and the kitchen.

Yeah.

Which is the places that need the most building work done, which we're going to do in January.

Yeah.

They painted the toilets, they painted everything that wasn't nailed down.

Yeah, great.

And Matthew was over the moon.

Oh, bless him.

Um, I'm also in a small networking group in the northeastern suburbs, and I put it to them a couple of months ago about what we were doing because I'm trying to get ears.

Yeah.

And a lady called Jenny Rogers, who's got a lot of experience in fundraising, straight on board. I'll organize a gala event. We'll raise some money because we need to make sure that once the job's done, they've got a small fund for ongoing maintenance.

Maintenance, yeah.

At their discretion, not the hospital authority's discretion or the education authority's discretion. So if they decide we want to change lampshades or we want to do this, we want to do that, we just want to make sure there's a fund there for them. So we've got the gala evening. Sophia's on Modbury.

Yep,

Masquerade Ball on the 1st of February,

and tickets are selling already and can be found on Eventbrite.

Eventbrite. Yeah, if you go on Facebook and find Hospital School SA Revamp, the link's on there.

Yep, I'll add the links too.

It's being hosted by one of South Australia's best comedians, Georgie Carroll.

Beautiful.

Who sounds Exactly like me, because she's from around the corner from where I grew up. Nice. So it's going to be a good night. We'll have all sorts of things going on. We've got a great DJ called John Marquides, who we know very well. Yeah, very funny, very entertaining. The, the night's going to be about raising money, but for those who attend, it's going to be about enjoying themselves.

It is as well. So just to recap, the question of how many sausage sizzles will it take to carpet a school? The answer to that was collaboration, community collaboration, finding a group of the right people to start a conversation of asking who can help and how can you help, and then getting the right people in place to help project manage that. So effectively, the classroom at the Women's and Children's Hospital is in the process of being refurbished, uh, with the final bits of the build and stuff happening in January, if I've got that right.

The main of it's going up in January.

January. And then a gala to assist the people in the relevant places there to continue the maintenance after this project has actually been finished. So just a great story, an Adelaide— great Adelaide story of how different business owners and different and different networks can come together and make a very significant contribution to many lives that would be touched at the Women's and Children's Hospital. As you mentioned, for the chap that travelled down from Port Lincoln.

Good riddance.

Yeah, which is great. So just a great— another great success story here in Adelaide of a different flavour, and we look forward to seeing you again soon.