With activities punctuated by Christmas and the New Year, we have nevertheless at last (!) managed to get the chamber woodwork painted all one shade of grey. More importantly but much less visibly, the project team have performed a task not dissimilar to caving, resulting in our also becoming a uniform shade of dusty grey. When the Troxy was converted from a cinema to the London Opera Centre in 1962/3, the stalls floor was levelled to the same height as the stage. This work was overseen by the same architect who originally designed the Troxy, George Coles. This levelling, done in order to create a single vast flat performance space for opera*, was achieved by building brick sleeper walls longitudinally along the length of the original stalls floor, in order to support transverse pre-cast concrete beams. The entire floor thus created was covered in hardwood parquet. The sleeper walls are around 30" high and create a kind of dusty sloping catacomb transected by giant air ventilation ducts. Our task was to find a route for the organ power and signal cables through this maze. It soon became clear that the architects' drawing lacked vital detail, and also that the conversion work had resulted in a number of mysterious blanked-off areas and passageways. Nevertheless, after three days of investigation on hands and knees, up ladders and into mysterious long neglected spaces, we have finally come up with a viable route, along which cable trays can first be installed followed by power and signal cables as well as the console wind supply. This latter activity, followed by construction of the organ blower control system, will take place over the next few months.

We continue to plan more fundraising activities, not least of which is the benefit concert being staged on the fine Compton of Wolverhampton Civic Hall on Saturday 18th February at 2.00 pm. Make it a date - this is an organ not to be missed and promises to be a fun-filled event with quality music for all tastes supplied by our own Midlands Secretary Damon Willetts, Paul Kirner, David Redfern and Society Musical Advisor Richard Hills. Kudos and thanks to Steve Tovey for organising this. It's so encouraging when people help us like this - a few months back Paul Kirner readily let us have a missing blower outlet funnel, currently being painted up in my workshop. Small things go a long way!

Hopefully with your support we'll also shift that fuel gauge needle some more notches upwards. Attending the Wolverhampton concert will be a great way of doing that in a fun-filled and sociable way. Meantime, a quick click on our Donations page is the way to help!  Many thanks to all who have recently donated. Don't forget, a modest standing order is an easy and very useful way of supporting our cause.

John Abson

T2T Project Leader

*In 1977 the Troxy was considered the largest indoor performance area in the country (TABS magazine, Autumn 1977)

TrocaDiary - January 2012