St-Lazare to open town hall community room soon

New space will ‘see a lot of use’

St-Lazare is putting the finishing touches on a new community space for where residents and local organizations can gather to cook, do crafts, watch TV, play games or meet for a coffee chat. The new community room is on the ground floor of the town hall at 1960 Ste-Angélique Rd. and is expected to open in early 2018. The room can host up to 200 people, or 56 seated guests. According to town spokesperson Geneviève Hamel, members of the community have been asking for additional recreational and social spaces for many years, leading to the recommendation from staff to include a room for citizens within the plan for the town hall. Hamel said the community room will offer a mix of programmed activities scheduled by the town’s recreation department and local non-profit organizations, as well as free intergenerational drop-in times. Residents who would like to organize activities in the room can contact the town’s recreation department to find out more. “My gut feeling is we’re going to see a lot of use,” Hamel said. Another little-known but longawaited feature of the town hall is the loom room, which will store weaving and sewing equipment belonging to the local chapter of the Cercle des Fermières, Quebec’s largest women’s organization. Denise Lalonde, head of the StLazare Cercle des Fermières, said he has been asking the town to set aside space to house the loom for years. Without a dedicated home for the loom, the group’s weavers could work only one day per week, as the loom had to be disassembled for storage after each meeting. While the new room isn’t huge, it is big enough to store the fully assembled loom, and has space for two sewers as well as a weaver. Lalonde said her group expects to begin weaving classes and demonstrations in the new space by the end of January. “The Cercle des Fermières has existed here for 75 years, and we have never had a space for ourselves. We have never had space to work how we want to,” she said. “Finally after all these years, we’ll have a place for us. It’s a good thing. We’re very happy about this.” Lalonde said that today’s members gather not only to weave, knit, crochet and craft, but also to discuss the status of women in society and organize help for battered women and others in need. Lalonde said members of the Cercle des Fermières are planning to make good use of the new community spaces in the town hall. In addition to weaving and sewing workshops and demonstrations in the loom room, Lalonde said the group plans to gather in the community room weekly to knit, crochet, do crafts and discuss women’s issues. They will also use the community kitchen to prepare meals for local families in need, as well as a venue for a new series of cooking workshops. St-Lazare is currently surveying citizens and local non-profit organizations to gather input on how people would like to use the new community space. The survey will be online until Thursday (Dec. 21) at 4 p.m. A printed version may also be completed at the recreation department’s reception counter located at the Community Centre (1301 Rue du Bois).