The New Club

Last Update July 2005

 The building process in the year 2002

 Second Floor, Cont.

Joe Zerafa and John Spiteri placing the sculpted stones in one of the windows.

  On Sunday, February 10, Karmenu Caruana helped by Mikiel Aquilina laid blocks of the chapel supporting wall. On the same day, Joe Zerafa and Martin Formosa laid the straight-sculptured pieces of one of the facade window openings. Another flat arch was also laid.
  On Monday, February 11, work on the end blocks of the window arch was started.
  On Wednesday, February 13, Joseph Spiteri worked on the arch voussoirs – ? In three days, John Spiteri worked on the arch voussoirs – on this day he completed 10 of these voussoirs.
  In three days, John Spiteri managed to complete 30 of these voussoirs which are used to form the six arches above the door and window openings of the façade.
  On Saturday, February 16, Martin Formosa completed the sixth pediment corner stone block.
  The following day, Mikiel Aquilina, Charlie Bugeja and Martin Fornosa worked on two more pediment corner blocks. In addition, some of the arched blocks which fit under the arches were cut on the band-saw.

John Spiteri and Joe Zerafa in the process of placing one of the sculpted stone

  In the week that followed, Joe Spiteri began to put up the shuttering  of the upper part of one of the main, steel-reinforced Concrete columns and John Spiteri resumed work on the arched blocks for the arches.
   On Sunday. February 24, the pediment corner blocks of the balcony door openings were completed; in addition, two straight-sculptured corner pieces were also made. Joe Spiteri, with the help of John Spiteri, Mikiel Aquilina, Nikol Aquilina, Mario Mifsud. and Giezzju Farrugia laid six pediment corner blocks while Karmenu Psaila started on the first arch voussoirs.
   On Monday, February 25, Joe Spiteri completed his work on the shuttering of one of the three main concrete pilasters. Two more pediment corner blocks were started.
   On March 1, the ninth pediment corner block was completed.
   On March 2 John Spiteri carried on with the stone block cutting of the pillars and Karmenu Psaila worked on two additional corner pieces involving straight-sculpturing for the balcony doors.

   On March 3. the tenth pediment corner block was completed. Marlon Aquilina who has just started learning about the art of stone sculpturing produced useful work in connection with door and window openings.
  On March 5, Karmenu Psaila completed the sculpturing of five voussoirs. As a result, the work on the laying of the first door arch of the balcony could be carried out.
  On March 8, the main steel-reinforced column which was previously shuttered by Joe Spiteri and Carmel Magro. was poured. In this regard. the mixer was borrowed from Anthony Camilleri and the other equipment from Hank Catania. For this operation, many were those who offered their help thereby saving on the cost and the time involved.
  On Sunday, March 10, Joe Spiteri and Mikiel Aquilina dismantled the shuttering on the main column. Joe Spiteri also did the pre-pavatory work in connection with the laying of the sculptured blocks of the middle window. Mikiel Aquilina did maintenance work on the Stiefnu lifter which was earlier slightly modified by Mario Azzopardi. This alteration was necessary in order to facilitate the mobility of the lifter while carrying large loads, such as sizeable stone. blocks used in the facade. Marlon Aquilina finished another corner block.

  On Wednesday, March 13, 100 - 12 inch stone blocks were lifted onto the roof by Mario Bondin's crane. On this day, the pediment corners which were sculptured by Martin Formosa were completed - this work was started way back in December. Another wedge with projecting mouldings was completed.
   On March 17, Joe Zerafa and John Spiteri resumed work on the laying of the main facade pillars while Salvu Magro, Martin Formosa, Mikiel Aquilina, Carmel Magro and the Aquilina twins (Marlon and Anthony) worked on the extention of the scaffolding on the front of the building. The necessity of the scaffolding is two-fold (a) to facilitate the laying of sculptured stone blocks with precision and (b) to reduce the danger to all of those involved in work of this nature. Suffice to say, the Society's administration had, as from the initial stages of this project, decided to do what it takes to safe-guard the safety of all those concerned.
  The scaffolding extension was planned in such a way as to have minimum interference with work being carried out on the facade pillars.
  On March 24, the first door-opening arch of the balcony was completed. This work was done by Joe Zerafa helped by John Spiteri and Mikiel Aquilina. Salvu Magro, Martin Formosa, Mikiel Aquilina. Mario Spiteri, the Aquilina twins and Rosmar Farrugia did additional work on the scaffolding using the Society’s Land Rover/Hi-up.
  On March 30, Innocent Centorrino supplied us with the templates for the entablature of the Henrietta St. George Hall while work resumed on the arch voussoirs of the other balcony door openings.
  On April 2, the voussoirs of the door arches were completed and on April 5, they were laid in their respective positions by Joe Zerafa and John Spiteri.

  On Sunday, April 7, more scaffolding was added. This was done as preparatory work for the laying of the columns on the balcony level on April 13. The column measurements were noted and other preparations were carried out in readiness for the installation of the six Doric columns made in Modica (Sicily) from Pietra di Modica.

  On April 8, Joe Zerafa worked on the 14th and 15th course of the main facade. Later on that day, a hand rail was installed on top of the scaffolding - a safety precaution necessity.
  During the week of April 8, all the arrangements were made in preparation for the installation of the columns on the balcony level. In fact, for this purpose, some tools and other equipment had to be borrowed; for instance, straps for the lifting of the columns were borrowed from Lorry Cutajar and from Frida Transport. More work was carried out on the scaffolding extension and also on the tying down of wood planks of the scaffolding in order to lessen the possibility of an accident. The necessary police permits were obtained while a large number of volunteers were briefed about the procedure adopted in such an operation - every helper had to know beforehand what was expected of him during the task at hand.
  On Friday, April 12, at about 5.00pm. a forklifter from Frida Transport started to bring out the columns from the Qxura warehouse where they were stored since their arrival from Sicily. Loaded on Felic Zerafa's truck, they were transported to the site where they were left outside overnight. During the entire night, a group of young people from the Youth Committee kept an eye on these columns.

  The next day, April 13, at about 6.00am the columns were marked and compared in accordance with a pre-scheduled procedure. As soon as the crane arrived, its first task was to separate the columns assigning each one to its respective position. If must be said that Mario Bondin exercised a high degree of competence in the operation of his crane. The columns were sitting on pallets, each pallet accommodating three halves.After Joe Zerafa and Martin Formosa prepared everything connected with this operation, the first half-column was lifted in position, closest to the church. The next half-column was then lifted in position, closest to Zurrieq. This procedure was followed until all the six column halves were placed in position. At this stage, another group of workers were assigned the the job of seeing that the half columns just installed were locked and held permanently in their proper position by the use of scaffold piping. The purpose of such an exercise was to reduce the danger to the men and at the same time enable the upper half of the columns to be laid with less complications. There were various groups involved in this operation; for example, those looking after the cleaning, those responsible for the locking of the columns to the scaffolding, those who did the slinging of the columns prior to lifting, those who helped in the leveling procedure using straight-edges and lines and those who were on standby.
   After the operation which was completed well and in time, the men were given a rest and offered something to eat.
   As work resumed, one could see the laying of the first capital followed by the laying of the rest. The day came to an end, the last job being the locking in place of the columns using scaffolding piping. a temporary remedy until such time as the laying of precast concrete slabs.

   On April 18, the work on the first Doric capital was completed. The  facade has 12 such capitals which form the uppermost part of each pillar.  Unlike columns, these pillars retain their constant width and therefore they are 1 in 6 wider than the rounded capital of each column. Adjacent to four of them there is the need to employ four other half pilasters to top the half pilasters.
  On Saturday, April 21, more work was carried out on the scaffolding  close to the window openings - this was done in order to ensure that  it did not interfere with the laying of the window arches.
  On April 25, the second Doric capital was completed - this capital is situated just behind one of the columns. In fact, the part of the facade just behind the columns was given preference over the rest of the facade with the hope that the precast concrete slab could be placed in position as soon as possible.
  On Thursday 9th May at about 8.30pm, a group of volunteers, some of whom were young people, went to the site and worked there till after 10.00pm on a couple of large stone blocks on the band-saw. Stones of this size are very heavy and therefore their handling needs special equipment like winches and chain boxes.

   On l2th May, Mikiel Aquilina, Martin Formosa and Marlon Aquilina worked on the sculpturing aspect of three capital blocks. A considerable amount of work was also done using the concept of cross-cutting which has the result of expediting the work.
   The moulding works on the Doric capitals and on the arches voussoirs  continued until the 29th May when the six capitals behind the columns were completed by Martin Formosa.
   Joe Zerafa with the help of the multi-talented Johnny Spiteri laid these capitals and started the leveling up of the last course beneath the precast concrete.
   The scaffolding was extended on the extremities so that the window arches could be laid.
   On the 14th June a large consignment of slabs were brought from the ta' Tunis quarry so that these would be moulded to form the architrave and the cornice These were stored until the roof of the Henrietta Hall would be put in place.
   On the 16th  June with the help of Mikiel Aquilina, Joe Zerafa completed the upper corner of the main facade up to the capital level  while a just finished capital by Martin Formosa was also put in its place.  The Aquilina twins continued to work and practice in the moulding works.
   On the 21st June 2002 the last arch of the pediment of the secondary  facade was laid by the mason Joe Zerafa who was assisted by Johnny Spiteri, Joseph Ellul and others.
   Joe Zerafa continued the moulding works on the last seven capitals and he succeeded in finishing the facade up to the capital level from corner to corner.
  On Saturday 6th July the precast concrete .slabs were put in place over the six Doric columns. This operation was carried out by Joe Zerafa and Martin Formosa while Emanuel Magro and Carmelo Borg assisted them.

 Thus the masonry works came to a halt because of the preparations for the parish feast of St Mary for whom this monument would he dedicated. There are a lot of people who gave their support either financially or manually which are not mentioned in this brief diary. To these we send our gratitude and thanks for without their help large sums of money would have been spent. We also thank the large number of people and firms who have lent equipment free of charge to our Society. We are now hoping that next year we will see the final courses of the facade put in place so as to bring this fine building's construction to an end successfully.

  Following  the great event of August 15/2002, the magnificent and successful celebration of our village feast dedicated to the Assumption of Mary into Heaven,  the club administration was approached by the Spiteri family who offered  to donate all the expenses in connection with the second storey roof.  This good news was obviously received by the administration with great excitement and thanks. A meeting was fixed with Mr. Joe Spiteri the day following the offer i.e. Sunday l8th, to discuss the various steps that had to be taken, especially the completion of the supporting wall at the rear of the building, so that the roof could be put in place.
  On Wednesday, August 21st, Patrick Aquilina, Salvu Bugeja and a group of young people started work on that part of the building known as the chapel.
  On Friday, August 23rd, Patrick Aquilina again with the help of a good number of young people continued work on the chapel.
  On August 25th, Mikiel Aquilina and Martin Formosa worked on the hall entablature while Salvu Bugeja finished several curved stoneblocks for the stairwell wall.
  On August 31st, Felic Zerafa and Patrick Aquilina resumed work on that part of the hall adjacent to the stairwell. This work together with the laying of the flat-arches of the hall door openings was completed on Wednesday and Thursday, September 4th and 5th .
  On Sunday, September 29th , Joe Zerafa laid three courses on the inside of the chapel front wall so as to reach roof level.
  On October 20th, Joe Zerafa laid the flat arch of the chapel door opening.
  On October 27th, Carmelo Caruana, helped by Felic. Zerafa, Salvu Bugeja and several others, resumed building the cornmittee room. Additional work was done on the first course of the hall entablature where about five feet of sculpturing was completed.
  On Friday, November 1st, and Saturday November 2nd, Carmelo Caruana and Felic Zerafa built the supporting wall of the committee room, nearly reaching roof level.
  On the morning of Saturday, November 3rd, Joe Zerafa, Felic Zerafa and Salvu Bugeja laid more sculptured blocks of the first course of the hall entablature, in the meantime, Martin Formosa resumed work on producing more of these same sculptured blocks.
  On Saturday of the following week, Carmelo Caruana and Felic Zerafa worked on the building of some of the inside walls.
  The  next day, Sunday, Joe Zerafa, his brother Felic together with Mikiel  Aquilina and his two sons, completed the laying of the first course of  the hall entablature.
  On the same day and on the esteemed advice of designer Innocent Centorino, work was initiated on the architrave of the secondary facade - this work had to be abandoned soon after it started due to rain.
  On November 11th, a quantity of 7”, 9”, and 12” stone blocks was delivered to the site. In addition, a truck load of stone blocks of various other dimensions was delivered by Carmelo Caruana. On the following day, Tuesday, all this material was lifted onto the roof of the Billiard Hall with the aid of a longer-jib crane. A smaller crane would have failed to deliver due to the various obstacles on the facade and height of the building. On the same day, Martin Formosa completed the third stone of the architrave on which one finds that decoration known as gocciole - these are part of the triglyphs formed by the next successive course.

 On Friday, November 15th, 95 larger stone blocks were delivered to the site from the quarry. These blocks were used for the second course of the entablature and were shaped by the use of a router-type machine. The people involved in this operation were, Felic Zerafa, Mario Mifsud, Peter Caruana and Karmenu Borg. In order to defray some of the expenses involved in this operation, a collection was taken from within the membership where the sum collected was quite substantial.
  On November 23rd, more scaffolding was put up in place on the front of the building thereby making it more convenient to lay the architrave course. This work lasted from 1.00pm to 5.00pm.
  On the morning of the following day, Sunday, Joe Zerafa laid the first course of the architrave while Carmelo Caruana and Felic Zerafa laid a good number of curved stone blocks of the stairwell wall.
  On December, 1st, Martin Formosa initiated work on the triglyphs of the secondary facade. The work was speeded up considerably when Felic Zerafa took it upon himself to cut each block to the right dimensions thereby facilitating the work involved. Johnny Spiteri helped in this operation.

We thank all the voluntary workers mentioned above and more. Because of them not a cent was spent on working hours.