The Common Room is facing uncertainty and is appealing to the public for help.
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00:00 The common room was formerly the North England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers.
00:06 It was founded in 1872 and was a real hub for science and innovation and started off as for safety and mines.
00:16 It's a real catalyst for the North East, a real hub of learning and there were some real greats in here.
00:21 It's really important to recognise the North East in that kind of sphere because, you know, we may be set apart a little bit
00:28 but the great Northern Coal Field and the engineering works that went on here, kind of from the shipbuilding to the coal works
00:36 to all the different types of mining that were across the North of England, were really important in helping the rest of the country to develop during that time.
00:45 And we're very aware of the impacts that coal mining has had on the environment.
00:50 And we really want to be showcasing that within our work to say that we are forward facing.
00:56 We recognise the impact that that's had and we want to use that history and heritage to really inspire the next generation to keep going towards that great energy movement.
01:04 We're in a trouble of real kind of financial instability and we really need people's help to be able to continue on to the next step and to continue doing the work that we're doing as part of our programme.
01:18 We have a Just Giving campaign which is available to donate to online and it's really a case of every penny helps.
01:26 And we also really encourage people to look at the space and think about how you could use it for your next event.
01:32 We have weddings here, conferences, all sorts of different types of events that can go on in spaces like this and it's a really, really grand and beautiful space.
01:42 And we want to be able to keep delivering, we want to keep the archive together, we want to keep this beautiful building for Newcastle and for the North East region.