It has been a very, very long eight months for Craig and Belinda Newby, owners of Lismore's only skating rink Rollerworld.

The damage caused by the horrific February 28 flood was massive, the cleanup arduous and the rebuild frustratingly slow as they wait for the buildings owner to get cracking on rebuilding the back and side wall near the toilets and service desk.

Finally though, there is light at the end of the tunnel and a tentative opening date, the start of the Christmas school holidays.

This is not only fantastic news for the families of Lismore and surrounds as this is the first entertainment venue to reopen but for Craig and Belinda so they can finally get some income into their struggling business.

They are not quite there yet.

"Hopefully by the end of this week, we can have the girls bathroom all sheeted, so that at least we can do a prep paint on that, to hopefully have that up and ready to go to be able to run some skate classes or something, where we don't need to have a snack bar before we open in December."

The bathroom was not properly rebuilt after the 2017 flood with some of the flood-affected sheeting having new sheeting put over the top of it. This time everything has been stripped back to the studs.

"Last time they just fixed up little imperfections and this time we're building back smarter. We're using villabord and leaving a small gap at the bottom of the sheeting so that you can just take the kickboard off and wash it out."

Any wood that was flood damaged but salvageable is being repurposed where possible.

"All the wood that we had has been denailed and cleaned to be able to repurpose to change the snackbar so that water doesn't get trapped in walls and that."

When Rollerworld does reopen the snackbar will be ready but not all of the pre-flood elements will be, like the service desk as you enter. Craig and Belinda with some working bee help from friends and good hearted community members will be doing the best they can over the next five weeks.

In fact, if you have handyman skills or a good work ethic, Craign and Belinda would love to have you help them on Saturday November 19 for the next working bee at Rollerworld (21 Bridge Street, North Lismore).

The day after the buildings owner has workmen booked in to rebuild the external walls, a job that is scheduled to be completed in three days.

Like a lot of businesses, Rollerworld is trying to get the second half of the $50,000 so they can keep rebuilding as the money situation tightens.

"You have to put in your receipts for that 25 and unfortunately for us, some of that was used to pay the lease on equipment and stuff because we didn't have the money to to keep those things going because we need to have the equipment to reopen. So I'm trying to find out what I can do with that, otherwise we won't get that whole amount."

"We're right up against it at the moment. It's been that long with no money coming in, it's kind of day to day. We just need some cash to start coming in and then we can start to slowly rebuild the rest of the place."

Those words are like so many others in North, South and East Lismore or the CBD, needing to reopen to get the cashflow happening.

There two dates to keep in mind Lismore.

Saturday the 19th of November for a working bee at Rollerworld so Craig and Belinda can stay on track to reopen or open in some form earlier.

Friday December 20, the first day of school holidays. The scheduled reopen day to the public and a day that will signify that Rollerworld needs some support from paying patrons.

Locals supporting locals.