#meadowell

Week 12: We’ve been pressing on with clearing out the old potting shed for conversion into the new garden centre shop. It’s been suffering with water leaks and visits from rats (all now fixed or gone, I should add). We are hoping to raise some funds to help remodel it inside since the building itself is pretty sound. We need paint, new floorboards and fixtures and fittings - please reach out to us if you can help in any way. After our workshop with Roweena Russell on Wednesday, we’ve been inspired to upcycle as many pallets as we can get for free into the new shop design. 

Week 11 draws to a close in glorious sunshine again although as I look outside the container office space I’m in, another storm cloud is lingering. It was a productive and energetic start to the week thanks to the Wave 3 NCS Team 14 and their lovely leaders being on site (see previous posts). It all feels very quiet without them... But we have kept busy, adding a few final touches to the reopened pathway - thanks to our work placements, especially Steven, seen here in full landscaper mode. There’s been more weeding, of course, and I’ve been seed sowing what may well be the last few crops we can squeeze in this season. Our winter bedding is rooting nicely and is available for sale. As is our raw honey - get it whilst you can as supplies sell out fast. We’ve created a secondary shade house for our ultraponix ventures as we are now scaling up production and solving more R’n’D problems.

And finally, part 4 - team demolition and team guinea pig! There’s some things which work well here and some things which simply don’t - a fence blocking a path is one of those that don’t in my view, so as a mini side project, a demolition team was formed and solved this issue in just a day. They re-sited the hose pipes underground to keep access for all and carefully removed the timber in a way which meant we can re-purpose it to another future project.

Alrightie, epic posting time, here’s part 1 - let’s start with Team Bus Stop aka the smoking shelter, aka youth shelter (officially). The bus stop label seemed to stick because, well, that’s pretty much what it is, but it was in need of some makeover work. It’s situated on the edge of our site here at Meadow Well Connected in an area which is open for the community’s public use at all times. We also have a small playground structure, benches and a basketball and football court.

The team have christened the shelter with Toon Army colours, a classic choice and one which we all hope will go some way in preventing any further vandalism.

We linked up with Kier’s community team who have provided PPE and materials to complete this project for free, so a big thank you to all involved from Kier. This was a boost to the project and we look forward to the guys returning to finish a few minor tweaks tomorrow which will then complete it.

If you’re reading this and want to get involved with National Citizen Service, follow this link to their website: http://www.ncsthechallenge.org/