The rain held off just about long enough for us to get stuck in to our second task at Churchfields Recreation Ground this evening. We were met by the lovely Amanda (who brought snacks!) and set us to work sprucing up the area around Kendall Gate. The majority of us were pulling up weeds and neatening border edges while Stephen went to town with the loppers on some overgrown ivy. Meanwhile Catherine and Paul did a very professional (and rapid) job of painting over graffiti on fences at the entrance to the park.

Great work all!

For tonight's task we headed to the delightful Betts Park, home of the last remaining section of the Croydon canal and a lovely new obelisk "dedicated to all the people who never get memorialised".

A few weeks back the council did some work chopping down some dying trees but they just left a couple of piles of logs and ivy. Our job was to sort the logs from the ivy, building up the "compost heap" and leaving the logs - maybe they will be a path edge one day?!

It turned out ivy was stubborn as hell but we did manage to free it all from the big logs eventually 💪

Whilst all this was happening, Molly was on a solo mission to de-weed the entrance to the shed - I hope those splinters have come out?!

Lovely stuff everyone, and I can't wait for our knowledge exchange event! 🙌

Anyone remember the 90’s TV ad?

I get a chick out of you

First up, we named ourselves and our favourite chicken-y thing from creme eggs to spatchcock to the rooster who’s been waking Catherine up all day!

We also welcomed Mohammed to the crew 👏👏👏👏👏 So great to have you with us.

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Our task was a brand new one for the folks at Dorset Road Allotment. They’ve got an old and overgrown chicken run which they want removed so that they can use the space for community activities.

We met Jaime and Ann from the committee who equipped us with tools from screwdrivers to bolt cutters to shears and we headed round to the chicken run.

It was huge. Harry was convinced something other than the nettles and brambles lived in there. 👹

We cracked on with various tasks:

✂️ Trimming back the nettles and brambles

🛠 Cutting the netting down and rolling it up

💪 Yanking off some big corrugated panels

📢 Moral support

It was kinda dangerous work but everyone got safely stuck in.

I think Mohammed won the prize for energy input! 🏆

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A half-dozen kilometres, some beautiful golden hour snaps from Cat, and a good deed in the bag.

Nice one team 💪