Since our last post we've welcomed many more groups of young people to the Centre
We now have a new sign up in the backyard and it is proving popular as a good place to take a photo of the whole group underneath it. The wild flower roof above is at it's best at the moment!
Also looking good is the wild flower meadow roof on the Garden Room across the road.
The garden itself has had some work done including a new BBQ area and 'Altar' fire pit, that are being regularly enjoyed by groups.
The new fire was used at a recent wedding reception held here
Behind the wedding party you can just make out a new willow hedge and archway in the photo below
we have added a few new videos to our You Tube Channel like the one above showing a group doing a stream study
We have also added our first video tour of part of the Centre. The one above showing the lounge, visiting staff kitchen and tuck shop. We hope to add further orientation videos over time.
We had such a busy Summer we unfortunately didn't manage a Summer Update. We weren't just basking in the sun like the slow worm we found one day on the front door step, shown below:
Instead we have been busy with lots of new development projects.
Work on the bridge over the stream in our Centre garden is now complete and much easier to use with a wheelchair
The surface under our High Ropes Course used to be mainly gravel. We've put in drainage pipes, levelled it all off and covered it in astro turf as shown in video below:
Again this is much easier to negotiate for our wheelchair using visitors and it keeps ropes and footwear clean
Another big development in the Centre grounds is a new Campfire area with seating. This is already being successfully used but has further development planned including the siting of a new permanent built BBQ; a shed housing a further 2 portable BBQ's and a cargo parachute canopy over the whole fire circle. We also plan to raise the fire place on to an altar style stone base to improve safety and visibility. Watch this space...
Another project that has been started involved putting trellis work below the deck. Ultimately there will be planters on top of the gabions with honeysuckle and ivies growing up the trellis. We also plan to water these with a rainwater harvesting system taken from the deck canopy.
The Garden Room and Garden are looking really good now and encouraged a happy couple to have a wedding reception here back in May. We have also just hosted our second wedding reception in Sept and look forward to showing you some photos of this in the future. So if you fancy having a wedding reception with a difference let us know...! We're not registered as a marriage venue but we make a great place to celebrate afterwards!
We recently took delivery of 6 new flatpacked picnic benches for use in our BBQ area
As I write this Andy, our Caretaker, is busy bolting and screwing them together.
They'll get there first use next Thursday when we have our next BBQ for a group of 60 students and 8 staff. As always we will be hoping for good weather.
These new benches are the first stage of several planned improvements to the BBQ area to make it an even better location for hosting BBQ's and Bonfires.
