Avon Tyrrell

Hello, it’s me and what grim weather we are now having, all those puddles and all that pounding on my head and then the wind as well. I noticed those maintenance boys have finally fixed the drainage in the Kitchen courtyard and we no longer need a boat to get to Reception from my back door.

We had an enjoyable visit from Cupemham School, what a very nice school indeed, and they all seem to have a great time. During their visit our old friend Lawrence from the Environment Agency arrived with 1500 fish to stock our small lake. They may have only been small fish and will take awhile to grow, but it was fantastic to finally get fish back in the small lake after all the work that has been done by the Environment Agency and Avon Tyrrell staff. It was also good to have the children from the school assist Lawrence in putting the fish into the lake

We now have a new game for guest using the Zip Wire across the lake, its called 'Count the Fish', trouble is lots of them shut their eyes so their count will not be that high.

Must also tell you we have now built the first of six oak fishing platforms around the small lake which will be accessible by all and the beginning of next year we will be building a straw bale classroom by the lake as well, so watch my blog for more info.

Finally I have been asked to let you know that whilst I will have a rest over Christmas we will still have our Norwegian style log cabins open and if you want to use them for a small price you can by going to http://www.avontyrrell.org.uk/accommodation.html

Avon Tyrrell

Gosh Time Flies!
Since I last wrote we have had a volunteer day with 40 members of IBM coming to do some work. It was a fantastic day with the majority of the Avon Tyrrell staff getting outside alongside the IBM crew to work on projects within my grounds. After an initial welcome breakfast and a brief, they broke into groups to begin work on;

1) Clearing and opening the area between the Coach House and me (the house)
2) Digging marker poles for the 2 trail walks around my 65 acres grounds
3) Clearing the view between the two lakes
4) Improving a last section of the interesting 8km of bike trails



Avon Tyrrell staff cracked the whip and all teams worked hard, kept going by a curry lunch from the Chefs, those people in white, with tea, coffee and homemade fruit cake served during the day.

Everyone had an enjoyable rewarding time and an awful lot was achieved. The day finished with a have-a-go session on the adventurous activities to say thank you.

I am now looking much smarter all round! Thank you IBM and the people who visit have yet more facilities to use, just look at our website http://www.avontyrrell.org.uk/

Well that week shot past, the weekend youth group were very nice and seemed to have a lot of fun. This week I have had Fair Oak School staying within my rooms and all those friendly Housekeeping Ladies gave me a big scrub on the Wednesday as the school did a mid week change over. The children obviously liked one of those chaps who wear white, I think they call themselves chefs as they named the big rugby fanatical chap Laura for some reason, I would be glad if anyone could explain.....

That blond woman who is forever asking people staying if they are alright, I think she is the Customer Services lady was pacing up and down, I do wish she would wear flat shoes sometimes as all those clicks on my lovely wooden floors keep me awake. She does so worry that people are happy.

My writer has also said we must say well done to the second group from Fair Oak who's fire drill was just perfect, even the Centre Manager was impressed and believe me he is not easily impressed.

So that's it for the week, but I would be glad of your comments and ideas how my blog should go...

Friday Night

Here I am another late Friday Night, the school which had been staying is long gone home and I am patiently awaiting for a youth group to arrive, hope they are not going to be loud and keep me up all night. The weather has been kind this week so my hat has not got wet and that irritating leak which they have still not found has not annoyed me. The charity had a good event in London Town called Art4Youth which raised some money to help me keep ticking over for young people to come and use me. Of course the money we raise at events like this also goes to support all our good work and training with young people; see http://www.ukyouth.org/whatwedo/

Time to go and welcome the next group of young people, I hope they enjoy me and our wonderful 65 acre garden with all its hidden features.

Avon Tyrrell

Hi all, today we begin the Avon Tyrrell Blog which we hope in time you will read and enjoy and maybe comment on from time to time. Avon Tyrrell is a big old house that is used as residential accommodation for the charity UK Youth's national outdoor centre, and is set in 65 acres of grounds. UK Youth is the leading national youth work charity supporting over 750,000 young people, helping them to raise their aspirations, realise their potential and have their achievements recognised via non-formal, accredited education programmes and activities, http://www.ukyouth.org/ .

What we want to do over the coming months is write blogs on visits by young people, but also we want to invite comments from young people on issues we raise and affect them day to day. We also do not mind if older people also comment.

If you want to know more about Avon Tyrrel then visit us http://www.avontyrrell.org.uk/ .

This is our start then but soon there will be more..........