Avon Tyrrell 10th March 2009

Well I have been rather reminisce recently in writing the blog as we have had so many balls in the air the time has just flown by. I shall now try and cover all that has happened recently to bring you back up to date with events at Avon Tyrrell.

Starting with today and the launch of our new look website, www.avontyrrell.org.uk which I hope you will all review and pass comments that will help us develop it further if needs be. The idea of this website is to make it easier for groups, families and individuals that use us to identify the areas they wish to find information about us on without having to get bogged down with information that is not required, fingers crossed it is well received.

Where next, I will start at the bottom of the Avon Tyrrell site by the small lake and the excavation of ground next to the strawbale classroom to enable volunteers, with our Environment Team, to build an Environment Garden. This garden will be situated next to a pond to allow pond dipping studies to be undertaken on a safe platform around the pond for young people to access easily. The garden itself will have full accessibility for all users and will complement the surrounding lake and marsh area perfectly and will be s super place to learn about our environment

Meanwhile at the top of our site by the lodges we have uncovered a well, which with the assistance of a Southampton University Engineer Student we are looking at the feasibility of using to supply water to the site. This is an interesting project which may end in us doing nothing and continuing to draw all our water from our local water company, as the cost of purifying water for such a large site may not be practical. We know the water company would rather we bought their water however they have never really understood the philosophy of a charity who would rather try and keep its core running costs to minimum so we can spend more money, in our case on young people.

Next; as we are talking about money, we have extended the services provided from our kitchen and now run a limited café services for customers, which we hope will be utilised more in the summer months when we have more campers.

Since our last Blog we have had the snow and rain which saw our lakes at their highest levels ever seen by even the oldest member of staff. The levels are now back to normal and our Activities staff are no longer paddling all over the lower regions of our site.

Finally I cannot go without mentioning where we are with our new volunteer and staff lodge, which has seen the foundation pillars’ completed, the lodge delivered, and now it s being built by a crew of 4 builders from Estonia where it was made. We believe the lodge will have its ridge beam on by the end of the week which is fast considering the team only arrived last Thursday night. The staff and volunteers are looking forward to the lodge completion.

Now that was a very fast update and I promise I will be a little more diligent in publishing our Blog, especially as it is now so accessible on our new web site.

Remember you are always welcome at Avon Tyrrell.