Birmingham SAGGA Service at Rhydd Covert
Birmingham SAGGA recently held a service weekend camp at Rhydd Covert – the location of the 2004 Summer Camp. Mark, the warden, was very pleased to see us and took us around the site to show us of the progress since Camp.
The totem pole is now erected near to the new shop so that you see it as you enter the main area - car headlights pick out the cats-eyes placed in the various animal carvings! It took a team of nine people to manually erect the pole...
The shop was in full use; Mark was very happy with this and would like us to pass on his special thanks to Roger Barber for this work.
The climbing tower has now had lights added to the inside to that they can safely lengthen its use into the evenings. Since camp, they've replace some of the climbing boards and the whole construction looks very impressive. I spoke to one of the instructors who said that it was very useful being able to tell the Cubs to stay in the 'red zone'!
Numerous lighting towers have been installed in strategic places, so the area outside the toilet block is not pitch black at night any more. The new flat activity field by the shop is now floodlit and one of the tasks we did over the weekend was to fill in the trench housing the electricity cables.
I'm not sure who taught Mark how to carve the camp site signs, but Mark was very proud of the signs he has produced with his own hands - to the extent that he has turned down offers from a local sign-writer to donate suitable signs. There are also plans to redevelop the camp-fire area and Mark would like a carving of a camp fire to be placed at the entrance - perhaps SAGGA could help out there?
Mark says that the quiet area is very popular with 'the old guard' and it did look very tranquil - he asked us to thank Andy Roberts on his behalf.
The green paint seems to be holding up well and the containers do seem to be 'at-one' with their surroundings, so another good job done there. You will be pleased to know that we managed to do some more green painting during the service weekend.
Since Summer Camp, the hut was damaged by an arson attack. The rear section took the brunt of the fire - there's obvious damage to the roof timbers, etc. Although the front ‘Nissan Hut’ looks OK from the outside, the fire was sufficient to have melted the electrical panels by the front door - so I assume that the building is merely a shell. The current plans are to put in a new building at a cost of around £80,000. There is a local fund raising appeal going on and Mark is hoping to encourage local suppliers to donate materials and so bring the costs down.
I think that we can definitely say the Mark is a very happy customer!