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Summer Camp 2009

Giant's Seat Campsite, Manchester, 13th-25th August 2009

Giant's Seat has a fully equipped residential block (Martin Lodge), a toilet and shower block, a chapel, a campfire circle and lots of woodland. There were repair, refurbishment and improvement works carried out on all of these facilities during the camp.

Here is a list of the work carried out during the camp:

Martin Lodge

• Boiler flue replaced - The chimney for the hot water boiler had been stolen a short time before camp and so needed replacing at short notice.
  We had hot-water and a shower working by the start of camp.
• New roof - A corrugated steel roof was installed over the existing roof which should give the building at least another decade of life.
• Additional wooden beams were fitted and insulation placed between the new beams. A team worked to cut the corrugated steel sheet and ridging using an angle grinder. Then, between the wind and rain showers, the new steel roofing was screwed in place.
• New path laid - The area between Martin Lodge and the car-park was previously uneven making the building difficult to access by wheelchair.
• An area was defined with wooden edging avoiding the existing drainage. A soak-away was created between the car-park and Martin Lodge to prevent recurrence of previous flooding near the building. Cement was poured to create a smooth, well draining path to Martin Lodge front door and round to the ramped back entrance.

Chapel

• The chapel behind Martin Lodge had become over-grown and the seating had rotted. The undergrowth was cleared and hedge tidied. A weed-proof membrane was laid. Benches were built by the SAGGA kids using cement blocks and railway sleepers.

Camp circle and flag-pole, and camp fire

• Pruning of trees - A number of oak trees define a circle around a flag-pole to the side of Martin Lodge. The trees were beginning to merge and were in need of pruning. The SAGGA chair, Amy, has taken tree-felling training and brought her chain-saw safety gear. A couple of the trees were felled to create space for the remaining trees.
• Flag-pole - The cleats and halyards were repaired.
• Camp-fire - The felled wood was used in creating a new camp-fire circle. The wood had to be man handled from the camp-circle and into a clearing in the surrounding woods. The fire circle was put to good use the same evening.

The Toilet and shower block

• Men's toilets and showers removed - The existing layout of the toilet block made inefficient use of the space. The site wanted to get better use of the toilet blocks so they can host large events. The original toilet cubicals and showers were removed. A doorway was moved in the shower area.
• New floor laid - Once the space had been cleared, a self-levelling compound was mixed and spread to even out the floor.
• New shower and toilet cubicles - The walls were built out of breeze blocks following at the sites request for facilities that can take the force of many decades of scouts. Wooden door frames were constructed out of reclaimed materials.
• Repair and re-plumbing of hot-water supply - During an earlier visit to the site, SAGGA had fitted hot-water taps to the men's toilet block.
• Problems with the pumped hot water meant the supply was unreliable and noisy and so the pump was bi-passed to make use of the high water pressure at the site. The hot-water mixer taps were replaced and the new showers plumbed in using push-fit pipe-work.

Heritage Trail

• Signs cast in aluminium - A small pot furnace was built and fueled with charcoal. Hair-dryers supplied air flow to achieve enough heat to melt lengths of aluminium into a cricible. Using the dissapearing styrofoam method, beautiful aluminium arrows inside a cog were formed.
  
  After a couple of attempts, production of smooth arrows began in earnest and in the end a couple of dozen arrows were made.
• The trail - Research about the industrial heritage around the site had been undertaken. The Giant's seat site is edged by a disused coal tramway which leads down to the canal. From here coal was taken to a nearby brick-works and beyond. A leaflet was written to accompany the trail around the site.

Site Pond

• Cleared of rubbish and partially dredged.

General site

• Clearing of Himalayan Balsam - The site periodically becomes overgrown with Himalayan Balsam. Although the exploding seed pods were fascinating to the SAGGA kids the Balsam is taking over the site. A lot of the Balsam was cleared using a scythe and machete. Hopefully we caught the Balsam before the seeds had matured although this is likely to be a never ending task.