'Branch-ing Out

7 runners ran 6k to clear and chop up fallen branches, and weed an area of wild garden.

On Sunday 7 runners congregated at JW3 Community Centre in Finchley Road. We were meeting for a special run to mark Mitzvah Day- the Jewish community's annual day of social action. Across the world many thousands of participants give their time to a range of people, causes and charities in their local community.

Wild Nature Reserve run by Volunteers

We were off to Gospel Oak to help out at Mark Fitzpatrick Nature Reserve. This is an amazing wild space on the bank of the Overground tracks. The park has been under threat from housing developers for the last 20 years but has been saved for the benefit of local people. The volunteers that run the park offer educational opportunities for local children, run a bee project with adults with learning difficulties and a host of other events for people to get involved with.

Inspiring Volunteers

Despite some pretty tough hill climbs on our route we arrived at Gospel Oak fresh and raring to go. We were greeted by Jeanne who lives round the corner and manages the park on a day to day basis. She is pretty inspiring- still lugging big logs around in her seventies! She gave us two jobs. One group were directed to a large area that needed some serious weeding, while the others were taken to the lower area of the park where recent storms had brought down a fair few tree branches. Using loppers, and a hacksaw they were asked to chop the branches into small manageable chunks. Some of the larger sections were going to be used to create natural fencing round the edge of the pathways.

Chop, Lop, and Crop

We quickly got to work- Irina and Alex started lopping, chopping and barrowing away the fallen branches , while the rest of the team set about weeding and clearing. We set ourselves an hour and we made good progress- clearing a large area of brambles, nettles and weeds (despite some series midgie bites), and clearing and chopping the vast majority of branches into piles.

**3k Heath Dash

Just as dusk was descending we stashed the tools in the amazing tool shed (it looked more like a Hobbit Shack than a tool shed), and headed for home, skirting the heath on the way back to JW3. Great work guys.