Em-barking on our final adventure!

Yesterday was the final part of our 6-week project to redevelop the space outside some classrooms at St Martin's School from weedy patches of grass covered in tree roots into bordered-off areas covered with bark chip. The young people will now be able to learn and play outside in a safer, more accessible and more visually appealing area. The project was headed by volunteers from St Phillip and St James Church in Odd Down and we really enjoyed being part of a wider team with them.

If you have seen earlier run reports then you will see how the main task has been about digging out tree roots and weeds, digging out 6 inches of dirt, laying down a membrane, bordering the areas with timber and laying down two layers of bark chip. There were 4 large areas and 1 smaller area and we finally completed them all yesterday.

We finally managed to get out all of the old tree roots and stumps in the smallest area (the one closest to the camera in the picture) and level it off. Although it was the smallest it was definitely the hardest! The roots were very entwined and there were some surprise paving slabs for us to remove.

Then the task was all about fetching, transporting and raking the bark chip. The bags of bark chip weighted a tonne and we shifted about 8 of them throughout the day. It took some coordinated team work to get them on and off the trailers and some good old fashioned GoodGym grit!

We will hopefully return to the school at some stage in the future to do some more outdoor projects in the area!

• Week 1 - Rooted in the community
• Week 2 - GoodGym dont pick and choose
• Week 3 - All bark and no bite!
• Week 4 - Insane in the membrance, insane in the rain!
• Week 5 - All aboard the root master, next stop St Martin's!