Every Little Helps

In a fantastic display of community project symbiosis, our task was to remove some piles of bark for an organisation who wanted rid of it and get it ready for another organisation who needed it. Perfect.

The only small challenge was that the piles of bark were located approximately 200 egg metres down the cycle path (550 actual metres) and were inaccessible for a vehicle.

Armed with two wheelbarrows, four tonne sacks, and 8 spades, we started the long 'barrow relays to the van which was parked at the nearest access point.

Shortly after the mission started, three young teenagers came past us, two on bikes and one with a marginally dysfunctional supermarket shopping trolley. About a minute after they passed, we realised we could really make use of the trolley and they were almost certainly not supposed to have it anyway so I started jogging after them - at which point, they legged it. Three teenagers, however, were no match for a GG Yorkie and I caught up to the terrified teen who was absolutely delighted that I only wanted to make use of the trolley and not tell her off or something.

The three teens then asked if they could help out and I suggested they go further up the path and ask the van-based GoodGymers to bring a bag down to line our new trolley with. They were very agreeable. As I ran the trolley back down to the bark piles I realised it had quite a diagonal trajectory and was impressed with the teen who had actually managed to push it this far from the supermarket. Debs even managed to fix the gammy wheel using a spade whilst Lizzie did safety supervision.

With a two wheelbarrows and a trolley, we were away and the bark loading and unloading strategy started to come together. Graham and Mitch were boshing the wheelbarrow loads up and down whilst people had to manage the trolley in pairs. Mitch doubted Ed and Debs's ability to extract a full bag of back from the trolley.

There's no way that's coming out!

They promptly disproved him, hoicking the bag effortlessly into the back of the van.

We finished with four full bags of bark in the back of van, and err.. the trolley, which will be returned to the supermarket very shortly!