‘Slip Slidin’ Away’
With many of the regulars scattered far and wide across the world and others struck down with Covid, only three members were able to make the work party. Fortunately, the Public Rights of Way (PROW) Team was able to support us and we were met by Heather Bainbridge and Nikki Stallard promptly at 10 ‘o’clock.
The job in hand was to replace a ditch crossing in Pinvin – an easy enough task we thought, but we hadn’t reckoned on the parking being three fields away from the site! Undaunted, we set out shouldering four heavy planks, fully expecting to make numerous journeys to transport the rest of the gear. However, Heather surprised us by producing a wheelbarrow which we filled to overloading and somehow managed to reach the site without leaving a trail of tools.
The heavy overnight rain meant that the banks each side of the deep ditch were extremely slippery but fortunately there wasn’t too much flowing water – which later proved to be a godsend. We swiftly constructed the new ditch crossing and propped it against a tree, admiring our handiwork as we scoffed biscuits, mince pies and coffee, kindly supplied by Heather.
Back to work. One of the group gingerly crossed on the old planks and as we started to remove them, he suddenly slipped, performing three cartwheels before landing in the wet mud at the bottom of the ditch. Once we saw that he was OK, we couldn’t suppress our laughter at his spectacular fall.
Dignity intact, XXXXXX joined the others in placing the new planks across the ditch. As we worked, adding non-slip mats, stobs, etc, several groups of walkers christened the crossing, thanking us for our hard work. The whole job was completed in a couple of hours – not bad for ‘three old geezers’. (Sorry, I’ll revise that – ‘one old geezer’ and ‘two not-so-old geezers’.) We were soon on our way home for a rest and for one, an immediate bath and explanation to his other half as to why he was plastered in mud.
Well done, team!
Information in a recent email from Phil Coulson, PROW Manager, that will impact future Working Parties:
Unfortunately, we still have a number of vacancies within the team, which we are recruiting to, and will have further vacant post in January. As you will appreciate with significantly reduced capacity we increasingly have to prioritise the work we do to ensure that more pressing safety issues can be dealt with, and important paths remain open, until we achieve business as usual.
As part of this, for those of you who lead work party groups this means from January staff will unfortunately not be able to routinely attend site with groups, and will have less capacity to identify, and arrange, suitable work.
I understand the changes above, and our reduced capacity for us to deal with issues you raise, may be frustrating but please can I ask you be patient with staff during this busy period.
Separately, following feedback from staff and volunteers can I ask that from now onwards you use the public reporting site to report new issues on the network rather than the Volunteer Point system, you will find it here – PROWFault . This helps to ensure that reports are received by the correct officer and urgent matters can be picked up if staff are on leave. It also allows you to include further valuable information, such as photos, which are really useful.
