Trail build report: Sat 10th March – various resurfacing jobs & signs

This was a bonus trail build day. The aim was to finish off various jobs ready for our open day on the 1st April 2012. We’d made great progress on the previous weekend.

As normal, Brandon Hire delivered a compactor on Saturday morning. For a change Phil was there to meet them. Meanwhile I (Tom) was out buying post cement and grass seed. I arrived at 10am with all of the above plus three new trail signs. We had installed three of these back in November 2011 and we were ready for more.

Stuart and Pete Cannon were already in the car park raring to go. We were soon joined by Gary Palmer and Euan Fisher. Our first job was to rearrange the path from the car park that we’d built the previous weekend. The rangers wanted it changing; if the rangers are unhappy then we’re not happy, so we changed it.

Our next job was to start installing the new signs. One was earmarked for the trail exit, one for the end of “motorway1” and one for the path crossing after the big rock garden. Steve and Joe arrived at this point after having seen us the previous build weekend.

With this many people present then we split, with a few installing signs and the main group moving on to the area near “Pete’s Steps”. A new recruit, Simon, joined us. Remaining rubble and gravel was cleared from the ground and used to surface the straight next to the steps. The rubble was buried in a large trench.

The step layout dates from April 2011.

Team of volunteers building a path in Swindon.
New sign post at the Croft Trail in Swindon.
Big society team digging gravel.
Gravel moved from here….
Volunteers building a trail in Swindon.
…to here.

Compactor enthusiast Kristian arrived and starting compressing trail.

We moved on to another tidying job – widening the trail after the first rock garden using a mixture of old brick shards and then proper limestone chippings on to.

Phil and Jez installed the third sign. The had a lot of trouble with rocks, digging several sets of holes before they could install it.

We had done every scheduled job by now and it was only 3pm. So we did some old school wheel barrow pushing. A section that we’d started filling in the previous week was finished off. Andy Mathews arrived just in time for this pushing session plus another new helper, Richard.

Finally we filled in a few puddles and grooves that had formed on the east side of the pitch (surfaced in December 2011).

Thanks to everyone who supported this build weekend and to Chris for taking the compactor back (again).

See our full build diary.

Digging a hole.
Team of big society workers.
More gravel. From here….
Compactor enthusiasts.
…to here.
Big society trail map March 2012.
Trail map 10th March 2012

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