I went to Stoke Mandeville today..

[snock]

That Drainage ditch will need perforated drainage pipe (100mm) and 20mm shingle. I am visiting one of my suppliers tommorrow-I will ask them for help-you never know your luck

Sterling stuff, Mr G!

It'd be great if you could convey the plight of these shooters in such a way that they felt morally obliged to donate.

[snock]

As soon as you have a potential date, I'll clear that weekend.

Rich, I was going to go up there this Saturday to dig the hole, but if we postponed it until next weekend, not only would I have a whole weekend to give it, but others could get involved, too.

How does that fit in with you, mate?

[delta1]

That works, commutable too.

[snock]

Thanks for all the PM's with offers of donations.
We need every last penny we can muster for this very worthwhile cause, so here's a quick reminder of how to donate.


Many, many thanks. Rosie, Keith and Rikki will be very pleased.

Pete.

[delta1]

Are we a-go for the weekend of the 10th and 11th November?

If so I'll book it out to hole digging, do we need our own shovels etc?

So long as no-one minds me stopping work at 11:00 on Sunday for a couple of minutes.

Richard

[snock]

I'll definitely be there, Rich. Perhaps another one or two more folk would help a lot.
Bring your own equipment.

[snock]

Reminder for folk to get involved on Saturday.

[snock]

Does any of the people in this thread who offered their help want to help dig a gulley tomorrow? We need to dig a gulley down one side of the hut so that we can later fill it in with shingle to stop the rain water getting into the building.


So far there's only Rosie and I going.

[baxterbasics]

I`m working tommorrow mate
I have spoken to a supplier about 100mm drainage pipe and 20mm shingle. We need to give head office a quick ring-hopefully get it gratis

[snock]

Fingers crossed, Graham!!

Thanks for getting this sorted.

[delta1]

I'll be there Pete, around 09:30 to 10:00?

[snock]

I'll be there Pete, around 09:30 to 10:00?

Excellent stuff, Rich!
I'll meet you there at 10:00, mate.

I'll PM you the post code for your sat-nav later on, mate.
If you don't have to rush back, perhaps I could take you to a nice pub for a glass of ale, after.

It'd be great to finally meet you, Rich.

[delta1]

No worries, That sounds like a good idea.

[snock]

The day started at around 10:00 when I met Rich [Delta1] there. It was great to put a face to the name, and to finally shake his hand.

We were discussing the digging work we had to do, and I pointed out to Rich the obvious differences to the plush, aluminium-clad, smoked-glass building which is no more than 60-70 yards away, and is the new stadium for disabled sportspersons, and our 1940's nissen hut. Quite a stark contrast, I can tell you!

Rosie Hughes, the organiser of the British disabled shooting squad, arrived soon after with one of - in fact I think she was our best disabled shooter, Di Coates. Another friendly person. There's a lot of them here!

After a cuppa and a quick introduction we went around the side to look at what needed to be done. We got our shovels and spades out and got cracking!
The sole reason this needed doing was to stop the ingress of water from the surrounding soil [read thick, claggy clay], getting into the walls of the hut and seeping into the ranges, as it has been since I don't know when.

We got the gulley dug out to accept the drainage pipe and shingle which Mr Graham Guest is hopefully sorting out for us. This will, when laid, allow any rain water to drain away into the ground further away from the hut. Sorted.

Then the next job of the day: to re-jig the guttering which was compounding the problem by controlling the water which had been pouring out of the broken joint between two lengths of gutter, by improving the 'fall' on the pipe, whilst diverting the water to a point where its drained further from the walls.

Richard is an engineer for the people who supply, fix and maintain the vacuum pod systems we have in supermarkets, so he already had a selection of off-cuts of 4" tubing and all kind of fitting which we used to do this job.

In these pictures you'll see that we did a pretty good job of using what we had, to do the best we could.

There was also a small job of stemming the flow of water from the overflow from the gent's loo, which was soon rectified by a bit of creative ballcock-bending.

After all this was done, a thoroughly beer-ready Rich and Pete disappeared off to sample the wares at the local hostelry.

Nice.

A huge, huge thanks to Rich for driving from Nottingham to help out today.

[windowrest]

Private Eye this week had a small piece about the 16 million they will spend on a shooting venue for 2012. it will be torn down after the olympics....