I went to Stoke Mandeville today..

[snock]

Bless you Jules!

See you all tomorrow morning. I'll be there from about 08:30 to meet Rosie and Keith, so doubtless will be there before most of you.

[delta1]

Kieran and I should be there around 09:30.

[Rikki]

Dear All

Rosie called me earlier today and told me that Kieran made her cry! There I was all ready to come and defend her honour, until she told me why! Thank you so much Kieran - you are a just fantastic (as are all of you). We will always be so grateful to all of you for this. I promise I will soon make it over to see you (yeah yeah really - trust me I work for the BBC - I never lie)!!

Thanks folks.

Rikki

[Nealsey]

Guys,

I am so sorry, but due to unforseen
circumstances I can't get over to help
today.

will be there next time though.

Neal

[Vanpyre]

yeah my trip to hospital put me out too!!

will be there next time, i promise

[Baxterbasics]

Plenty of work done, we all ate too much, some of us had the odd beer or "Ahem!!" two and the banter was better than ever

It was great to meet our latest recruits, Neil and Kev-see you all at the next one

[Terry D]

Great effort, chaps. I'll get the full report from Snock tomorrow.

Well-done all.

[Photosbykev]

it was good of Sony to lay on the late night/early morning entertainment in the form of dozens of young ladies

A real pleasure to meet some of the BBSers and Rosie and Keith and Northern Tart makes a mean Cheese cake

and my Mk4 works :chuckle:

[delta1]

Just arrived home, too knackered to type much.

See you all later in the week.

[kieran turner]

Cheers to all! It was truly brilliant weekend, we kicked ass(again) and the evening entertaintment was funny as ####!

A special mention to my chauffuer Richard who drove me from his house to Stoke Mandeville, your a star mate!

[nbrooks]

Hi,

I was delighted to be there.

Then had a most moving and inspiring evening - the Help for Heroes ball in Birmingham. Those service men and women are incredible - modest, "can do", professional.

Neil

[delta1]

Thanks for joining us Neil hope you enjoyed being part of it.

[snock]

Tired and exhausted, but here goes a summary of the weekend's events.

I got there at about 09:00 and Steve O,Steve G, Neil, Rosie and Keith were already there. Oops! I only live 8 minutes away and I was hoping to greet them as they arrived. No problems, because a few handshakes and introductions later and we were off and running.

Steve G and Neil were, I think, setting Steve's saw bench up in readiness to do al the measuring and cutting of the noggins for range 1's back wall so that the insulation board could be fitted, whilst Steve O and I got on with ripping out the centre section of the back wall so that we could replace it with new.
Once we'd donned our dust masks, Neil had joined us to help out. Between the 3 of us we'd ripped it out in no time and had temporarily shawed the roof up whilst the supporting exterior wall had been removed. Graham was very busy helping both teams with their jobs, whilst juggling jobs of his own.

By this time Rich, Keiran and Kev had joined us and were focusing on the measuring, cutting and fixing of the insulation board on the first of 3 rear walls to do. This took no time at all with Kev on the cutting and Rich on the measuring and fitting. These boys were a team to watch!

Our centre wall was coming on brilliantly, with the wall frame up and the uprights being fitted quicker than I'd had imagined.
Such is the way with these Stoke Mandeville work parties that a good circulation of team members mean that everyone helps out with each other so that those jobs which need more help, get it. It's testament to the lads involved with this project that it moves on in leaps and bounds each time we're there.

The lunch time 'gong' had sounded and we all hurried indoors as the weather turned for the worse and had started to rain quite hard. After lunch we just pressed on regardless and got it done; we'd be in the warm and dry soon enough. So with the centre section of wall frame now constructed, we sheeted it out and boarded it up. Cold, wet but sorted.

We had to say goodbye to Neil as he had a Help For Heroes Lunch to attend, which was a shame because he's a decent guy who looked to be enjoying himself. We'll see you again next time, mate.

The rain made it impossible to apply the Cuprinol to the new exterior ply, so we decided to call it a day on the outside. From that point on we were all working in the dry.
It has to be said that just when we were tired, wet and hungry, Rosie's call for a Chinese dinner was a welcome sound.

By the end of Saturday's work we'd managed to:
Remove and replace the centre section of wall.
Fix noggins to the internal walls for both rear walls.
Partially insulate both rear wall.

The entertainment in the dorms that night was simply brilliant! Sony Ericsson, in association with MTV had hand selected some 120 Europeans, between the ages of 18 and 28 to do a sponsored London to Liverpool walk.
Lithuanians were there as well as Dutch, German, Italian, Maltese, Swiss - you name them, they were there.
As soon as they saw that we had boxes of lager they were all over us like a rash. Steve O did his best to fend them off, whilst I sold all 14 of my cans for a quid each, making me ten quid profit.

I was in bed by 02:00 whereas the others turned in some time after this.
Richard had his own room so that he didn't upset us with his snoring.

Sunday started with a cooked breakfast in the stadium. Once scoffed, we ambled over to the ranges for about 09:00 to have a decent cup of tea. Work started on the jobs left over from Saturday.

By the close of play on Sunday we'd managed to do the following:
Cuprinol all the back walls with 3 extra coats.
Fix noggins to all interior rear walls.
Insulate all the rear walls with the Celotex boarding.
Dig out and lay a tonne of shingle along the bottom of all the rear walls.
Board out the internal wall sections with ply to keep in the Celotex.

I'd like to extend my huge gratitude to all those who have helped out with the Stoke Mandeville project, no matter how much time they've put in there. You're all fantastic and should all be so, so proud of yourselves.

It was especially good to meet two new friends this weekend: Neil and Kev. Our gratitude to you both cannot be measured.

It was yet another fantastic weekend there, and we look forward to seeing each other again soon......


....only after my muscles have stopped aching, OK.

ATB,

Pete.

[Rosie.]

Hi Everyone
Thank you to Steve, Steve, Keiran, Richard, Pete, Graham, Neil and Kevin for all your hard work this weekend. I know I say it every time but it still amazes me that you give up part or all of your weekends for us. A small way of saying thank you is to invite all of you who have been to one of the refurb weekends to join us for our Christmas Shoot and Party on Saturday 6th December. It all kicks off at 4pm and we will provide the accommodation. Please let me know asap if you can come. I think you may have all got home before us tonight (except maybe Steve) because our car broke down 2 miles from the range and as the world and his wife had also broken down we had to wait 3 hours to transported home. We last bought petrol at Tescos - anyone else had problems? And finally - Keiran the cheque you gave us today for £850 will not be used to fix the car!!
Rosie

[delta1]

On behalf of everyone else,

Thanks for looking after us so well again, and can I upgrade to a room in December too?

Sorry to hear about the car.