In late September Community Matters Partnership Project (CMPP) asked for volunteers to help at a school. Frimley C of E Junior School needed its grounds tending during October half term.
CMPP makes it easy for businesses to take part in valuable community projects. We are involved in various ways with CMPP, including as trustees, and a couple of times a year also like to take part in volunteer projects.
A great example of small business collaboration
Small businesses are encouraged to collaborate on projects in the same way as larger businesses can form volunteer teams. We were delighted to participate in this project with Mark Fryer (Fryer Glass), Dominique Stillman (DS Consulting) and Geoff Roy together with his apprentices Matt and Chelsea (Leapfrog Internet Marketing). We were under the supervision of Trish and Peter Everett who maintain the outdoor spaces at the school. The tasks that they had lined up for us were:
- Clearing turf from a fenced off area outside a classroom to make space for a new woodland activity area.
- Planting hedging that will eventually create a screen from direct sunlight into teaching areas. This included removing the bottoms from fizzy drinks bottles that were put into the soil, neck down, alongside the saplings so the children can water them regularly.
- Painting raised vegetable beds that had become weathered, in a range of vibrant colours.
As well as Trish and Peter, thanks also to school Head, Clare Wright. She arrived, doughnuts in hand, to confer her appreciation. Also to Tracy Jarvis, CEO at CMPP, similarly armed with chocolate-coated goodies to keep up collective energies!
For a group of people who mainly push pieces of paper around a desk and fire off emails, this was a day of real work. We were lucky to have good weather, a good team and I know our contribution was appreciated by Trish. She said that the children will see a difference when they return next week.
