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When Kuljit asked the team if they would like to have a team building day whilst the park was shut, She hadn’t checked the weather for the week. Note to Kuljit, don’t let the team pick a day that’s raining! The team agreed Tuesday would be a good day as Thursday would be a busy one as we were getting the park ready for reopening Friday after being closed for electrical maintenance for a week.
The day came and the heavens opened, we didn’t just have any rain we had lots of rain.
As all managers including Kuljit were taking part, our first task was to nominate a Manager and we all unanimously voted for Grant.
Now we needed to pick a location for our hide. The team discussed various spots and eventually agreed to the spot along the trim trail, so that guests walking along would be able to see and admire Lodge 57 ¾.
Grant nominated Kayleigh and Richard to get the coffees. We then realised we needed some tools, and these had been left in a different vehicle. Grant decided this would be a great time to teach Faye how to drive the Polaris and nominated Josh our young apprentice to be her teacher.
Grant then asked the rest of us to gather twigs, fallen branches from the ground as we wanted this project to be sustainable, not interfere with the woodland and totally natural.
We constructed both side panels first by weaving the branches between the stakes. As the ladies in the team wanted to learn new skills they helped put the corner posts into the ground using the post wacker, after careful instruction from Gareth who became the teacher for the day. As we wanted to document the day Matt was appointed chief photographer.
Kayleigh and Richard were greatly received when they arrived with all our coffees, oops Richard dropped Emily’s chai latte and Kayleigh handed out the rest, oops they forgot Kuljit’ s coconut latte – they had one job!!!
The sides were constructed, and the back done, the team needed to think about how they were going to put a roof on Lodge 57 ¾ .
Kuljit found a branch that had a natural curve, and this then became the basis for the roof. The team needed to find a way to keep the branches stable and discussed numerous ways to do this, whilst remaining rustic. Finally they all agreed an apex roof would be the best option.
We finished lodge 57 ¾ in just under 2 hours. We looked at our finished masterpiece and decided to furnish it, we added four stools which were cut by Matt off of a previously felled tree that still had not been picked up. We want our guests for Lodge 57 ¾ to enjoy alfresco dining, so we used an old electric cable reel for the dining table and have even added some placemats.
Once we had finished Grant asked the team to gather in front of the hide so that we could take a group photo.
The team all looked and wondered how this was going to work.
Grant instructed us to move, crouch smile and pose for our professional group photo whilst he looked at this watch, and the team were only too happy to oblige not knowing what to expect.
Despite the weather, we had had a fun day and before we went indoors we decided to walk one of our wonderful woodland walks where our new trim trail is. We really enjoyed building our hide and hope all those who get to use it have as much fun as we did.
Written by The Rockingham Forest Park Team
