EVENTS & NEWS

The last weekend of April, 14 AOAC members carshared to Exmoor to do our bit of good for society. But first we had to do a bit of good for ourselves as we met up in the "Black Venus" in Challacombe on Exmoor to fill up with drinks and food, including some naughty deserts. Nick Walker, who had organised the weekend, told us in the meantime the drill for the rest of the weekend. The girls would be sleeping separately from the boys, apart from a lucky couple in the double room and one person in the single one. When we arrived at the Wistlandpound Centre we headed for an early night, to get ready for two days of work.

The next morning promised some good weather as we got up and tucked into the hearty breakfast provided by the Calvert Trust. We also found out exactly what The Calvert Trust is all about. It provides accommodation and activities for people with disabilities and their family or carers. All activities are on site, it has its own riding stables and indoor and outdoor climbing walls. It also offers sailing, canoeing, kayaking, horse riding, carriage driving, archery and a zip wire. Specialist equipment and highly qualified instructors make activities accessible for all ages and all abilities. Although it was relatively quiet when we were there, the photos showed how people went abseiling and zipwiring with wheelchairs and all!

Now it was time to get stuck in - there were several jobs to do and we could swap during the day. I started with putting preservative onto the (big..) playing/climbing frame with four others. There was a group in the courtyard garden putting in new boards around the borders and a group of hardcore DIYers (and their apprentices) were putting up a new fence around the dog poopscoop area! Luckily there were no dogs around during the weekend to be scooped…

Of course there was time for morning tea and coffee, including Nick’s famous very chocolaty brownies and also lunch provided by the Trust. No time for a nap after lunch, so on to some backbreaking gardening as we had run out of preservative already. By the evening we were all tired and ready for a relaxing swim and jacuzzi as there was a pool on site! Instead of relaxing, this being AOAC we had to show off our sporty spirit and a spirited game of volleyball started in the pool.

This meant we were even more ready for a carvery at the nearby ‘Old Station House Inn’. Despite several hints in the inn and on the menu it took certain people a long time to find out that the pub used to be near a station….

After the meal we walked back in the dark, very spooky as the road was a bit too busy with cars and they only saw our torches just in time. Back at the centre we got some bottles of red wine out and some of us played pool. As the evening went on some comments about Bristol came out that needed verifying on the good old internet. Is Bristol really built on seven hills (fascinating? fact from Ajit) and Bristol: the 10th most visited city in the world??? (courtesy of Bridget).

The next day started with another good breakfast before we headed down to some more hard craft, this time unfortunately in the rain. This did not put us off though and we cleared out a stream, cleared lots and lots of brambles and finished off the work in the garden. At 4pm we all felt tired but satisfied that we had done well (again more than the manager thought we could do in a weekend). I left the Trust feeling very lucky to be able to share the grounds for the weekend in a great setting, having made a little contribution to people, who are a lot less lucky in life than we are.

Janet Blikman, April 2010