The
St.Frances Pond gets a 'Makeover When one of the Brentwood Rotary clubs was unable to put in an appear-
ance at the St. Francis Hospice Open Day, the cry for help was answered by our club and a group of our members stepped in to save the day
M
embers from our Club attended
St Francis Hospice in support of the Hospice's 1st Open Day. Geoff Furzland, Dave
Goodhill, John & Philippa Crowder, Bert Evans, Tony Barber and Jim Haines took 'shifts' in the Education Centre, where we displayed the club's publicity stands, flyers for the 6th of September Sponsored Walk in aid of the Hospice, and a number of Data Link bottles for visitors to see. The Hospice was
The day began well…. M
embers will know that three years ago I asked for the
club‟s support to take on the up- grading and ongoing maintenance of the main pond at St. Francis Hospice and, working with Latch- ford Farm aquatics, a group effort with Rotary members over several weeks completed the initial task. A plaque to commemorate this and to publicise the involvement of Ro- tary was made and duly affixed, and Nature began her own task of melding the new plants with the old. Since then, and continuing to work with Latchford Farm and Dave Collins – the Hospice‟s gar- dener – I have continued to main- tain the pond, and it has provided a popular outside sitting and resting area for many visitors to the Hos- pice. Over time the pond has gradually bloomed and improved, to the point where last year the Hospice gardens entered a London- wide competition for gardens for which a Gold Award was won…. Working from this suc- cess, this year it was decided by the Hospice management that the gardens would be entered in the current “Havering in Bloom”
very grateful for our attendance, and we were happy to answer questions about Rotary and the work we do in our local community and interna- tionally.
T
his visit also gave us the opportunity to take pictures of
the pond which was refurbished recently by members of our Club. We are hoping that the gardens and
the pond will be selected as a worthy entry in the 'Havering in Bloom' com- petition. Photos by Rtn Geoff Furzland
competition, and I therefore asked for volunteers to help me undertake a general tidy-up and minor re- planting again.
T
his is where it all began to go wrong……..
Friday 26th June was chosen as the day (the competition was the following weekend), and the weather forecast was set fair as three of your intrepid members (myself, Geoff Furzland and Dave Goodhill) made a leisurely start to the task. Suitably attired in summer clothes we began our labours, but Nature very quickly intervened – it went from „fine and dry‟ to monsoon weather in a space of 5 minutes, and very soon we were almost as wet as the fish….. Intelligence slowly intervened, and once it was realised that drowning was a possibility we decided to decant into the Hospice coffee room, where Dave showed his culinary experience and brewed the necessary hot drinks whilst we waited for the storm to pass. Lo and behold, after about 10 minutes - and whilst we were still looking like a trio of drowned rats - the rain ceased, and we decided to carry on. Mistake…. as soon as we went out and got working it came down
again – worse than before. Another irony – and possibly an omen – was that I actually had a hose pipe running when it rained again, so I quickly gave that up….
H T
owever, your brave emissaries decided that the
project had to be completed and, undaunted, we carried on working amidst another downpour until the job was done, much to the amusement of the Hospice staff who were by that time standing at the windows watching in amaze- ment.
he task completed, we all slunk off to our homes to re-
pair our bodies and mentally congratulate ourselves for what had been done. There was, how- ever, a final episode to this story for me; that afternoon, when it really had stopped raining, I ob- tained from Latchford some more plants which I took back to the Hospice and put in place. Whilst I was doing this I looked up and saw a very distressed older lady, with a carer, being brought to the sitting area overlooking the pond where she simply sat and dealt with her emotions in a quiet place which we had provided. For me that says it all - Jim/Haynes
Page No. 15
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