Green ‘S’ Force—29-30 June 2013

Our friends from the Green ‘S’ Force made another major contribution to our 2013 tree planting efforts this weekend.  This was the Force’s third weekend at CUE Haven and we had a great time working with them and really appreciate all their hard work.

Because the Green ‘S’ Force  is a volunteer organisation, all of its members are students or work during the week and they spend their weekends doing community work.  Depending on their schedules, some of the group came on  Saturday or Sunday or both days.  The group included:  Amandeep, Bharpoor, Captain, Dalveer, Hardev, Jagdeep Jagseer, Jaspreet, Karmjit, Loveneet, Mukesh, Navjot, Pardeep, Pooja, Raj, Ranjit, Sakinder, Saman, Simar, Sukhi, Sukhchain, Veerpal, Vinod, and Virender.  In addition, Randal, a friend of the group joined us for both days.

After morning tea the team went straight to work, continuing to plant in the area they had started earlier.

The hard working team kept us busy delivering trees up to the planting site.  At the site, Raj and Jaspreet helped lay the plants out in the proper location for planting.

Unlike last week, the weather was perfect.  There was an occasional shower but there was always a rainbow when it was over.

And on Saturday morning, the team was treated to an unusual fog bow as the morning fog burned off.

Thanks to the good weather, the team could take breaks and relax in the field.

After a long day of planting on Saturday, we encouraged the team to take a few minutes to explore the gully walking track.  This would give them a chance to walk through mature bush and to see how the trees they are planting will look when the forest grows up.

They enjoyed the day walk so much that they walked up again at night to better appreciate the clear starry night.

The team was well taken care of by Hardev and Dalvir who did the cooking on Saturday and Sukhi and Sakinder who cooked on Sunday.

And Ranjit and Raj wanted to show that Indian men can help out in the kitchen too, so they attempted to assist with the washing up and food prep!

Once again we’d like to thank Nestle New Zealand for providing beverages and breakfast cereal for our volunteers.

It was another great weekend of planting and we are very happy with the results.  The team planted an amazing number of trees as the empty pots and trays attest.

Our many many thanks to the Green ‘S’ Force team members for their hard work and dedication. We really appreciate all your efforts and we look forward to having you all back again!!