Satya Sai Auckland Regional Group—13 April 2014

The Satya Sai Regional Group is a spiritual organisation whose members make a commitment to community service and the group have made many contributions to our project over the years—assisting with planting, painting the nursery and building walking tracks.

Today seven youth members–Ashik, Asmita, Bhaven, Edwin, Keaton, Manish and Raghav came out to CUE Haven to assist us with the wetlands boardwalk project.

The team arrived just before ten and we got acquainted over morning tea.  We also provided a safety briefing and give the group an overview of the work to be performed.

We are building the track by fabricating frames which are then laid end to end to form the track.  The challenge is to get them straight and level.  Once the frames are in place, the top planks can be nailed into position.  This is also challenging because allowance has to be made for curves in the track.  The plan for the day was to finish installing the last of the frames and to put down as many planks as possible.

The first task was to get all of the gear up to the work site.  First we loaded up the ute.

We then went up to the end of the track.  Before we unloaded the timber and equipment however, we went for a walk along the boardwalk so that the team could see the work that had been done and to get a better idea of how the individual tasks related to the overall project.

We then unloaded the truck and brought down all the materials.

The group broke into two teams, one would work on installing the frames and the other would work on planking.  Ashik, Bhaven and Raghav decided to work on the frames.

It was hard work on a hot day.  The job requires studying the layout of the track, figuring out the optimum position of the frame and digging and shaping the ground until the frame will lie evenly on the ground.  The final step checking the level and securing the frame in place with stakes and nails.

Thanks to the team’s hard work, the last of the frames have now been installed and the track layout is looking great!

In the meantime, Edwin, Keaton and Manish tackled the planking.

The entire stretch of boardwalk that they started on had curved sections.  As a result, the first task was to determine how to shape the planks so that the track would have a nice, even curve.  This involved planning and measuring and then cutting some of the planks into wedge shapes.

Once the planks were cut they were nailed into place.  Each plank takes six nails so the team did a lot of hammering!

And Asmita made sure that the team didn’t run out of timber and also helped with installing the planking.

After several hours of hard work, the team broke for lunch and we then took a short tour of the property.

We really enjoyed working with the Satya Sai group today.  In a few hours they made a major contribution to the boardwalk project.  Not only did they finish the framing, which means that the end of the project is in sight, they did a beautiful job installing planks on some of the most complex curves on the track.  Also, a big thank you to Manish for his hard work figuring out how to cut the planks for the big curve.

Our many thanks to the team for their hard work today and for giving up a Sunday to help out. And a special thanks to Keaton for organising the visit.

Thanks to the team’s efforts our boardwalk project is nearing completion.  The boardwalk will be enjoyed and appreciated by visitors to CUE Haven for years to come.  It will give us year round access to the wetlands and enable visitors to see a very interesting part of the property.

We hope you will come back for a relaxing visit with your family and friends and enjoy a leisurely walk on the boardwalk.  Thanks again!